Ricky Gervais: SuperNature

The outrage (mainly on social media) over the new Gervais special is just as predictable as his bargain-basement jokes, which he rather sloppily dashes off without making much effort to subordinate his performance to one particular theme. Furthermore, the criticism levelled at him on moral grounds has a point, as Gervais mostly does not pick on minorities, but rather on people for whom awareness and self-definition is mainly hypocritical virtue signalling (which is not to say that he does it in a funny or clever way, or that his critics don’t include people who are genuinely offended by his jokes). It is also understandably in the interest of technology companies like Netflix to get people on the internet to argue about jokes, often taken out of context, but without actually addressing any of the problems of today’s world (including transphobia). (In other words, it is naïve to think that Netflix made a concession for once and gave space to the other side instead of to the liberals; in the end, it will profit from that just as much as the third party standing aside and laughing.) It is only a pseudo-activity, an illusory struggle that we carry on primarily with ourselves, or rather for the high-mindedness of our virtual image. The really important thing that Gervais reveals with his stand-up and the wave of disapproval that he has provoked, though perhaps unintentionally, are the rules of woke capitalism, about which, for example, Žižek wrote and which in fact keeps us in a perpetual state of half-sleep instead of wakefulness. (25/05/2022)

Ricky Gervais holds a solid spot in my top three favorite comedians, and while I'll admit he's had sharper performances, I still had a blast watching him deliver another blow to our current society. What I love most about his humor is its ability to make me laugh out loud, and when I reflect on what I've heard, it's tough to come up with any counterarguments. But then again, why would I bother when I have common sense, right? / Lesson learned: The term correct humor is about as contradictory as a miniature blue whale. (21/02/2024)