this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Offensive jokes are jokes. What he did is supporting pedophilia under the excuse of it being a joke. Adding "lol" at the end of an unacceptable statement, or saying it in a funny way, or making an exaggeration of it, does not transform it into a joke.
If I say "lol immigrants are selfish so they deserve to die anyway" (another of his "jokes") it's not a joke, it's just an obviously shitty statement coming from a piece of shit. Pretending that it's a joke is pure hypocrisy and a very common way for people with shitty opinion to start screaming about cancel culture and censorship when they're asked to stop.
Let me say things in another way. Even if you assume that it is a joke, then what is the joke about? The " joke" shows a character of a kid very, very explicitly and in details being raped by a pedo and enjoying it. Not only enjoying it, but asking for more and concluding with the idea that the kid ends up really happy with "a puppy, a kitten, and cum on the face". With as I mentioned before the conclusion of "Oh, I miss the local pedo". Not a single element of this "joke" pointed out that any of this is against pedophilia, or even just not supporting it. Dark humour is fine by me, but the point of dark humour is to mock horrible things by making jokes portraying the causes of those horrible things in a mocking manner. You can make a dark joke about racism, if the joke is made to mock racist people. If you mock black people, it's not dark humour, it's just racist. That's it.
But go on, tell me what is funny about this "joke". Is it to show pedophiles as not bad people? Or to show kids as enjoying rape? Or maybe to say that in the end, kids don't mind pedophilia as long as you "pay them" enough to compensate?
Or maybe I should just not have bothered writing all this, just answered "you're retarded and deserve to die lolol" and if someone complains, I'll say it was just a joke.
Sorry, your opinion on the quality of the joke aside... are you unironically suggesting that Ricky Gervais is pro-pedophilia? That he literally thinks it should be legalised?
I don't know his thoughts. But I know that he could not make that kind of jokes without at least being very complacent about pedophilia, and I would say that he probably considers that it's not such a big issue.
But what he thinks ultimately doesn't have so much importance, compared to what he is saying. No matter what he thinks, he is still normalising the idea that kids can be sexual, sexualised, and can enjoy it. These are basically the things that the worst pedos say as a justification (I'd randomly drop a name like Matzneff if you want to have a little wikipedia reading) to rape kids.
If you say that jews should be exterminated, are you a nazi? I would say that whether it's the case or not, the impact of what you say serves the nazi ideology either way. And that's enough for me to consider it a problem, especially if like in Gervais' show, this message is completely unilateral and not defused at all.
This is highly speculative. It is possible to make what might be considered revolting jokes about anything without actually endorsing it. Plenty of comedians have done this in the past.
I've seen plenty of grim jokes about Jews in relation to the holocaust or nazi germany from people, but at no point did I think that they were literally endorsing the holocaust. Also, Gervais jokes about all sorts of things. Are you suggesting this 'pro-pedophilia' joke thing is some sort of continual theme or just a one-off joke?
Plenty of comedians are supporting plenty of shit. Being a comedian isn't a free "say anything without any consequences" card, but many people consider it as such. There are ways to say things, and the way he did was, intentionally or not, endorsing pedophiles.
Also, how is it speculative to consider that miming child rape for easily 1-2 minutes (at least) non-stop means at least being complacent to it? If you are not complacent with rape, you wouldn't mime it, and especially not for that long.
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This is highly subjective. If you don't see it as a problem, it doesn't mean that there is no underlying problem, simply that it doesn't affect you. If you had been threatened by nazis as a jew, or if you had been a victim of pedophilia, I would expect that you'd have a different sensitivity about these jokes, considering that their concept is often to mock victims (and as such, supporting the authors of those acts).
As for the joke, I would say that a joke that lasts 5 minutes, casualizing child rape, then switching to saying that if a pedo doesn't look crooked, everyone is fine with not arresting them, is enough to qualify it of a continuous theme. And either way, not being a continual theme wouldn't make it less "pro-pedo". If you support pedophilia in one joke, that's one too much, and we're talking about a celebrity, not about uncle Georges saying drunken shit at a family dinner with everyone around hoping he would die soon. It doesn't matter if I "suggest" or not, the fact is that this guy depicted as funny and nice a scene of a kid being raped in a very graphic matter. Or maybe I should ask if you are suggesting that depicting child rape for entertainment can be tolerated?
I never said that there shouldn't be any social consequences. He can be removed by Netflix, lose job offers, be boycotted - but suggesting he is pro-pedophilia is a particularly nasty, slanderous allegation. Being deliberately offensive or nasty in your joke telling routine doesn't mean you endorse the topics you joke about actually happening.
You are free to think he is a dick for hid chosen themes of joking, but it doesn't mean he endorses pedophilia.
And I have no problems with child rape being the subject of a joke. It is obviously a hard MA, and not for everyone - but then that is part of RG overall point.
But how would that be logical? Admitting that there should be social consequences means that you admit that there is a problem with his content, yet you say that it's bad to say it? And if you mock victims of pedophilia, once again, you are supporting pedophilia. Whether you are, in your thoughts, liking pedos or not doesn't matter as it doesn't change your actions.
What point? From what I've seen, his point is to spread racist and discriminatory stereotypes, the pedo thing was just the culmination of the shit he said. Because I didn't mention other particularly nasty things about his "jokes" such as normalising the "africans with aids" thing that serves no purpose, and is one millimetre away from the 40 years old "africans are animals who fuck monkeys" racist propaganda. What is his point? That instead of mocking people who are having power and influence (such as him) you should attack victims, discriminated people, and show them as inferior? I'm sorry but if RG has a point, then this point is very nazi-like. Making everything I said even more true, and making his "jokes" even more problematic.