Time magazine asked Ricky Gervais to write about the difference between the American Office and the British Office. He starts off with the usual stuff—American optimism vs. British pessimism, the different uses of irony—but then takes a philosophical turn:
I hate it when a comedian says, “Sorry for what I said.” You shouldn’t say it if you didn’t mean it and you should never regret anything you meant to do. As a comedian, I think my job isn’t just to make people laugh but also make them think. As a famous comedian, I also want a strict door policy on my club. Not everyone will like what I say or find it funny. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. There are enough comedians who try to please everyone as it is. Good luck to them, but that’s not my game, I’m afraid.
I’m not one of those people who think that comedy is your conscience taking a day off. My conscience never takes a day off and I can justify everything I do. There’s no line to be drawn in comedy in the sense that there are things you should never joke about. There’s nothing that you should never joke about, but it depends what that joke is. Comedy comes from a good or a bad place. The subject of a joke isn’t necessarily the target of the joke. You can make jokes about race without any race being the butt of the joke. Racism itself can be the butt, for example. When dealing with a so-called taboo subject, the angst and discomfort of the audience is what’s under the microscope. Our own preconceptions and prejudices are often what are being challenged. I don’t like racist jokes. Not because they are offensive. I don’t like them because they’re not funny. And they’re not funny because they’re not true.
Read the rest here.
Michael Scott > David Brent
I agree with a lot of the high-minded things Mr. Gervais said in the piece. Shame he’s completely full of crap.
He may trust his American readers not to be aware of the recent controversy in Britain over his casual and lazy abuse of the handicapped, and his refusal to reconsider when called on his behavior. But some of us are not unaware of this, and so while the distinction he makes between racist jokes and jokes that address racism would be entirely worthy coming from another source, coming from an unrecalcitrant offender who has recently engaged in exactly the sort of behavior he rightly criticizes it rings quite hollow indeed.
PS It is quite possible that the controversy in Britain was entirely deliberate, intended to attract attention to Gervais in advance of his new sitcom, his first without Stephen Merchant, which is all about how hilarious it is that Warwick Davis is short. Before his show’s premiere was in the offing he wasn’t on Twitter, and the first thing he did on Twitter was to attract attention by insulting people with Down’s Syndrome.
too bad he isn’t funny.
Gervais can be good at situational humor (even if it’s not my bag), but he should never be allowed to get on stage and tell jokes. His stand-up is never, ever funny.
The people who thought he was high-larious at the Golden Globes just like seeing stars get their comeuppance. The jokes themselves were boring as shit.
Of course, Ricky Gervais is funny. Some of your favorite comedians find him to be funny. “I don’t think Gervais is funny,” is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. “Gervais isn’t funny,” is a ridiculous thing to say.
@5 you mean: “Some of your favorite comedians found him a rich and powerful ally”
The best you can say about him is he’s bullying, faux-modest, wannabe comedian asshat.
@Warren Terra “his first without Stephen Merchant”.
Life’s Too Short is written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and stars them both. Look stuff up before you dive in and try and talk about it.