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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think Ricky Gervais is a twat of the highest order

249 replies

HeidiKat · 21/10/2011 09:42

Talking point on the Wright stuff just now, RG claiming that he is doing nothing wrong by using the word "mong" in his comedy and it merely means a stupid person now rather than Downs Syndrome. I was no big fan of his before but now I actively loathe the smug cunt.

OP posts:
HeadlessLamAAARRRGHHHH · 21/10/2011 11:50

FrankNCock Fri 21-Oct-11 09:59:01

Words do change, this word hasn't.

This.

Voidka · 21/10/2011 11:57

He is an arse.

kelly2000 · 21/10/2011 12:01

He is just a bit sad and desperate. Society is so much more open nowadays so unless you are actually a very good comediene, you have to be more and more nasty to be considering "cutting edge". I watched some of his show the other day, most of it was not funny just him trying to shock (and failing), and then going on about fat people (which just made me notice his moobs even more). He said it is ok to laugh at fat people because unlike gay people they choose to be fat. So what if people chose to be gay it would be OK to laugh at them? And if he does not make jokes about gay people because they did not choose to be gay (because obviously if people did choose their sexuality they would all choose to be striaght rather than just be in relationships with people they loved regardless of their sex), why is it ok to make a joke about someone with downs?

FlangelinaBallerina · 21/10/2011 12:03

Gervais is fucking repulsive. Snotty, self-satisfied man tripping over his own fucking privilege. The freedom of speech of people who already have everything must be prized over all, apparently. I don't think it's a term that should be banned, but I think any reasonable human being ought to choose not to use it. I judge accordingly those who have all the advantages of education and privilege but nonetheless choose to use it anyway.

StewieGriffinsMom · 21/10/2011 12:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

IwoulddoPachacuti · 21/10/2011 12:05

DH bought his stand up DVD a few years ago and turned it off after about 10 minutes. Biggest pile of un-funny shut ever!

Original poster
HeidiKat · 21/10/2011 12:07

I have always thought he was a bit of a bully, can't stand that programme where him and another bloke relentlessly take the piss out of another guy, but this is low even for him.

OP posts:
Esta3GG · 21/10/2011 12:09

Hardgoing

Mong is short for mongoloid which up until quite recently was the accepted term for the facial features of people with Downs given their facial similarity to people from Mongolia.

Would Gervais use the term if he had a child with DS?
The man is dickhead.

YouHaveToCallMeNighthawk · 21/10/2011 12:10

I'm more worried about this headline- 'Suicide bombers get lotto funding.' Shocking. Or this one- 'Gypsies eating our pets.'

picnicbasketcase · 21/10/2011 12:11

I have seen some of this argument on Twitter. RG is refusing to either apologise or choose a less offensive word, tweeting pics of himself making 'mong faces' and encouraging people to use the word as much as possible to back his stance. The comedian Richard Herring, who was one of the many people who pointed out that lots of people (including ones with no connection to DS) find the word offensive, has had about three days of RG's fans sending him tweets calling him a 'fat mong'.

It has all turned childish and stupid, but RG's opinion is 'anyone who disagrees with me is jealous of my money and success'. What a charmer. Hmm

ghostsoverbones · 21/10/2011 12:13

A cinema ad RG did for Leonard Cheshire (for free), must be about 10 years now:

He did quite a lot of free stuff for disability organisations back then (no idea if Holllllywood has since ruined him)

HerScaryness · 21/10/2011 12:20

OP, I was being facetious, I'm sorry!

RG IS a TWAT, and I'm not jealous of his money and his success, I'm genuinely puzzled by it. He's NOT funny. He is the one with the hunger for fame and recognition, but I think actually the brains of the operation would have been Stephen Merchant.

IMHO Ricky knows he's inferior to SM and pretty much anyone else on the comedy circuit (exception: Frankie Boyle) and the reason his 'comedy' is to rip others to pieces is because he isn't genuinely funny himself.

How on earth he gets film gigs I'll never know, he is DIRE as an actor.

Mong is unacceptable. There is no excuse.

Pagwatch · 21/10/2011 12:22

Actually I am coming to the conclusion that a core of RG fans are a bunch of cunts. Which explains a lot. I guess he knows his audience.

The tweets to Richard Herrings were interesting. The RG fans who felt the need to defend him were quite astoundingly thick. Seriously staggeringly thick. I guess that tells it's own tale

QuickLookBusy · 21/10/2011 12:28

I think he is an arrogant, thick twat.

I heard a lady on Jeremy Vine yesterday, she has 2 DC with special needs. She tried to hold it together but ended up in floods of tears. She is worn down by the daily taunts every time she goes outside with her DD. Mong and spaz being amongst the words used.

How can anyone listen to people like her then say "mong isn't offensive"

Its like me deciding "n**er" is no longer offensive. As a white person, it's not up to me decide that. As "mong" was and is used to taunt people who look/act differently, it should be those people or their carers who decide if it is offensive or not.

SucksToBeMe · 21/10/2011 12:32

He should not use such repulsive bully tactics, and being allowed to use these words is disgusting. But I really do love Ricky Gervais. I have a disability myself and someone like him can send us back years. Young kids will think this is ok. But I do love 90% of his stuff.

GirlWithALlamaTattoo · 21/10/2011 12:34

Ricky Gervais is a twat. He knows the word is offensive and he knows why. He should apologise.

Somebody upthread made me think, though; kids these days wouldn't know "mongol" as a term for a person with DS, because it isn't used any more. They can't, therefore, mean "mong" in that way, because they don't know the derivation. To them, maybe it is short for "mongrel" or "mongoose." (Isn't "mongoose" Aleksandr the Meerkat's insult of choice?) By teaching them our associations with the word, i.e. DS, are we stopping it changing its meaning, or maintaining its offensiveness? Should that horrible, cruel meaning be allowed to die out?

I might be way off, but it's a thought.

QuickLookBusy · 21/10/2011 12:39

But Girl, the word mong is used as a term of abuse towards people with DS. Lots of careers of people with DS are saying this.

I haven't heard it is used in that way since I was a teenager but it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

valiumredhead · 21/10/2011 12:39

DO teens use the word 'mong' now or is it just people like RG and Dawn French who like to use it so they seem controversial ?

They are the only two people I have heard use that vile word in the last 25 years.

Gigondas · 21/10/2011 12:41

Completely agree mongoose that Ricky g is a twat but I do think that kids these days wouldn't see association (not that should use the word). I must admit I had to think twice about origins of this given not heard it used since 1970s.

FlangelinaBallerina · 21/10/2011 12:42

Yes, they do. I heard it a lot growing up as I have a special needs sister, and I'm only 27 so my youth isn't that far off. And I've still heard it today sometimes. Not that what teenagers say is the only way to define how a word is used and what it means anyway.

GetOrfMo1Land · 21/10/2011 12:42

He is vile - his argument that 'the meaning of the word has changed' is completely shot when you see the pictures of when he pulls a mong face.

Nasty, arrogant man.

GetOrfMo1Land · 21/10/2011 12:43

My dd is 15 and knows that mong = mongoloid and is an insult. I don't think all the youth of today assume it is short for mongoose.

Gigondas · 21/10/2011 12:43

Not in my limited experience of teens Valium- dss has said (and been pulled up on) some pretty vile things but not used this word or variant of it (the casual homophobia or misogyny that seems to be more common with some of teens when a bit younger- must say he doesn't use It now ).

Malificence · 21/10/2011 12:46

Yes VRH, they do.
I loathe RG with a passion, BUT, he's absoluely right about this particular word.

It no longer refers to people with DS, anyone under the age of about 25 probably has no idea of it's origins, DD and her mates used it all through high school , mong just means lazy/stupid/careless nowadays.
Every young person I know uses the word interchangeably with "gay" .
I can't stir up feelings of outrage towards it and I have a 10 year old nephew with DS btw.

FlangelinaBallerina · 21/10/2011 12:53

To me, mong means a special needs person. This is how I have always heard it used, and how it still sometimes is. By adults and teenagers. So RG is not correct. He could only be correct if the word was never used to mean someone who has special needs. It still is, so he isn't. It's clearly a word with more than one meaning- although let's please not close our eyes to the obvious development from using it to mean special needs to stupid.

I'm also wondering why the way that teenagers use it is so important in this discussion. I don't know when the speaking habits of adolescents became more important in defining words than the rest of us.