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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:
kelly2000 · 21/10/2011 13:44

Rg claims in his own show it is wrong to make fun of people if they do not choose to be a certain way (he used gay as his example), so why is it ok to make fun of people with downs, or to make fun of people who are stupid? I suspect it is because RG thinks he could win an arguement against a person with Downs, but not against someone like Peter Tatchell who would make him look very stupid in about two seconds.

Anniegetyourgun · 21/10/2011 13:48

You know when there's someone you can't stand on television, and then you see them in an interview or read an article by or about them and think oh, actually, he/she is quite nice, it's just their screen persona I can't stand?

Never got that with RG. He seems just as unpleasant whatever he's doing, and the more I hear about him, the less I like him, which is actually quite difficult.

Of course there's no guarantee he'd like me either, so I suppose that's fair enough.

ghostsoverbones · 21/10/2011 13:51

But it's ok to take the piss out of the way someone looks or the teeth they're born with...?

PosiesOfPoison · 21/10/2011 13:57

Weird that he's maintaining it's not offensive despite family members, carers of and people with Downs telling him it is still used to abuse them and they find it offensive. All this protest and public complaining he's doing tells me that he knows it's wrong and just can't get out of it.

GreenEyesandNiceHam · 21/10/2011 13:57

I loved The Office. Really loved it.

So I always thought that I found RG funny.

Until last Saturday (?) when I watched his stand up on tv, and had to wake DH up from his snoring to tell him what a cunt RG was. I was seriously horrified

SpringHeeledJack · 21/10/2011 14:02

GreenEyes dp actually saw that live, on a worky schmoozy thing

he was also horrified

part of the trouble with RG, I reckon, is that the first(ish) thing he did was so successful and so fucking fantastic, so the only way from there was DOWN

hence peurile attention seeking behaviour

eslteacher · 21/10/2011 14:02

I don't think it's a huge deal. But it is distasteful. I have friends who bandy the word "gay" about to talk about the weather, an annoying situation or whatever. I don't like it, as I also have lots of gay friends and I think it's not great to use the word as a synonym for crap or rubbish. But I don't take massive offense to it and I don't think it makes the people who do use the word that way "twats".

Unfortunately I do agree that RG now comes across as very arrogant, and it's a shame he can't just admit it's not great to use that word instead of aruging and arguing against it. I think the arrogance always used to be a kind of persona-thing that he played against in his stand up and stuff, but then when you heard him give interviews or speak on his radio show he was pretty humble and grounded. But now all too often when I hear him speak in his "real' voice the arrogance, award-loving in-love-with-himself thing seems to have become part of who he actually is. Sigh. Fame is a mask that eats into the face...

Hungrydragon · 21/10/2011 14:03

Due to some fabulous juxtapositions in my youth, I was called a Mong for the entirety of my time at secondary school.

Every single fucking day, oh yes, how I fucking laughed.

Innocent teenagers / witty comedic pioneers of modern language my arse, they were all cunts and so is Gervais.

kelly2000 · 21/10/2011 14:06

I thought with racism, it was racist if the perceiver felt it was racist, so i would assume discriminatary remarks about disabilities were the same.

SuePurblybiltFromBitsofCorpses · 21/10/2011 14:08

Nooo ghosts, it's not OK. That's why I resisted up till this point.

It's never nice to take the piss out of someone's appearance for any reason. But with slebs, sometimes it's irresistible. With mean slebs, it's absolutely irresistible and funny. The difference is, praps, that RG is old enough and ugly enough to take a bit of ribbing about his teeth or a receding hairline or whatever. He dishes - he takes. I'm not sure you could compare it to making offensive jokes about people with disabilities and refusing to stop or apologise.

PosiesOfPoison · 21/10/2011 14:11

Trouble is he's surrounded by sycophants that he bullies and so noone's going to tell him he's wrong, noone that he'd listen to.

MrsBethel · 21/10/2011 14:16

He's not a twat of the higest order. He's some sort of twat, but let's be fair about what degree of twat he is.

A twat of the highest order would intend to offend.

He doesn't. Some people are offended because their interpetation of the word is different to his. It's not exactly unexpected - it doesn't take a genius to work out it will offend some people. So he's clearly lacking awareness, and he's thoughtless. So some sort of twat.

sickofsocalledexperts · 21/10/2011 14:17

Just take a look on Twitter now at the sort of people who have come out of the woodwork in support of Ricky. Even he has just tweeted to his 'fans' to please stop the hate.

Ricky himself may be using 'mong' in an ironic, post-modern Hampstead-set sort of way, but the vast majority of people use it to mean someone with learning difficulties, and the proof of that is such people always accompany the word 'mong' with 'that face', which we all remember from the playground (the face which we all know full well is a parody of a Downs or learning difficulties face).

I am mum to a disabled kid, and I object to this word as much as I do to other old playground favourites from the 70s such as 'paki' and 'yid'. I don't suppose even Ricky will try and reclaim those words, in an intellectual, ironic spirit, but disabled children like my son are still seen as fair game.

ghostsoverbones · 21/10/2011 14:18

I'm not comparing, I just think bullying is bullying. I don't really like it when slebs get it from the press/public either, so I just try and avoid sites/papers where it happens.

He didn't make jokes about disabled people, he used a word that's offensive. I do think it's a bit different. I think I'm just reluctant to totally think the worst of him when he was one of the very very few celebrities who would get involved with a disability organisation, and tried to do what he could to change people's attitudes towards disabled people.

But, he may be a cunt now (not seen his stand-up so can't judge)

sickofsocalledexperts · 21/10/2011 14:22

I would love Ricky and his Hampstead set to stumble across a group of inner London teens at a bus stop throwing abuse like 'mong' and 'retard' at a learning disabled child or adult. Would Ricky amble over and explain to them that the word has moved on and is now urban and chic, as long as it's used in its new post-modern sense?

Or would he then apologise on Twitter for being such a prize knob as to defend this ugly little word?

Pagwatch · 21/10/2011 14:23

I u derstand your sentiment ghostsoverbones but to be honest saying that he is 'monging' and accompanying that with a picture of him pulling a face which is a parody of someone with learning difficulties is not 'just using a word' and absoloutely is ripping the piss out of people with
sn.

Whatever he has done in the past in the name of charity does not excuse it.

encyclogirl · 21/10/2011 14:25

As a parent of a child living with Downs Syndrome. I am very fucking offended. Hugely fucking offended. But apparently I'm only 'jealous of his success' and a 'hater'.

SuePurblybiltFromBitsofCorpses · 21/10/2011 14:25

I actually agree ghosts - I have used his stuff to talk about positive attitudes to disabilities so it does baffle me. I defended him, until I'd read everything and now I am confused but have to conclude he is a knob.

Fraid I can't stop mocking slebs though Grin.

sickofsocalledexperts · 21/10/2011 14:30

I think even Ricky knows he's in the wrong now, and is asking the people sticking up for him on Twitter (largely the racists and bigots) to please stop the hate. A big man would apologise now.

encyclogirl · 21/10/2011 14:54

Read his feed now. A mum to two disabled girls has contacted him privately and he's backpeddling big time.

QuickLookBusy · 21/10/2011 15:13

I loved the office when it first came out. However having seen/heard more of his "work," I've come to the conclusion that underneath it all he is very similar to David Brent. A first class arrogant twat with little or no empathy for anyone.

QuickLookBusy · 21/10/2011 15:21

OMG Shock

RG latest tweet to the woman of 2 disabled DDs, who borke down on the radio yesterday because of all the abuse she gets, when out with DDs.

"Nicky, what do you think of how the press have protrayed me, out of interest"

That proves my previous post-he is actually David Brent, a selfish twonk.

SuePurblybiltFromBitsofCorpses · 21/10/2011 15:22

It's all about meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Wanker

fuzzynavel · 21/10/2011 15:25

Thought he was funny in The Office. Also loved 1st series of "An Idiot Abroad".

Can't stand his stupid laugh.

He now has to go into room 101 along with Russell Brand.

QuickLookBusy · 21/10/2011 15:26

Yes Sue, I expect this last few days have been very difficult for him. People have been calling him names for goodness sake. There should be a law against.

Oh no wait a minute. That's what he does to other people. Oh dear isn't it ironic?

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