TODAY -- Pictured: Ricky Gervais on Tuesday, March 13, 2018 -- (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Multiple liberal media outlets are having a hard time dealing with taboo-breaking comedian Ricky Gervais' new Netflix comedy special because of its jokes about transgender people.
Gervais’ new special, titled "SuperNature," debuted on the streaming platform Tuesday and has already received multiple scathing reviews for containing several outrageous jokes about trans people and the activists who aggressively insist that the public respect their pronouns.
Hollywood magazine Variety, and British outlets Metro and The Independent clutched their collective pearls over the special.
Variety's opening salvo skewered it for trying to "score points off of a marginalized group of people." The Hollywood outlet slammed the special as a "collision between two malign forces," namely Gervais and Netflix. It blasted Gervais as a mere attention seeker and slammed Netflix for publishing the special, reminding readers that the platform stood by comedian Dave Chappelle when he made jokes the trans community found detestable last year.
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Netflix is taking heat for publishing a Ricky Gervais stand-up special that mocks trans people.
The Variety piece brutalized the comedian, stating, "Gervais, since the end of his British comedy series ‘The Office,’ has lived his life in public as an escalating series of bids for attention often mistaking a substantial portion of the audience’s boredom with his routine as a sign that he was shocking the right people."
It then skewered Netflix for promoting "hateful speech," adding, "And Netflix, stung by a recent employee revolt over jokes about trans people in Dave Chappelle’s 2021 special ‘The Closer,’ is repositioning itself as a place where free speech means the streamer financing, distributing, and promoting hateful speech."
Variety described Gervais’ set as "graphically describing the things he hates about a group of people already forced to the margins of our society by prejudice and, increasingly, by law."
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A person holds up a flag celebrating transgender people. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
It slammed Netflix again, stating, "It may come as a surprise to those who took Netflix at their word: The streamer’s social channels, including one staffed by queer and trans people, have worked to create the impression that the service is a place with a vested interest in celebrating trans people."
British outlet The Independent gave "SuperNature" a two-star (out of five) review for its offensive jokes. The subheading read, "As is all too frequent these days, the longest riff is reserved for the humiliation of trans people."
The review added, "The problem with SuperNature, as with much comedy these days, progressive or irreverent, is that it finds itself sucked into the self-referential death spiral of the culture wars." It described Gervais as a "master of this," reveling in the "’you can’t say that anymore’ element of taboo comedy."
"Being offended by the content is a victory for Gervais, who is more comfortable in the composition of quips that rely on a cheap shock factor than any emotional or creative truth," the review added.
Gervais angered several outlets on Tuesday for his transgender jokes in a recent Netflix stand-up special. (Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal Media, LLC)
The piece also went after the audience, claiming, "They hoot and holler along with all the bigotry, seeming to enjoy it more the closer it gets to the edge, the more buttons it pushes."
UK outlet Metro described Gervais’ special was packed with "cruel jokes," and said, "Ricky Gervais used ample time in his new Netflix special to mock trans people, saying that ‘old-fashioned women’ are ‘the ones with wombs’ and joking about transitioning to become ‘Vicky Gervais.’"
The reviewer complained, "However, the comedian claimed he is a supporter of trans rights, saying as such to his audience – before making yet another derogatory quip about the community."