SANITY WATCHERS WARNING! I used up all my points for 2009 on this post.
Ricky Gervais is this year’s early contender. Here is what he posted on his Blog:
I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like “you’re not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It’s the same thing.”
It’s not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn’t work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they’re noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They’ve had more than enough cock… they’re full… they’re just sucking for the sake of it. Now they’re overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.
When a doctor tells me that that’s how you become gay, I’ll stop making jokes about fat people.
Obviously Ricky has really done as much research about how people get fat, as he has about gay people. (Note to Ricky: Some gay people don’t like cock at all. You may want to look into offending them too while you’re pissing the rest of the population off.)
If that quote doesn’t make you want stop eating donuts and run out and grab your torch and pitchfork there is more at HuffPo. Apparently even fat people who are having surgery to get rid of their fat aren’t worthy of any consideration, they should just “stop eating and go for a run.”
But clearly Ricky’s figured us out. We’d all “Rather be this way” I mean, isn’t it so great guys? We have such awesome lives being fat not only do we get to eat constantly, but we also get some great perks. I mean it’s so great buying two seats on an airplane, Ricky doesn’t even know. And everyone is concerned about your health, all the time! Being fat is the best life choice EVAH!
Seriously, is Dick here just completely unaware that there is an entire multimillion dollar industry devoted to telling people how fat they are and helping them unsuccessfully starve it off? Yeah, all the fat people are just fat because they can’t stop eating. They never even try, that’s why they spend millions of dollars every year trying to find a way to get skinny.
I don’t even know where to begin with the gay comments.
Plus, in added bonus, here he is on Letterman making fun of himself for gaining weight. Way to project there buddy. We’re all just a little better off now that you’ve spread the manure of your self hatred throught the fertile ground of the media.
SoI’m putting him in as an early entry for 2009 DHOTY here are the reasons he should win:
- Anti Fat & Anti Gay, all in one spewing masterpiece of bigotry
- “Just stop eating” OMG, Why didn’t someone TELL ME!?
- It’s like the opposite of the oppression olympics
- Spread the self hate
Too bad for Ricky there isn’t any surgery or diet plans he can follow to make himself less of an asshole. (Diets don’t work on Assholery either.) Plus there’s no parade for that.
Most celebs are assholes. If you’re surprised, you’re incredibly naive. Ricky Gervais is, however, one of the most hilarious and talented people alive. Nothing he says about fat people would change that for me.
Paging Harvey Fierstein…
I just love the way he calls himself a fat fucking bastard, too. I wonder when he’s going to start dieting so he won’t be fat anymore? Wonder how many times he’ll have to fail before he figures out that it’s not eating that made him fat, it was genetics? I want to be there if/when he does figure it out, because I want to see him eat his words (too bad they aren’t sweet words, they’re going to choke him going down).
Oddly enough I have a movie with him in it on my desk at the moment just waiting for me to pop it in the dvd player. I dont’ know if I want too now; he’s already got my money from the rental so I might as well check it out and see if it’s any good.
He almost ruined my New Year’s Eve, actually. We had taped his most recent special on HBO and sat down to watch it. He started in on the fat hate within the first five minutes. It was really upsetting. I am usually pretty good at avoiding such things (I get a lot of warnings from the Fatosphere!) and so it was extra bad for me. Stupid jerk.
Michael Warner covers the fallacy of rights/respect being allotted based on their inborn nature in The Trouble With Normal. The idea that we should pity the poor people who “can’t help” not being normal by condescending to give them rights is bizarre in the extreme. People deserve rights and basic human respect and dignity because they are people, not because they didn’t make a choice not to fall in with the majority normative standards.
My question for Rick Gervais is why does every joke have to be at the expense of someone’s humanity? Seriously, are we not capable of producing humor above that? Or is this Gervais admitting to his own lack of comedic talent?
[stands up and applauds vesta44]
Godless Heathen also makes a great point… and it makes you wonder if it’s really “better” to have a situation that you “can’t help,” which then makes it OK for people to pity rather than hate you. Gee, what an awesome choice–I almost can’t decide whether it would be more super to be dehumanized because of hatred or because of pity. How about if we treat all people as human beings worthy of some baseline level of respect and dignity?
I also really hate it when people’s own self-hatred is the clear impetus for a comedy act, and people just eat it up with a spoon, like there is any logic or truth involved in the material when it comes from such a deep place of shame and self-loathing. You’re not hearing something true, you’re watching a man flagellate himself on stage (and take other fat people, as well as gay people, down with him). To me, outside of my anger reaction and extreme distaste for how destructive this is, it’s not funny or even uncomfortable-but-funny-because-it’s-true. It’s just pitiable and sort of embarrassing.
You know, I’ve always disliked him, but never for any reason that I could articulate. Now I have one.
Mr Gervais is quite clearly projecting his issues onto all fat people.
So true.