Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 01:09:16 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Revisiting Ricky Gervais' XFM shows

Started by Utter Shit, May 09, 2021, 05:27:15 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Mollusk

Quote from: bgmnts on May 10, 2021, 12:55:03 PM
s*****c in the Rye

Please pack it in with the awful slurs, dunno how many times you have to be pulled up on this. Just because it's ironic/facetious doesn't mean it's not objectively offensive to read.

bgmnts

Quote from: The Mollusk on May 10, 2021, 04:56:52 PM
Please pack it in with the awful slurs, dunno how many times you have to be pulled up on this. Just because it's ironic/facetious doesn't mean it's not objectively offensive to read.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,17392.msg836021.html#msg836021

Lungpuddle

Quote from: bgmnts on May 10, 2021, 05:05:46 PM
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,17392.msg836021.html#msg836021

Thread's from 2008, I think Mollusk may have improved. Besides, is it not a bit like twitter twats, dredging up tweets from the past when they're no longer relevant? Not meaning to call you a twat, I just think you need a better defence.

That incident with VW is still very upsetting.

The Mollusk

Mate, get a grip. Maybe instead of deflecting off your own failings by digging up a thread from 13 years ago to prove a point in the most petty and meagre of ways, you could just hold your hands up, admit your mistakes and learn something? Both you and I know the counterpoint you're trying to make there holds very little water.

bgmnts

Touched a nerve there.

I'm fine though cheers. Taking the piss out of comedians using their own offensive language is fine by me and your virtue signalling doesn't mean much to me to be fair.

willbo

thing about lines like "are you leg mental or head mental" etc. They were funny (to me at the time) as something David Brent might say. Because he was a small town sheltered manager trying to be modern for the cameras. But they're not funny as something Gervais would say. Because he's lived a modern life.

The Mollusk

Quote from: bgmnts on May 10, 2021, 05:42:10 PM
Touched a nerve there.

I'm fine though cheers. Taking the piss out of comedians using their own offensive language is fine by me and your virtue signalling doesn't mean much to me to be fair.

What the fuck kind of backwards logic is this


Gurke and Hare

Quote from: bgmnts on May 10, 2021, 05:42:10 PM
Touched a nerve there.

Yeah, that was obvious from the way it sent you searching through history.

Sean Ymphs

Mother died today. Built robot grief mum.

Cuellar

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan - with a HEAD LIKE A FUCKING ORANGE - came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

kalowski

Quote from: An tSaoi on May 09, 2021, 08:49:17 PM
I only saw the cartoon version. I remember Gervais referring to someone as "a Thalidomide".

It struck me as odd at the time, because it's a bit like calling someone "a Downs Syndrome" or "a wheelchair". He said it a few times, so it wasn't a slip-up.

Probably low on his list of offenses, but it's strange how the simple addition of the indefinite article can make something sound wrong.
He's saying "a flid" isn't he, but in a "clever" way.

BritishHobo

Quote from: willbo on May 10, 2021, 06:09:55 PM
thing about lines like "are you leg mental or head mental" etc. They were funny (to me at the time) as something David Brent might say. Because he was a small town sheltered manager trying to be modern for the cameras. But they're not funny as something Gervais would say. Because he's lived a modern life.

Same. His veil of irony fell down fairly quickly when that Brentish approach carried over to everything else he did. I remember watching one of his standup shows, where he opened with a video of him doing that patronising 'here's a wheelchair one' with Ash Atalla (who has since come out and described Gervais as being 'obsessed' with disabled people). It didn't really click for me until the adverts for Life's Too Short. I'm a big fan of Warwick Davis, and was so excited to see him lead a sitcom, to portray his own life experiences, to be his warm, funny self. Then the adverts were just Gervais calling Davis 'it', every single joke revolving around his height, or putting him in something small, or making him so angry that he tries to fight someone because ha ha ha imagine a little person fighting!!!!!! Cunt.

By the Brent film, his pretence at being satirical were so muddled that even Gervais had lost control of it. I do not buy that David Brent would ever write a song called 'Please Don't Make Fun of the Disableds'. He was meant to be an obnoxious boss who wanted to be liked, but couldn't quite grasp the nuances of what was acceptable. He wasn't a fucking caveman frozen in ice. When you have Gervais parroting a line from Brent, saying of Doc Brown's character that some musicians have sung with black musicians, 'and now I have my own one', you just think 'what fucking point are you meant to be making?'

bgmnts

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on May 10, 2021, 07:19:33 PM
Yeah, that was obvious from the way it sent you searching through history.

Took 5 seconds tbf. Everyone here is a hypocrite.

willbo

Quote from: Cuellar on May 10, 2021, 07:26:10 PM
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan - with a HEAD LIKE A FUCKING ORANGE - came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. I get bored and start wanting to prod Robin Ince's head instead. Play a record!

Video Game Fan 2000

#75
I don't think Gervais understands that when comedians write characters that are exaggerated versions of themselves, the version is usually negative and its comedian who's the butt of the joke. We're not supposed to admire their shamelessness and lack of dignity. Like, Larry Sanders works in part because it takes guts for someone who already widely admired and successful to make something with the underlying premise: the version of myself that achieved his big ambition would probably be a worse person to friends, colleague and family. Or Curb: the version of myself that doesn't hold his tongue would say horrible things. Those aren't good traits! They're funny because they're revealing bad things about the writer and performer, and the shows are successful because it establishes a rapour with the audience because we're seeing a side of someone that we wouldn't in real life. Even something that goes as near the knuckle (fails the PC test as frequently) as Curb never gets away from the fact that ultimately, the only thing being shown in a negative light is the personality of the real Larry David.

For Gervais the character is just a mask to put on to say things you can't normally say, then take off again. There was a brief window where the character aligned with the man enough to make it work but it was mostly serendipity. Haven't seen After Life but the premise says it all - what if I concocted a situation where I could say anything on camera?

Some of the XFM stuff works because at the time I think he was self-aware enough to realise in the chats with Karl, he was coming across badly. Karl was being a curious person and Ricky was being incurious and belittling because Karl isn't great at expressing the ideas in his head. That's why its funny to me - Karl thinks in a really eccentric way and Ricky's instinct to jeer rather than understand is equally ridiculous as Karl exaggerating stories he's read in the newspaper, it's a two stooge double act. I think in one of the podcasts he says something about the segment being called 'Educating Ricky' was a joke because Karl was clearly intelligent, just not educated in a way to let him express things. This is true, no idiot could have come up with the first "Karl's Movie Idea". And then they'll hold Karl down and force him to kiss Ricky's nipples.

The Mollusk

Quote from: bgmnts on May 10, 2021, 07:57:37 PM
Took 5 seconds tbf. Everyone here is a hypocrite.

I'm not a hypocrite. I'm happy to admit my attitude towards slurs 10-15 years ago was poor and that, as I've mentioned on here more than a couple of times, I'm doing everything in my power to try and stop even using terms like "mental" etc because I think they're derogatory. This is stuff that racks my brain daily, I am excessively conscious of my actions at all times. Regardless, mistakes of the past are a lot easier to forgive and move past than what you're doing here, which is trying to justify your own rancid behaviour by making unfair comparisons based on bygone standards. Times change very quickly now and dredging up stuff like this does nothing but make you look petty and, in a bizarrely ironic twist, even more ignorant than me.

dead-ced-dead

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on May 10, 2021, 08:28:13 PM
I don't think Gervais understands that when comedians write characters that are exaggerated versions of themselves, the version is usually negative and its comedian who's the butt of the joke. We're not supposed to admire their shamelessness and lack of dignity. Like, Larry Sanders works in part because it takes guts for someone who already widely admired and successful to make something with the underlying premise: the version of myself that achieved his big ambition would probably be a worse person to friends, colleague and family. Or Curb: the version of myself that doesn't hold his tongue would say horrible things. Those aren't good traits! They're funny because they're revealing bad things about the writer and performer, and the shows are successful because it establishes a rapour with the audience because we're seeing a side of someone that we wouldn't in real life. Even something that goes as near the knuckle (fails the PC test as frequently) as Curb never gets away from the fact that ultimately, the only thing being shown in a negative light is the personality of the real Larry David.

For Gervais the character is just a mask to put on to say things you can't normally say, then take off again. There was a brief window where the character aligned with the man enough to make it work but it was mostly serendipity. Haven't seen After Life but the premise says it all - what if I concocted a situation where I could say anything on camera?

It truly shows in the way that all the people he yells at in After Life are such cartoon characters. A yoga instructor who talks about chakras and slurps green tea, a straw-man religious woman etc.

bgmnts

Quote from: The Mollusk on May 10, 2021, 08:33:56 PM
I'm not a hypocrite. I'm happy to admit my attitude towards slurs 10-15 years ago was poor and that, as I've mentioned on here more than a couple of times, I'm doing everything in my power to try and stop even using terms like "mental" etc because I think they're derogatory. This is stuff that racks my brain daily, I am excessively conscious of my actions at all times. Regardless, mistakes of the past are a lot easier to forgive and move past than what you're doing here, which is trying to justify your own rancid behaviour by making unfair comparisons based on bygone standards. Times change very quickly now and dredging up stuff like this does nothing but make you look petty and, in a bizarrely ironic twist, even more ignorant than me.

4 years ago.

willbo

Maybe this is going a bit far...but I always wondered whether Gervais is asexual or something. He's the only "un-PC"/offensive radio host who doesn't slip into being sexist or horny and he never really casts himself a love interest (other than the two women in the Office finale and film he's hinted at having a chance with at the end). And the late wife in Afterlife I suppose. He's just always seemed strangely sexless somehow. I saw an interview with his author partner and the host asked if Ricky had done anything romantic for valentine's day. And she seemed totally taken aback, and said "oh no, we're not like that". I guess it's not my business but I always wonder. It's just strange how he's offensive about everything else yet saintly about sex and women.

Video Game Fan 2000

The bit where Karl is wondering about where the word "onion" comes from when he remembers something he'd forgotten on a shopping list is a great example. It's far from a simple idea to express and Ricky sounds like a right [slur] laughing so much about it. The way Karl comes up with ideas like that on his own from the scraps of information he read was funny/fascinating to me. Oi, Gervais, you didn't go on about bicameralism being such a hilariously stupid idea when you interviewed Dawkins did you. Steve and Ricky smugly insisting "you are your brain" like that answers any of Karl's questions at all when its far stupider than anything Karl has ever said.

Also later on Karl talking about people having more than "six senses" and describes stuff like the sense of being watched, or the sense of knowing the position of things relative to you in a space. And Gervais assumes this means ESP and laughes. What a stupid [slur].

ElTwopo

Quote from: willbo on May 10, 2021, 09:20:45 AM
Gervais has a degree in philosophy apparently

"I think I'm brilliant, therefore I am"

Mobius

How come Ricky never gets in the news for doing drugs or having an affair or something? Boring bastard.

Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: ElTwopo on May 10, 2021, 10:21:19 PM
"I think I'm brilliant, therefore I am"

"Where one cannot speak, one must play a record"

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Mobius on May 10, 2021, 10:25:06 PM
How come Ricky never gets in the news for doing drugs or having an affair or something? Boring bastard.

He's had plenty of affairs, but the women are too ashamed to sell their stories.

Video Game Fan 2000

Imagine a sweaty Ricky Gervais rolling off you after forty seconds of weak thrusting where he never makes eye contact "play a record" he says instinctively and turns off the bedside lamp.

Considering half the XFM show was Ricky trying to "teach" Karl about the magic of books, it's ironic that Ricky is borderline illiterate and that Karl has since written several humour books that are actually quite good.

Jockice

Having slagged off Pilkington earlier I have to admit he was the best thing in Derek. Yeah, I know, low bars and all that.

The Mollusk

Quote from: bgmnts on May 10, 2021, 08:39:41 PM
4 years ago.

You can skip the bizarre blackmail tactic and dig up whatever you want, I honestly don't care. As I've said, I'm happy to admit my faults and learn/grow from them, something you seem to be incapable of until it's almost too late or you've made someone feel so uncomfortable here they've very nearly left the place entirely. Get your head out of the sand.

MrMrs

bgmt is telling on himself here, absolutely appalling stuff. hugely entertaining