Ricky Gervais Really Wants Me to Hate Him

Every time I see this guy's name in the news, it's another disaster. This time, it's an interview with the Times headlined "Ricky Gervais: Bad parents should be sterilised. Fact." Um, whut? He didn't really say that, even in "jest," surely?!

So it's no to God, no to marriage, no to voting — "Can't be bothered" — and no to kids, too, a decision he and Fallon made ages ago because they "just didn't fancy it. Too much hassle. Not something either of us wanted to do. We just ... didn't fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course".

A population problem? "Yes, but it's where it's condensed. It's not too many people, it's too many people with nothing, too many unwanted children, too many people who are poor and struggling, as opposed to too many people. If they all had a good quality of life, no one would complain. What there is, is too many useless people. Too many people who shouldn't have children."

Should we impose a limitation, then? "Yes, based on ... stupid, fat faces," he snarls. "If there's a woman in leggings, eating chips with a fag in her mouth, sterilise her."

You think we should sterilise chavs? He laughs: "You said 'chavs'; I didn't. I described an irresponsible parent. Chavs could be included in irresponsible, though."

So, Ricky Gervais' "humorous" definition of an irresponsible parent who should be sterilized is a poor, fat woman who wears leggings, eats chips, and smokes. Um, okay.

And this is "funny" because poor people are rubbish, and fat people are gross, and women are bitchez, and leggings and chips and cigarettes are only for fashionable, thin, rich people. Har har!

Know what makes it even extra funny? How forced sterilization exists! Oh my aching sides.

Yes, yes, I know—I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington. What else is new? As long as "jokes" about sterilizing poor fat women constitute mainstream "humor," I'll be wearing my Humorless Scold badge without regret.

[Previously: Ricky Gervais Thinks Rape Is Hilarious, Parts One, Two, Three, Four.]