It's Ricky Gervais Season Again!

[Content Note: Discussion of Ricky Gervais' various bigotries and bullying.]

Ricky Gervais has been asked to host the Golden Globes again (about which he is VERY SHOCKED of course because he is trying soooooo hard to be an asshole but omg titter they keep inviting him back ANYWAY almost as if the entertainment industry actually REWARDS people for being assholes as long as they're assholes in a very particular way by which I mean the way that upholds the kyriarchy by being a jackass bully and calling it comedy or art or both), so LUCKILY we will get another season of media about how CONTROVERSIAL Ricky Gervais is leading up to his second totally boring hosting gig during which he'll say trite offensive shit and pretend it's daring and edgy.

Rolling out the red carpet on the Gervaisathon is the New York Times with this charming profile that will totally remind you what a complete wanker Ricky Gervais is in case you'd forgotten (ha ha I know you have not forgotten! it is impossible to forget because he reminds us SO OFTEN!). The whole thing must be read so you can really appreciate the entire bouquet of the fine vintage of fuckery in which Gervais is marinating, but I'll just highlight my favorite part:

To many Americans, last year's Golden Globes appearance by Gervais defined how they know him: as a self-styled provocateur who's not afraid to shock and offend in the service of humor.

Barrrrrrrrrrrrf.

I mean, sure, he's a "provocateur" if provocateur is broadly defined enough to encompass a playground antagonist who pokes other children with a stick. If anything designed to provoke any response can make one a provocateur, then give Ricky Gervais his trophy for Provocateur of the Year or whatever.

But "provocateur" really should mean something loftier—not a person who engages in the tiresome bigotry of misogyny and ableism, of racism and xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, who tells and defends rape jokes, just to elicit an entirely predictable (and legitimate) negative reaction from people getting poked with the stick, who are then immediately dismissed with charges of "humorlessness" or a lack of sophistication required to get the nuances of a joke to which the punchline is, at its essence, you are less than me.

A provocateur, if the word is have real meaning, is someone who challenges existent paradigms and marginalizing narratives, who presents a radical thought that makes people sit rather uncomfortably in their privilege and urges them to wander off the well-worn path of their socialization. It's someone who changes minds.

It isn't someone who calls people "mongs" and pretends that it's brave.

The irony of calling Ricky Gervais a "provocateur" is that he routinely insists that he is not trying to elicit reactions, but just say whatever the fuck he wants to:

Gervais spoke at greatest length about his comedy, occasionally adopting the whispery, professorial tone of someone who is certain he is saying very profound things. "I know I didn't do anything wrong," he said of the Golden Globes. "If I had done something wrong, it'd have been terrible. If I have to go, 'They're right,' that's a terrible feeling." He said the only reliable metric for success was his own satisfaction with his performance. "The only thing that matters is, did it turn out like I wanted it?"

If you're chasing after positive reviews, demographic trends or a lucrative box office, Gervais said, "you've already failed." But, he added, "if your only ambition is to get something off your chest and render it exactly as you wanted it, then you're bulletproof.”

Emphasis original. That sounds less like a provocateur and more like a sociopath, whose cavernous void of empathy allows him to substitute self-indulgent id-fulfillment for complex ethics.

Gervais is the comedic equivalent of the troll who comes into a social justice space and disgorges with a whiff of Pleistocenian air the most exhausting of ancient stereotypes, only to punctuate it with: "There, I said it!" as if zie were Spartacus throwing off the shackles off political correctness, and not just another impolite asshole who doesn't even have the decency to wipe the glyptodon scat off hir shoes before taking a privilege dump in the middle of the living room carpet.

"Women are overemotional! There, I said it!" Yep, we've never heard that one before, brave little soldier.

Gervais nonetheless actually believes himself to be some sort of prophet, some kind of revolutionary whose hackneyed observations about oppressed populations is actual genius. He's not being ironic, after all. He's really just a straight-up fucko.

What emerges from moments like these is the core of Gervais's relationship with Hollywood: he has become the entertainment industry's favorite irreverent person, because he manages to be irreverent in such a deeply reverent way.

That is to say, he holds the garbage values of the entertainment industry in high esteem, and thus has he become its favorite clown.

[Via Gabe.]