Comedian Ricky Gervais has praised offensive comedy, after defending his decision to joke about AIDs, cancer and Hitler.
The Office star has boiled enough controversy throughout his career, recently being labeled as “transphobic” in his show SuperNature…
While fellow comedian Robin Ince wrote on Twitter: “What I find odd about the offensive comedy debate is it seems to say ‘comedy must be allowed to be offensive but it is wrong for people to be offended’ – make up your mind.”
Gervais was quick to respond to the tweet: “Agreed. Everyone is allowed to offend and everyone is allowed to be offended. It’s a good system.”
The comedian has been very vocal about his comedy skits being open to offending people, but it hasn’t gone down too well with a few LGBT activists, who have “accused him of making fun of trans people.”
The Daily Mail reports that a that an American LGBT rights group in fact labeled his jokes as “dangerous.”
In response, Gervais told The Spectator: “My target wasn’t trans folk, but trans activist ideology. I’ve always confronted dogma that oppresses people and limits freedom of expression.”
“I think that’s what comedy is for, really – to get us through stuff, and I deal in taboo subjects because I want to take the audience to a place it hasn’t been before, even for a split second,” he told UK talk show, The One Show.
“Most offence comes from when people mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target,” he added.
Gervais’ new show has received a lot of attention, as it’s controversial topics, including the trans debate, racism, identity politics and Hitler have caught the eye of critics…
The comedian did not shy away from revealing why he discusses taboo subjects and he said: “I think that’s what comedy is for – getting us over taboo subjects so they’re not scary anymore.”
Gervais’ new show SuperNature launched on Netflix on May 24.