You can’t say that
You’ve all been very nice after I hinted the blog had gone a bit shit and not interesting. Thanks. For once I wasn’t even fishing for it. Still though. Nice of you. I’ve had a tiring time.
Andrew quite astutely said that if I’m judging myself by the number of comments (which I’m not; life’s too short, but hey we all like a bit of excitement) I should take on a subject that’s certain to cause debate. And as he observes, what should we have today but a comedy-related controversy. It’s about Ricky Gervais and whether he should be repeatedly using the word ‘mong’.
Well, hey, I’ve never got in any trouble for passing comment on the tastefulness or otherwise of a fellow comic’s act/worldview, eh? NOTE: this is a satirical callback to the spot of bother I got in via this blog with Mr F Boyle one time.
So- as it happens I do have an opinion on the Gervais controversy but since that Boyle business I’m much warier of this sort of thing. However, I note that my fellow blogger and (considerably more esteemed) comedian Richard Herring has dealt with it on HIS blog. Brave man. Accordingly, for today’s blog I am sending you to his website. And anything else you can find on the topic.
Then we will reconvene and have it out between us. But quietly. In a way where Chortle doesn’t notice it.
And as an addendum, Herring is always interesting in general, so if there are times in the future where my blog is not
too substantial, I would try him.
Right, I leave you to navigate the complex but crucial territory of ethics in comedy. See you after. Ta.
Posted by Megan on October 20, 2011
I won’t lie: I used to find Gervais quite funny. But as it became obvious that his ‘ironic’ bigheadedness was, well, quite serious, I got fed up rather quickly.
He seems to think that people have lost their sense of humour because they don’t find his putdowns, self-aggrandisement, and mockery funny, but I think he’s the one whose sense of humour seems to be faulty.
Yes, yes, we’re all differently wired for comedy, but this defense of ‘mong’ as a non-demeaning expression is just beating a dead horse with another dead horse. I’m sick of it.
Posted by Knox on October 20, 2011
and another blog i just found on it:
http://burdzeyeview.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/gervais-not-clever-just-pathetic/
Posted by Ingrid on October 19, 2011
Im not much of a Gervais fan. Rather like Boyle i find his jokes distasteful and it makes me squirm to watch him. If i dont like the comedian as a person, it makes me resistant to laugh. And, well, if its not fun to watch… its not really comedy!
Posted by Sarah on October 19, 2011
If anyone would like to read another well written blog on the whole thing James Ward has written this piece http://iamjamesward.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/gervais/
Posted by Knox on October 19, 2011
“I really cannot understand the appeal of Gervais, either as a comedian/comic actor or in terms of what appears to be his (public) personality, though of course this is just a matter of personal taste. ”
sums up my opinion of RG in general. The new ‘mong’ thing just goes to further this opinion.
i agree with the coherent arguments here that argue that intelligent comedians (well, all) should not resort to terms such as these (or indeed to just insulting people – such as, in this case, Susan Boyle) to make their points and make people laugh. It’s lazy and it makes no sense for it to be ok in one arena, and not another. and where does the line get drawn – what terms can’t be used?
(just in response to misha re the term ‘nigger’ – unfortunately, it was never just a descriptor – it’s always been a horrible term of insult, in a way that things like, for example, ‘spastic’ never started out to be originally)
Posted by Catherine on October 18, 2011
Just read the other chaps blog and all the comments and find the whole thing really interesting and a fab subject for debate. However, whatever the subject there’ll always be someone who ends up being offended or upset about something… It’s impossible to please everybody all the time. All comedians at times will ‘push the boundary’ it gets everyone talking and the majority will then want to see the act, it’s in our nature! I often giggle at things deep down I know I shouldn’t… And feel terrible most of the time for doing so.
Posted by amycool on October 18, 2011
I found Gervais’ Science show incredibly disappointing. I loved his shows Animals and Politics. I found them hilarious and clever and almost literally side-splittingly funny. So I decided to stay up to watch this, and it was like watching your favourite teacher who you respect dancing around on stage with a smily face on his chest (this actually happened to me). The swearing seemed purposely provocative, and a method of filling in for the fact that the jokes were almost non-existant. I wouldn’t say I was offended by any of it, just very disappointed. The fact he was even bothering to use Susan Boyle’s attractiveness in a joke is so lazy, as was the Iceland volcano joke.
In summary, I had to turn it off.
With respect to certain words being used for comic effect, I tend to agree with Stephen Fry in his series on Language on BBC2 (watched during the breaks on Downtown Abbey
). If you’re gay, you can use whatever words you like for being gay and so on. I have lung disease so I and my family often make jokes about my illness to make light of it. However, if lung disease was often mocked and jeered at in the media, even though I’m not easily offended I would probably find that uncomfortable.
Posted by cymruangel on October 18, 2011
I have an interesting relationship with the word “mong”.
In my old neck of the woods, I used to do some work with an “integrated” (and doesn’t that word speak volumes about attitudes) disabled/ able-bodied youth club. I’d like to think we did a lot to encourage people to look beyond stereotypes and to deal with people as they found them.
However, my mother is on disability benefits, as is my grandmother (both are physical, rather than mental, disabilities), and they have blue badges which they use for parking. Within the family, these are often referred to as “mong badges”. It absolutely is being used to mean disabled, and in a mocking/humourous fashion, but more often than not, it’s my mother saying it in a form of self-deprecation. And it is only referred to in that manner at home, or within the confines of the car, we would never say it in front of people. So whilst it is acceptable to my family, we accept that it is not a word in general usage – it’s our way of dealing with some difficult truths (my mother’s condition is degenerative).
I think that one of the issues behind this word is that it, and “retard”, were both once the recognised way of referring to people with genuine mental conditions. It is not like “gay”, a word adopted by the community themselves, but rather a label imposed by the outside world – many of these words (such as the N word etc) have become taboo precisely for this reason.
To use it as a casual insult is is both offensive to those so insulted, and also to those genuinely disabled people who may in fact be far more intelligent, decent human beings than the person resorting to cheap laughs.
Posted by Andrew on October 18, 2011
I have an ambivalent relationship with Gervais. I loathed him on the 11 O’Clock Show, and loathed his chat show, to the extent that when The Office started I didn’t even watch it because I assumed it would be useless. When it was repeated I gave it a go, and what do you know – it turned out to be arguably the best sitcom ever made. I loved Extras almost as much. I say this just to illustrate that I came to Science without an agenda. I’m also not going to let my disappointment at the general standard of the routines that made up Science colour my judgement on this one issue.
From what I read, Gervais seems to be justifying his use of the word mong by saying that he doesn’t specifically mean people with Down Syndrome. What does he mean then? In Science, he says Susan Boyle wouldn’t have been successful “if it wasn’t for the fact that she looked like such a fucking mong”. So it’s a physical attribute, it’s something she looks like. I think he’s being incredibly disingenuous. He knows very well that for people of his and my generation, mong is a repellent, pejorative, dismissive term to describe people with a mental disability which has a physical manifestation. He also knows that for a generation of people who’ve grown up after it went out of acceptable use, it doesn’t have that resonance. So he’s able to puncture a taboo, while at the same time defend it by saying “What? It’s just a word!” knowing that for large swathes of his audience, it is. It’s disappointing from someone of his intelligence and, moreover, profile, who could do some good by attacking this sort of lazy discrimination rather than reinforcing it.
This whole business makes me nervous about his new sitcom, Life’s Too Short. Some of the teaser trailers on iTunes are little better than “Look at the funny little man, look how small his funny little feet are!” I can’t believe that after the brilliant, subtle work they’ve produced in the past he and Merchant are going to fall into the trap of thinking that just because Warwick Davis is in on the joke it’s OK to go back to the comedy of the 1970s. We shall see.
Posted by Lydia on October 18, 2011
That was such an interesting article, thanks for the link, Phill.
The fact that comedy comes back to this so frequently makes me want to scream.
Posted by Rachael on October 18, 2011
“They do confirm the stereotype of disabled people and contribute to their further isolation in a world that already tries to pretend they don’t exist.” I think he is absolutely right. If people are going to make a career in comedy they should be smart enough to be funny without causing offence or not including people. Disabled people shouldn’t have to think, “oh i can’t go to any comedy because I will probably be paying to be laughed at and ridiculed”, don’t they have a right to enjoy it as much as not-yet-disabled people?
Posted by Sarah on October 18, 2011
I do like Gervais, however I cannot stand comedians using insults which are linked to discrimination. Whenever I hear the word Mong I think of Downs Syndrome. I even flinch a bit at Tim Minchinc lyric “Sober or on the floor spastic”. Another comic who I like kept calling people retards, her act is very much about bursting tabbos but yet she kept coming back to the word retard, she is a smart comedian and does not need to be so lazy as coming back to that word.
Basically i’m saying that a lot of comedians who I respect do use words which I do not like. Although Ricky’s insistance of using it is frustrating and when he links photos of him pulling faces which looks like he is mimicing that of Downs syndrome is over the line.
The fantastic Francesca Martinez was a guest on Richard’s show who was very funny and gave examples of how people react to her and the language they use. Please listen if you get the chance it was a brilliant, thought provoking, hilarious show.
Posted by Kathryn on October 18, 2011
I’m with Jen as well. I really cannot understand the appeal of Gervais, either as a comedian/comic actor or in terms of what appears to be his (public) personality, though of course this is just a matter of personal taste. Although it may explain the break up of my last relationship (he tried to make me watch The Office).
I will admit to never having heard the word ‘mong’ before, in any context – not because I had some form of enlightened, politically correct childhood but because we seem to have different slang in Northern Ireland. I agree with Richard Herring though; language is tricky and slippery and it’s best to err on the side of caution with this sort of issue…
Posted by LisaD on October 18, 2011
I am a big Gervais fan, but on this particular subject I think he’s acting like a schmuck. Even beyond the point of whether or not I agree with any of the stuff now swirling around the internet as everyone weighs in, I just find his stubborn determination to pick THIS to be the issue he decides to take a stand on kind of silly and pointless.
Posted by Suzanne aka Senior Watsonian on October 18, 2011
I’m controversially with you, Jen
* * * CROSSED FINGERS AT THE READY * * *
Crystal Palace v Bristol City
Tuesday 18 October
KO: 7.45 BST
* * * CROSSED FINGERS AT THE READY * * *
Posted by Misha (and Emily) on October 17, 2011
Interesting really, I’ve not heard mong for years, it seems rather to have gone out of vogue. Certainly i’ve never heard it used as a specific insult on someone beyond standard playground slagging matches, when you can be a mong, a retard and a twat without it meaning anything much.
I know using such language technically is bad, in as much as it associates the idea that this word is a bad thing, and that it means a bad thing. An example here is the attempt to “reclaim” words like nigger, or (most bemusingly) slut. Whilst it’s good to take back these perfectly ordinary descriptors to be descriptors and not a bad thing, with the historical associations etc it won’t happen, and I don’t think your average insulter shouting “mong” means to say, you have learning difficulties and that makes you a bad person.
Either way, i’m not fond of Gervais.
P.S. Emily is here too.
Posted by Jen on October 17, 2011
Its probably a little bit controversial to say this but I’m not a big Gervais fan to be honest and so best not comment on his actions as I may be quite biased!!Jx
Posted by Phill on October 17, 2011
I think this may be the link to the aforementioned Richard Herring article?