Ricky Gervais has found himself in hot water one again for his controversial trans 'jokes'.
The Office creator, who has been heavily praised for the third season of his Netflix series Afterlife, has now come crashing back down to earth after causing a scandal online.
Just four minutes into his new comedy special, SuperNature, the comedian unleashed a string of jokes which have been labelled "toxic" and "transphobic".
In a long segment in the special, he says: "Oh, women! Not all women, I mean the old-fashioned ones. The old-fashioned women, the ones with wombs. Those f***ing dinosaurs. I love the new women. They’re great, aren’t they? The new ones we’ve been seeing lately. The ones with beards and c**ks. They’re as good as gold, I love them.
"And now the old-fashioned ones say, ‘Oh, they want to use our toilets.’ ‘Why shouldn’t they use your toilets?’ ‘For ladies!’ ‘They are ladies — look at their pronouns! What about this person isn’t a lady?’ ‘Well, his penis.’ ‘Her penis, you f***ing bigot!’ ‘What if he rapes me?’ ‘What if she rapes you, you fucking TERF w***e?'”
It's certainly not the first time that Gervais has made jokes about the trans community - and he has been slammed by fellow comics for his material.
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When he was hosting the Golden Globes in 2016, Ricky started making jokes about Caitlyn Jenner and the fatal car accident she was involved in.
"What a year she’s had. She became a role model for trans people everywhere – showing great bravery in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes," said Gervais.
"She didn’t do a lot for women drivers. But you can’t have everything, can you? Not at the same time."
One of those who has hit out at Gervais, somewhat surprisingly, was controversial Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle.
The former Mock The Week star slammed his colleague's ability to do stand-up comedy and urged him to stick to creating TV shows.
"My genuine reaction was, it’s not that much weirder than Ricky Gervais saying that he’s a stand-up comedian," said Frankie at one of his shows.
"I mean, look, we know Ricky Gervais, he’s a brilliant actor, he’s a brilliant writer, he’s not a f**king stand-up comedian! Just ‘cos Ricky Gervais self-identifies as a stand-up comedian, am I supposed to say that he is one? It’s f**king political correctness gone mad!"
Frankie, who himself sparked outrage in the past by mocking Harvey Price, spoke to Louis Theroux on his Grounded podcast in December 2020 about Ricky's comments about trans people.
"If you’re a stand-up watching him, you feel like, ‘oh, that’s someone doing a version of what we do'," said Frankie.
"But really, it’s that I saw him doing his routine about trans people and I thought it was very lazy.
"I would like him to have the same respect for trans people as he seems to have for animals. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask."
Seemingly in response to Frankie's criticism, Ricky tweeted a few days later: "I look down on everyone equally."
Another comedian who has taken aim at Gervais is James Acaster, whose rant about comics "slagging off transgender people" to be edgy has resurfaced and gone viral.
During his Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 tour in 2019, James said: "They say whatever they like, edgy comedians. No one tells them what they can and can’t say. They walk straight on stage, top of their specials sometimes, and do 10 solid minutes just slagging off transgender people.
"People on the internet get upset about it… the comedian’s always like, ‘Bad luck, that’s my job, I’m a stand-up comedian, I’m there to challenge people. If you don’t like being challenged, don’t watch my show. What’s the matter guys, too challenging for you?’"
After repeating that last line multiple times, James then continued with his skit and went on to directly name Gervais.
He continued: "Yeah, cause you know who’s been long overdue a challenge? The trans community. They’ve had their guard down for too long, if you ask me. They’ll all be checking their privilege on the way home, thanks to you, you brave little cis boy.
"I used to name one of the comedians that was about, in that routine, but it always got really awkward in the room because apparently in 2019 most people are still more than happy to laugh at trans people but they’re not comfortable laughing at Ricky Gervais yet. That’s the line."
Acaster has since discussed the need to challenge anti-trans comedy, telling Metro it was an important thing for him to do.
"First of all, it started, like a lot of comedy routines do, if you see something that’s ridiculous or silly, then you want to make a joke about it," said James.
"I think the attitude of comedians saying that they’re challenging people with their comedy and then punching down is just completely nonsensical because that’s not how challenging people works.
"That was the first thing that made me want to do a routine about it and then I guess I carried on doing the routine because if, in your place of work, people are behaving in a way that’s not appropriate or acceptable, or that you’re opposed to, it’s probably on you to speak out about it.
"I wouldn’t say I was speaking out about it but it was other comedians doing that sort of stuff so I thought I’d rather not totally keep my mouth shut about it."
Finally we get to The Mash Report star Nish Kumar, who called Gervais' 2018 Netflix special, Humanity, 'a f***ing piece of s**t'.
In his own stand-up routine in 2018, Nish explained: "What he’s doing is not edgy or interesting. He seems to think that it makes him an edgy or interesting comedian, it’s not.
"All he is, is just the same as every other rich white dude comedian who gets too successful, runs out of ideas, and so just s**ts on the latest minority group.
"In the 1970s that was my f**king family, it’s Black and minority ethnic people, in the 80s it was gay people.
"Trans people are just the latest to get it in the neck from comedians who can’t be bothered to try at their jobs anymore.
"I cannot stand there and watch another dogs**t comedian go, 'Oooh if a woman can identify as a man, maybe I’ll identify as a chair' – why don’t you identify as a good comedian you hack motherf**kers!"
Since that clip has resurfaced, it will come as no surprise that Piers Morgan has hit back at Kumar.
The outspoken former GMB presenter blasted the 'woke' comedian, tweeting: "Watching #SuperNature on @netflix – absolutely outrageous, fabulously offensive, hilariously funny & already enraging all the right people like @MrNishKumar who are too woke, humourless & dumb to understand the comedy. Brilliant work @rickygervais."
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