Talk:Ricky Gervais

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Order of Roles

Given the success of the office and relatively little success of his stand up, the order of his jobs feels wrong, is there a rule for the order that should be used?

IMO he's most famous for

1. writer 2. film producer 3. director 4. actor 5. Atheist 6. stand-up comedian 7. musician

And to be honest he's probably more famous for doing hot takes on stuff than any of his stand-up material

82.15.89.151 (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On the note of hot takes, I do wonder why there's no mention in his Personal Views, Social Media, or even at a long-shot his Political Activism section about his transphobic views? It just says that he's a "supporter of gay rights" without mentioning the notable view he has of another part of the LGBT community. 103.248.19.187 (talk) 07:56, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It would be difficult to justify entries about his allegedly transphobic views as there don't seem to be many reliable sources talking about it (reminder: Twitter isn't a reliable source). There are reliable sources talking about the various backlashes/defences of his jokes around transgender people (and maybe the article should have more of that), though all of the results my search turned up seemed to understand the difference between jokes and personal views.

Also, re: the initial point about the order Gervais' jobs are listed in. Firstly, I think the argument is deeply flawed. Gervais' stand-up comedy has earned him a lot of notoriety (often controversial) and the idea that it would be ranked below his role as a director or film producer, or the fact that he's an atheist, is a bit daft. There's also the fact that the media (and, as a result, Wikipedia) puts "comedian" upfront any time it's in their resume. Russel Brand, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Noel Fielding, Adam Carolla, Jim Carrey... all people not primarily known for being comedians, all have "comedian" mentioned 1st or 2nd on their Wiki ledes. That's just how the media refers to people. Along with inexplicably including everyone's age for no reason.

I suspect this suggestion wasn't actually a serious concern, but a troll-ish attempt to devalue Gervais' humour. It seems to have become increasingly important for people who don't like a particular comedian to argue that their comedy "isn't funny". In any case, the argument has very little merit whether you look at it from a Wiki policy/reliable sources standpoint or just the reality of his objectively notable stand-up career. John Bullock (talk) 22:11, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://deadline.com/2022/05/ricky-gervais-supernature-netflix-special-criticism-trans-jokes-1235031385/

Gervais explicitly states that his controversial "jokes" are decrying so-called "trans ideology". This is a clear controversial thing about him that should be properly represented in the article, especially considering just how many times he's come under fire for transphobic bigotry and how it goes completely unmentioned here. 2600:4040:9DE1:CA00:6839:FECE:AF1A:F7C4 (talk) 18:19, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that RG has become an increasingly controversial and polarising figure in the years after Derek. His recent Netflix special has received some scathing reviews, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/03/dave-chappelle-the-dreamer-ricky-gervais-armageddon-netflix The article doesn't mention this at all, and reads more like a fan piece. --Ef80 (talk) 15:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tour dates?

It is a bit odd to include past tour dates so prominently on the Wiki. It is not going to be interesting to anyone in the future. It makes more sense to say he visited those places in a tour, in a sentence describing it. Rather than its own table.Perennial Student (talk) 10:29, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that it's odd to have a list of dates for one tour only in this table and to not mention any other tours. It would be better to do as you've suggested and also re-title the DVD/Netflix table as the tours table, so that it's easy to find the info, rather than having to read through the article text to find them. --IndigoBeach (talk) 11:46, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As the single table of dates is both out of place well out of date, I'm going to roll the filmed shows table into the Filmography section as has been done with Chapelle and remove the Stand-up tours section. --VariousDeliciousCheeses (talk) 15:32, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fat Slags

I've removed this film from his filmography. It's not listed on his IMDB page, nor is he listed on the film's IMDB page. I can also find no other reference online to him having appeared in the film. The full film is at the time of writing available to watch on Youtube and I skipped to the credits to check if he's there and he isn't. I suspect it may have been vandalism when it was added originally; if he was in the film it was uncredited, but (for obvious reasons) I'm unwilling to actually sit through the film to double check if he's definitely not in it.