Further to that Rowling and Boyle post yesterday, see Victoria Smith's Critic piece – The most pretentious edgelord:
Not being offended by Frankie Boyle is an in-group signifier. It shows you’re one of those special people who knows all the hidden meanings, not just why Boyle’s back catalogue of transphobic gags isn’t offensive, but also why Ricky Gervais’s jokes about Caitlyn Jenner are, in Boyle’s own words, “lazy”.
“I would like [Gervais] to have the same respect for trans people he seems to have for animals,” opines Boyle. Thank goodness for that. I’d hate it to be the same respect Frankie Boyle has for rape victims and disabled children.
Approving of Frankie Boyle and not Ricky Gervais shows you get it. What it is you get, you’re not really sure, but anyhow, you’re better than all the people who don’t.
But yes, read it all.
Boyle wants to be seen as fearless, speaking the truths others shy clear of, but he's never going to cross the trans taliban who seem to rule "progressive" comedy now. So this is what we get – and it all sits very nicely with his misogyny.
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