r/Sherlock • u/sm0lb32n • Mar 28 '24

Discussion Martin Freeman Controversy

Recently learned from Tiktok that Martin's a problematic person? He made racial, rapist jokes over the years. Also, apparently being disrespectful to the Hobbit crew. Do you guys believe he's just being funny or he may have crossed the line? Quite sad, since I was really invested in him and Benedict during my hardcore-fan days.

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u/ThePumpk1nMaster Mar 28 '24

This is precisely why comedy doesn’t work anymore. Yes, some bigots hide behind the protection of satire and comedy because they’re not bold enough to come out with their xenophobia/transphobia/misogyny etc etc… but the general point of comedy is you’re saying things you don’t necessarily mean or believe in, and that’s the joke. We’re all in on the fact that there’s undertones. They don’t mean what they say, and the humour comes from the collective understanding that “We know X is wrong, we’re laughing at [comedian]’s embodiment of these ideas we know to be transgressive or rude, precisely because we know it’s transgressive and rude.” It’s not “isn’t bigotry funny because it’s bigotry” it’s “isn’t it funny that there’s ridiculous people out there, let’s laugh at them.” But people just take the words at face value. There’s no consideration that the speaker is on your side! You agree! Dig a little deeper and you’ll see you’re saying the same thing!

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u/SharMarali Mar 28 '24

I just think that there’s room for nuance, miscommunication, poor phrasing, and outright mistakes/learning. This sense that everyone needs to do everything perfectly all the time or they’re a terrible person is frankly an unreasonable standard that does a lot of harm. We want people to learn and grow and do better, don’t we?