You're ugly
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 12:46 am
Comedian Mike Ward has just been fined $42,000 by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal for a comic riff at the expense of Jérémy Gabriel, a young disabled singer, which culminated in the line: “I didn’t know what illness he had, so I Googled it and it turns out he’s just ugly.” Ward is incensed by the ruling and has responded with an Edinburgh fringe show, entitled “Freedom of Speech Isn’t Free”. Neither is putting on an Edinburgh fringe show, if memory serves me right. If I were his bank manager, I’d text him the first rule of holes.
It’s ironic that Ward’s joke has been broadcast so much more widely as a result of the tribunal’s ruling
There’s a strange reverse-libel system at work when it comes to insults to people’s appearance. It’s not lies that people mind, it’s honesty. If you call a beautiful person ugly, no one much cares – it just reflects badly on your eyesight. It’s saying it when it’s true that’s taboo. Echoing the unexpressed thought in others’ minds is what gives greatest offence. To a person who’s been called ugly, the louder the offended clamour against the insult, the greater the implied endorsement of the insulter’s opinion.
Which isn’t to say that the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal secretly shares Ward’s view of Gabriel’s appearance. The tribunal is a body dedicated to stamping out unfair discrimination, and its judgment, as expressed by Justice Scott Hughes, is that “The discrimination that Jérémy fell victim to is unjustifiable.” Jérémy himself has claimed that Ward’s riff “made me think my life is worth less than another’s because I’m handicapped”.
So it’s the fact that Jérémy Gabriel is disabled that makes insulting him unlawful, according to the tribunal. Which, as Ward has pointed out himself, sounds a bit discriminatory in itself. So it’s fine to insult someone without a disability, but a disabled person can’t take it? They have to be given an easy ride, a life of patronising compliments. It all sounds a bit “Does he take sugar?” and unlikely to result in a marked increase in the number of wheelchair-using CEOs.
