Ricky Gervais believes that The Office would “suffer” if it was released now because cancel culture has caused viewers to lose “their sense of irony and context.”
Gervais’ Bafta-winning series debuted on BBC Two in 2001 and saw the comedian, 59, star as hapless manager David Brent, who regularly made tone deaf, offensive remarks to his colleagues.
Looking back on the show in an interview with Times Radio on Friday, Gervais said audiences would take things too “literally” if the office was released now, “even though [the jokes] were clearly ironic.”
“Now [the show] would suffer because people would take things literally," he said. "There are these outrage mobs who take things out of context.
"This was a show about everything - it was about difference, it was about sex, race, all the things that people fear to even be discussed or talked about now, in case they say the wrong thing and they are cancelled."
He went on to claim that “the BBC have got more and more careful” about political correctness in comedy.
Gervais argued that The Office was "clearly ironic" (BBC )
"People want to keep their jobs, so would worry about some of the subjects and jokes, even though they were clearly ironic and we were laughing at this buffoon being uncomfortable around difference," he said.
"I think if this was put out now, some people have lost their sense of irony and context."
Gervais, who has previously faced criticism for the portrayal of disabled people in his show Derek, argued that there is “no nuance or discussion” about comedy “any more, it’s just fallen into two tribes of people screaming.”
“I genuinely think I don’t do anything that deserves to be cancelled,” he said. “Some people now don’t care about the argument or the issue, they just want to own someone, they want to win the argument.”
