The IT Crowd - S3E4 - The Speech (ETS21 Reacts)

Did you clear this with The Elders of the Internet?

Kurt Kish

“It’s not you, it’s me. No wait, it is you.”😂

Kurt Kish

It shows you how over-sensitive people are that they missed that. To quote Mark Normand: “Comedy!”

Kurt Kish

I don’t care AT ALL if anyone was offended. As an American who was a lifelong Democrat, I now just consider myself politically Independent because the insanity of the Woke mob took over the Left- JUST LIKE the Christian Fundamentalists took over the Right in the Reagan years. Wokeism has set Feminism back 50 years. Great Googly Moogly! This episode was AWESOME. But then again, every episode from season 2 on was great. The IT Crowd is my favorite BritCom. Probably Peep Show is #2.

Kurt Kish

I have a feeling that people who are not Trans took offence on behalf of the trans 'community' on this one. Any Trans viewers out there, correct me if I'm wrong. It's a hyper/surrealistic show anyway but it was quite obvious to me that Douglas realised he was punched in the jib by a biological male and thus responded to fire with fire and went 'all in' in an exaggerated fashion. Mano Mano. I actually thought for the time, this episode was quite progressive!

Dave Henshall

So triggered! 🤣

CJ

It was the silly woke mob that got this episode cancelled.

Gary Mcatear

yea fair enough. i see wat u mean, but i don't get it still, but thats the graham Lineham humour! i suppose its the same as when the guy Scottish guy said Jen looked like a man, to him.

Industrialist2015ofUk

She is obviously a woman, that's part of the joke. No Adam's Apple or anything :)

Andy Roberts

I ain't commenting much on this subject matter ahaha, but April is not believable to have been a man...unless she was a boy who had hormonal treatment before 13years old, and became female before and during her teen years. those are the ones who look like (and are biologically mostly) a female. Im not saying some men, who don't have masculine features, can't look like women! that can happen also

Industrialist2015ofUk

Don't think anyone gets cancelled for this, just enjoy without guilt guys! Thanks for your reaction

Andy Roberts

fawlty towers dead

This reminds me of The Strong Woman Competition with Heather Swanson in South Park at least its an equal fight 🤣

Jack

Matt Berry was best man at my friend's wedding! Anyway - This is episode is one of my favourites. Controversial in retrospect for a variety of reasons as Mark Beard so eloquently put but also in places funny as f***! I give you - The Internet. Brilliant!

Duncan Hart

It’s painful to watch two grown men especially Spencer talking about being “cis”…clearly one of those. Deal with reality mate. “He’s a bit of a transphobe”? Sorry mate but grow a pair. He’s just not gay, it’s not “transphobic”.

Riki Andrews

As a Brit I say…absolutely nothing about it being “controversial”…to who? Nobody cares…that’s why our comedy is actually funny.

Riki Andrews

Just noticed when the woman in the audience says “does the internet weigh anything” someone in the background quietly says “fucking idiot” 😂😂 like in the Father Ted Sheep Episode where Graham says “Fucking Hell” when the farmer was exposed for cheating.

Josh B

Oh, poppet... to think when we met, you were so worried that you came from Iran. Is one of the greatest lines of the series. The way it slowly dawned on me what he means 😂😂. It’s classic.

Remi Moses

Wow, thank you Mike. I wasn’t expecting this response on the subject. Usually I seem like a lone cry in the dark, and people take a strong polarised view one way or the other, and I get bashed from both sides. For me, it’s about trying to understand why people might be offended, even if we don’t take an extreme reaction ourselves, so we can make kinder choices.

Mark Beard

This is an excellent summary of my feelings on it Mark, thank you!

What you need to know about the writer, Graham Linehan, is he is widely considered to be transphobic, not because of this content but because of his unguarded remarks on the subject outside of his script writing career. So naturally that calls into question the merits of certain plot lines in this episode. Edit: Okay, the issue here as I see it has nothing to do with people’s sexual preferences, but taking a character as a transgender woman and making her fight like a cisgender man for comedic effect. It’s using comedy to make the controversial point that a trans woman isn’t a real women, making fun of people who take the view that transgender people should be considered and treated as the gender they identify as. That I think is the core of the controversy. I’ve known several cisgender women who can take down the average man in a fight, and you call them less of a woman for that at your absolute peril. But it is insulting to trans women to suggest that they are true men underneath, waiting for the slightest provocation to reveal their true masculinity as this scene does. Personally I’m not desperately offended by it, but I can understand some people being. I just don’t find it very funny to poke fun at a poor representation of a marginalised group. Far funnier to me would have been if Jen had knocked the shit out of Douglas for trying to drug her with rohypnol, far funnier than the suggestion that he molested Moss and Roy instead. Let’s all laugh at homosexual rape everybody. I guess Linehan just isn’t very sophisticated, subtle or even post-1970s in his sexual humour. But apart from this dire plot device, I love this episode for the guys taking down a pompous Jen. I’ve even made replica internets and given them as Xmas presents in celebration of this one. Keep up the great work guys!

Mark Beard

As a gay man, though not identifying myself as non-binary but embodying femininity, I disagree that this episode is transphobic. To me, and it is actually quite clear in the framing that the joke is on Douglas rather than April. I don't even think this episode is just for laughs but actually a layered episode that the comedy succeeds because the 'tragedy' ensues - the absurdity that Douglas would just reject April not because who she is as a person now but who she was in the past. If we dig deeper into it, the episode is using comedy to comment on the stigma of how a masculine man still view a woman should be as an appropriate partner to him even though in the earlier montage it clearly shows that Douglas and April are the perfect partners in life if it's not because of the misheard. The end credit scene even further solidifies that the fool is Douglas because he realises that it is not the same without April in bed to have darts night. That's a definite conclusion to lead us questioning the performative presence of Douglas as a 'man' and his conservative views on women, while in private, he recognises himself that his beliefs are not the only true way. In other words (and contemporary terms), to 'queer' masculinity. However, I can understand why some would view it as transphobic because it was April who punches Douglas over a breakup, which can be tricky to be viewed as a stereotype on transgenders (or the LGBTQIA community in general), picturing them as mentally unstable and violent, 'queer' in a bad way (abnormal from 'normal' people who are 'sane').

Clement Lee

Lads please check out What they do in the shadows. If you like Matt berry you’ll love it

Erica

Take me back 20 years 😂

Erica

This episode is now called transphobic although I really think it’s just comedy. Graham linehan is one of the best comedy writers in the uk/Ireland that’s just basically a fact.He was totally cancelled and couldn’t make father Ted the musical as a result of a position he has taken. I am very much of the opinion if you don’t like it don’t watch it but don’t force others not to watch it.

Tuts Tut

Stop trying to police yourselves, say what you think be your self and stop worrying about the 0.1%

This is my second favourite episode, (The Work Outing is my favourite).

Michael K

I love this episode personally, and don’t consider it transphobic. I feel like it’s pretty neutral on the subject. It’s neither “eww, trans so weird” nor positive, Denholm is freaking out because he’s not attracted to men/trans women. But it just so happens Graham Linehan is a massive anti-trans obsessive to the extent his wife even left him for going on about it all the time and he’s trolled dating apps looking for trans people. Something in him definitely snapped at some point.

Mark Fraser

Did he become an anti-transgender activist?... That's not what I remember!... He was against the practice of young children having operations, which was becoming the norm in Scotland and Ireland and in fact encouraged by many adults in those countries... Anyone with an ounce of intellectual grey matter would agree with him that children that aren't capable of or legally allowed to buy cigarette's, purchase acholol, or have the mentally capacity to understand politics and allowed to vote should not be allowed to have a life changing operation!... Especially at a time where their hormones are all over the place and at a time when they are not sure what day it is, never mind what they are as a person yet.

BigChanChan

Mark Jones

I've been waiting for this episode. It's one of the funniest in all the series'. The transphobia is that April is post-op, full woman yet is written as behaving like a man still, likes male pastimes, fights like a man, etc. Also Denholm's reaction to finding she is trans is transphobic because if you're straight and you don't want to have sex or be in a relationship with a trans person then apparently you're a transphobe🤷🏻‍♀️ Personally I think that's individual choice but that's just me and I'm a TERF🙄🤣

Elizabeth Cushway

Graham Linehan the writer is the guy at the speech that shouts “We’re all gonna die”

Niall Molloy

I'm a Bob Mortimer nut. Matt Berry (Denholm JR) once appeared with Bob in a sitcom called House of Fools. It wasn't well received, but it was decent. Now, he, Bob, and Reece Shearsmith (League of Gentlemen, Inside No9 etc) have a monthly celebrity gossip club where they go, have dinner, and gossip. What I wouldn't give to go with them.

Kristopher Barton

context: Churchill is a car insurance company and in the advert, they have a bobble headed bulldog dog thing that nods his head and says 'Oh yes'.

Kristopher Barton

This one is my favourite episode of season 3 and possibly the whole run of the IT Crowd. And I identify as Asexual as well and am sensitive to the concerns of LGBT+ community about this episode but I find the whole plot hilarious and farcical in the best possible way.

John Gault