In comedy, reputation is everything and nothing. It\u2019s something to be valued, earned as it is through endless nights of stand-up and well-crafted jokes, but also something to be surrendered at a moment\u2019s notice for the simple pleasure of a laugh.<\/p>\n
Ricky Gervais has a more complex relationship with the idea of reputation than many comedians. Most sitcoms have jokes that rely on mocking people\u2019s reputations, but Gervais built an entire career around it. With his ground-breaking sitcom The Office<\/i>, Gervais made mockumentary the defining sub-genre of the new millennium and created an icon in David Brent, a man who lived and died by his reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n Brent was a man who more than anything wanted to be loved and admired by those around him. He was a corporate middle-manager who desperately wanted to be a chilled-out entertainer. Yet it was that very desire that made him such a cringe-worthy character, so eager to be the center of attention that it immediately became impossible for anyone to like him. You could compare it to a Greek tragedy if it wasn\u2019t also so hilarious.<\/span><\/p>\n As a comedy, The Office <\/i>was built on the idea of causing offense. Brent would say something crass or politically incorrect \u2014 like this<\/span><\/a>, or this<\/span><\/a>, or this<\/span><\/a> \u2014 and the audience would laugh because Brent made it OK to. He provided the distance between the joke and the viewer, meaning they weren\u2019t laughing at it, they were laughing at him.<\/span><\/p>\n More importantly, he earned the viewer\u2019s sympathy because we could tell that underneath all the bluster and posturing, his heart was in the right place, even if his words often weren\u2019t. He was a man tormented by his need to be liked, not one making jokes to intentionally upset anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n Gervais followed The Office<\/i> with Extras<\/i>, his most underrated sitcom, following the hapless extra Andy Millman as he pursues his fame and fortune. It takes a very similar comedic approach to The Office<\/i>, gleefully making life as awkward as possible for Andy and his best friend Maggie through a series of embarrassing faux pas.<\/span><\/p>\n If anything, the comedy is more merciless in Extras<\/i> than The Office<\/i> because Andy is a far more relatable lead than Brent. Both have a reliable tendency to put their foot in it, but whereas Brent only ever had himself to blame, Andy feels more like the victim of events conspiring against him, like countless other sitcom leads. He\u2019s also far more aware of his own flaws, finally confronting his hunger for fame in this brilliant scene from the Christmas Special<\/span><\/a>, comfortably the best thing Gervais has ever done:<\/span><\/p>\n