Comedian Ricky Gervais started controversy this week when he tweeted a picture of American hunter Rebecca Francis with a dead giraffe to his 7.9 million followers with the caption:
"What must've happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling?"
In the picture, Francis lays next to a dead giraffe she hunted and killed. The photo was retweeted more than 40,000 times. The resulting firestorm of criticism has turned into a vicious back and forth between Gervais, his supporters, and the hunting community, who claim he is singling out female hunters for abuse. Francis responded to this controvert herself, writing:
"When I was in Africa five years ago I was of the mind-set that I would never shoot a giraffe. . . . He was past his breeding years and very close to death. They asked me if I would preserve this giraffe by providing all the locals with food and other means of survival. He was inevitably going to die soon and he could either be wasted or utilized by the local people. I chose to honor his life by providing others with his uses and I do not regret it for one second."
In a follow up post, Francis said "Ricky Gervais has used his power and influence to specifically target women in the hunting industry and has sparked thousands of people to call for my death, the death of my family and many other women who hunt. I repeat I will never apologize for being a woman who hunts as I know that my passion for hunting and conservation is making a direct difference on the ground for wildlife."
After researching and reading about this controversy, I'm left confused by Francis's response and the change in topic. Why did she believe that Gervais was targeting her as a woman? Where did he "specifically target women in the hunting industry"? No where in his post or response did he make gender an issue. While it may be true that others have posted these sorts of threat to Francis, Gervais has never been quoted using sexist language. I found it confusing that Francis would automatically shift the focus of topic to gender, rather than the actual issue at hand, which deals with hunting trophy animals for pure sport. The language Francis used is particularly interesting and worthy of scrutiny. Gervais did not ask Francis to apologize for being a woman, he wanted her to apologize for killing for sport. Francis made herself the victim, even though in the original and actual story, she was the hunter.
This also goes for the media's coverage of the issue. When I read about this issue this week, it wasn't about hunting or the morals of killing animals, but instead if Francis was being attacked because of her gender. The media was manipulating the topic and spinning it into a gender debate. While I do agree with equal right's for women, I don't think this issue needed to be changed into a sexist argument. What if Francis was a male (the dominant face of the sport)? Would the sex argument even have been made? Almost certainly not. It's unfair that this important issue got changed to an argument about gender, masking the actual hunting problem. It's also interesting the it took five years for the photo to go viral. With the 40,000 retweets, there are certainly a number of people who care about this issue. Why did it take a comedian to make them aware of it? Are they not researching it on their own? If they care so much about the issue so much, and allow it to cause controversy, one would assume they do. What if Gervais had never tweeted this picture to his millions of followers? Would Francis still be without world news controversy?
Gervais, in his typical sarcastic tone, responded to the sexism comment with the tweet: We need to stamp out this terrible sexism in the noble sport of trophy hunting. The men & women that do it are EQUALLY vile & worthless."
A long time supporter of animal rights, it is not uncommon for Gervais to support such issues. He also wrote: "These psycho trophy hunters always have stuff about their family being everything to them on their profiles. Elephants love their family too." He later added, "The trophies I'm proudest of are the memories of all those times I didn't kill a beautiful, majestic, endangered species for no reason."
I'm glad this issue is getting more attention, even with the gender distraction. People need to be aware how the media and the language used can change issues and our motivations/ideologies.
