I don't reduce it to the point where I say I don't like him because he doesn't punch down.
Although, I think it's a good idea to be mindful that I don't think something is necessarily unfunny if it is punching down.
Frankie at his best appealed to most people because they were cynical and he was too.
You didn't even have to be thinking the things he was thinking for it to be funny, but just the thought of Frankie himself being so cynical that he would "punch down" so brutally and so often made him unique and watchable.
And at the same time, Frankie wasn't really that horrible, racist, disablist etc, but he recognised that people found cynical funny, that's why he worked.
As well, he used to say it was unfair to say comedy was the last bastion of free speech and then try to tell him he can't tell controversial jokes...
Also, do you remember "untitled street" on tramadol nights? That was a clear tip of the hat to the incipient censorship we would face, then he goes and pulls the ladder up and says Ricky Gervais shouldn't be allowed to tell his jokes about "whatever".
I don't especially like punching down, but I just think we should live in a world where we are allowed to be free to discern for ourselves what is funny without censorship infringing on comedians jokes. If you don't like a joke somebody told, then don't watch em.
I mean, I choose to do that every day of my life with miranda Hart because I've never liked a single joke she's told.
Given that Frankie has told way worse than 99.9% of standups I would argue that he stinks of hypocrisy for that. Not even a Gervais fan.
He's a great writer, and he's random as fuck, which is often funny.
I just lost all respect for him as a person and artist for being a hypocrite.
