2024-09-10 06:26:28
Tasteless jokes about people with disabilities have put Luke Mockridge in the crossfire of criticism. But what about the others who joined in?
This derailment prevents Luke Mockridge’s TV comeback: “There are people without arms and legs who are thrown into a pool – and whoever drowns last wins,” he said in the podcast “Die Deutschen”. The hosts of the format are the comedian Nizar and the YouTuber Shayan Garcia. Both burst into loud laughter, make questionable comments about disabled people and imitate people with physical disabilities in a degrading way.
There are already consequences for Luke Mockridge: A storm of indignation swept over the comedian at the weekend. The broadcaster Sat.1 pulled the ripcord – and canceled the TV comeback with the new show “What’s in the Box?”, which was originally planned for September 12th. Read more about it here. But hardly anyone is talking about Nizar and Shayan Garcia.
The comedian Nizar had announced Luke Mockridge’s visit to X as follows: “Get ready, Woke Bubble. As befits a goblin, I’ve teased out a really disgusting side. I’m looking forward to the whining.” The man was obviously well aware of how over the line the comments in the podcast were. It even seems as if the anti-disabled jokes were used as a deliberate provocation to increase attention.
It was only recently that Nizar was not the first to attract attention with his tasteless comments, when he openly anti-Semiticly referred to Jewish people as “gold coin collectors” and dismissed a critic with the sentence “I don’t take advice from people who use gender.” Nizar has already been criticized in the past for anti-Semitic statements.
Olympic and world champion in track cycling, Kristina Vogel, wrote on Instagram to the podcast hosts: “They have also made some really stupid statements and have kept a very, very low profile so far.” Vogel is in a wheelchair herself after a training accident in 2018. The author Jasmina Kuhnke wrote in response to a post by Nizar that one could consider “whether one wants to accept criticism and contribute to being part of the solution, or decide to remain part of the problem.”
But we wait in vain for a reaction from the two podcasters. The latest thing that Nizar and Shayan have posted on their social media channels is advertising for their “big arena tour”. Perhaps the increased attention will help them to sell more tickets for their remaining performances. So far, only one date in Frankfurt is sold out.