Animal testing is largely a philosophical area. After all, there is not one concrete reason we must test first on animals. We could go straight to human testing. The only reason we don't is because we value our own hides more than the lives of other animals.
There are multiple reasons, actually, including sample size, feasibility of finding new subjects when experiments need to be repeated for any reason, and, in the case of veterinary treatments, the fact that testing on humans would be less precise than on animals.
What Ricky Gervais and other high-profile activists do when they demonize medical animal testing without providing a viable alternative is effectively continue to reap the benefits it has given humanity and our animal companions, be they pets or livestock, while ostensibly distancing themselves from it and sometimes making it harder for researchers to actually do their jobs.
It's kinda similar to upper-class liberalism that harps on poor working conditions in Chinese factories while many of the people who espouse it continue buying the products of those factories because they're cheaper and more desirable than many alternatives. Somehow I doubt Gervais will volunteer himself or any of his animals for testing, and I don't fault him for that in the slightest. What I do fault him for is the simplistic approach to a complicated issue where, for one reason or another, he fails to acknowledge the different aspects of the issue he's campaigning against.
He's not really creating a harmful influence though. Many of his harshest jokes, after all, include vicious self-deprecating stabs.
Anyone can engage in self-deprecation as much as they want; it's when they give themselves liberty to also deprecate others who didn't consent that problems arise.
I think jokes that punch down or minimize the traumatic nature of certain subjects are generally harmful. This doesn't just apply to Ricky Gervais.
That's called agism. Lumping people together like that, assuming behaviors are because of when someone was born, and dismissing all as a part of a looney concept of generation is agist as it is judging someone by their birth year rather than content of character.
I'm not assuming; I'm observing the attitudes of multiple high-profile comedians and politicians from that era. Almost every time a controversy arises because a comedian said something out of line or harmful, it's someone like Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle, or another Boomer or Gen X'er.
Is this a coincidence? I suppose there's a chance it is, but I think it's much more likely to be a symptom of refusing to adapt to a changing sociopolitical and cultural landscape than the one they grew up in. This is especially so when we consider the fact that most who vote for particularly conservative politicians tend to be older voters.
