The sketch, which, as of this writing, has logged about 1 million views and 33 thousand likes on YouTube since being uploaded yesterday, has not been received warmly by at least one Tourette’s group. “Over recent weeks, our community has faced an unprecedented wave of online trolling, misinformation, and targeted mockery. Following the extremely difficult events surrounding the BAFTAs, many people with Tourette’s have been struggling with fear, shame, isolation and a HUGE need to defend a condition they cannot control,” said Emma McNally, CEO of U.K. charity Tourettes Action, in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “We had hoped this would be a new week and we could move on but the release of further content online that has been designed to ridicule Tourette’s and reduce our community to a punchline has only deepened that hurt.”
EW reports that the organization has a longstanding relationship with Davidson. McNally’s statement continues, “I want to be completely clear here THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. Mocking a disability is never acceptable. It would not be tolerated for any other condition, and it should not be tolerated by people with Tourette’s. Tourette’s is a complex neurological condition, of which there is no cure. It is not a joke. It is not a personality trait. It is not a source of entertainment. It is a condition that can be extremely debilitating, causing pain isolation and huge amounts of discrimination.”
Davidson has spoken about his experience and the embarrassment he felt after the BBC failed to edit the slur out of the broadcast. “I felt a wave of shame and embarrassment hit me all at once,” he said in a statement to Variety after the ceremony last week. “You want the floor to swallow you up. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to hide—just get away from all the eyes […] I was hoping people would understand.” As of this writing, NBC has not publicly commented on the sketch.
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