Ricky Gervais Just Said What We Were All Thinking
1/17/2011 Posted by Admin
Television/Awards News
By our guest blogger, Joe Oliveto
Last night’s Golden Globe Awards were memorable, to say the least. Not because of the winners--there weren’t any big surprises, and the acceptance speeches tended to be short, to the point and not terribly emotional. True, De Niro won the C.B. DeMille award, but for a person who has made a living performing, he’s not a great public speaker and his speech consisted of several awkward jabs at the Holly Foreign Press that fell pretty flat.
No, the only thing really worth talking about in response to last night was the behavior of host Ricky Gervais, who didn’t pull any punches with the crowd in the room. Gervais is known for a particularly scathing style of humor, and he wasn’t going to tone things down just so the stars of Hollywood could feel safe.
In his opening monologue, Gervais went after the easy target of Charlie Sheen, who being both a major embarrassment to himself and, thankfully, not present at the show, was fodder for some good laughs. It was when Gervais decided to actually go after the people in attendance, that some people seemed to get angry.
Gervais made it a point to crack jokes about whichever presenter he was introducing, be it Bruce Willis, who he called “Asthon Kutcher’s dad,” or Sylvester Stallone, who he praised for having the acting skills to play both a boxer and Rambo.
Many at home probably enjoyed seeing Hollywood’s pampered stars get taken down a peg, but a few of Gervais’ targets were probably less pleased. He made the easy joke about Robert Downey Jr.’s history with drugs, and to be fair, that was a major personal struggle for the star and it could have been embarrassing to be reminded of it in front of a room of his peers.
But, speaking as a dedicated RDJ fan, I’ll say this--Ricky Gervais never crossed the line. I love movies and I love movie stars, but you can’t help feeling angry when these people commit crimes or fall into addiction but still get treated like royalty by countless yes-men. They have all the money anyone could ever need and, while with celebrity status comes the burden of sacrificing privacy, they get all the attention they crave. It’s about time someone had the guts to let them know that they aren’t perfect.
It was all in good fun, and if these stars lack a sense of humor, that is their problem.
January 18, 2011 at 5:21 PM
Do you think he'll be back to host again or do you think he's done?
January 18, 2011 at 5:29 PM
Bravo! You nailed it. Ricky just said publicly what has been said many times privately. There are very few forums where public figures are held up to ridicule (or a mirror!) any longer. Is it really the worst thing in the world to see the rich and beautiful get their feet held to the fire one night of the year?
Maybe, it's just me. Of course, I'm one of those people that watches Comedy Central every night to see the same thing done to politicians!
PS I also enjoyed the hell out of seeing celebrities in a venue that isn't lit to hide their flaws, and the cameras aren't trained on their 'good side'. Seeing balding male stars who have painted their scalp or actresses who are derma-filled to capacity were just a couple of the chuckles last night!
Did anyone else observe that Stallone's face looked like more like a caricature done of himself from the 70's with just a hint of femininity than ...well...what you might EXPECT Stallone to look like? Maybe Ricky should give him a call before Sly's next round of plastic surgery.