Golden Globes: Gervais skewers Hollywood
Ricky Gervais “finally said what everyone outside Tinseltown has been thinking,” said Emily Jashinsky in TheFederalist.com. The subversive British comic’s hosting turn at Sunday’s Golden Globes “deserves to go down in award show history” for his savage takedown of Hollywood’s liberal sanctimony. “You know nothing about the real world,” Gervais told the assembled stars. “So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your god, and f--- off.” As actors gaped in astonishment, Gervais mocked their hypocrisy for lecturing the public while making movies and cable shows for the likes of sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, minimumwage specialist Amazon, and Apple—“a company that runs sweatshops in China.” For all comics who claim to speak truth to power, “this is how it’s done,” said Kyle Smith in the New York Post. Gervais hilariously exposed the divide between Hollywood’s preening self-regard and what the rest of the world sees: “a gang of pretentious jerkwads” who mistakenly “think their insights on world affairs matter.”
Gervais’ cynical malevolence was “painful to watch,” said Sophie Gilbert in TheAtlantic. com. For entertainers to raise their voices at such a dark time for our country was entirely appropriate, from Michelle Williams defending abortion rights to Patricia Arquette voicing fear of war with Iran to Russell Crowe linking climate change to the wildfire devastation in his native Australia. Gervais’ “tired agitator shtick” smacked of “nihilism,” said Lorraine Ali in the Los Angeles Times. With impeachment looming, possible war in the Middle East, and Australia ablaze, “the last thing anyone needed was for the smirking master of ceremonies to reprimand them for having hope, or taunt the room for trying to use their influence to change things for the better.”
In a polarized country, Gervais’ “subversive” assault on Hollywood served as a “political lightning rod,” said Tiana Lowe in Washington Examiner.com. Conservatives were gleeful. “The Left started hand-wringing.” But Gervais, who has mocked President Trump as “stupid and arrogant,” is actually apolitical: His honest, bracing comedy is part of a venerable tradition, “reminiscent of the ancient Greek chorus or court jester” holding the powerful to account. “Presumably, the most lauded actors in the country have some familiarity with the role of fools challenging kings in Hamlet and King Lear, even if they had to SparkNotes it.”