Monday, January 17, 2011

I wearied of awards shows a long time ago...

...so if anything truly unexpected happens at one, then I won't see it firsthand. So it was with Ricky Gervais' performance as host of the Golden Globes Sunday night. Apparently Ricky lobbed a barrage of toxic barbs at the Hollywood elite, and even some of the nominees for same awards. After a while of this ill-received, gasp-eliciting palaver, the host did not return to the stage for around an hour. Conspiracy theories were tweeted around the world. He later returned with a more subdued demeanour. Yet more gossip abounded.


Ricky is the creator of the English series The Office, of which the American series of the same title was inspired. Ricky's humour style is distinguished by an awkward, often rude and uncomfortably off-the-mark observations. He plays a boorish character, and people have loved him for that. Considering such humour is his stock in trade, I wonder who the frell expected him to do otherwise in an award show setting? Would you hire Fran Drescher to speak extemporaneously on French Symbolist poetry? No, you'd hire Fran because she's really hawt for a woman who laughs like a donkey. Would you engage a chimney sweep to engineer your wedding cake? Me neither.

Awkward, off-the-mark, boorish humour is what Gervais does, so I say if they hired him for the host job, then they deserve what they got. You can't sit around calling him a comic genius on one hand and then crying foul when he turns that caustic wit on you.

It's all fun and games until someone starts telling the truth. Hollywood has been drinking their own kool-aid for too long.
Hollywood is all about illusions, and to paraphrase a famous movie, they can't handle the truth.

I say give Ricky Gervais a raise. That guy is either immaculately stupid, or he seriously clanks when he walks.

5 comments:

Jon said...

I'm guessing he made enough money on this tour to not need another.

Judging by his comments, I don't think they'll ever invite him back. His caustic humor was too honest for the denizens of the ivory towers. It will take weeks to remove the tarnish.

Joanna said...

I've seen him on British talk shows, where they have a higher tolerance for this sort of thing. He clanks.

Shannon said...

Oh, how I concur...with you, and with Ricky.

Josh Kruschke said...

He's british and they're a pretty irreverent when it comes to there celebrities.
I would of given him more propes if he cam out and did the same.

Jennifer said...

Trained monkey does what he is trained to do. No one should be shocked.