Gervais pulled no punches during his stint as host in 2010, and was, I think, surprised to be asked to return this year. He said he was determined to make the most of it. If he gets asked to host again in 2012, I'll be definitely be tuning in.
In his opening monologue, he ridiculed Charlie Sheen, the Golden Globes themselves, the voting panel, the cast of Sex and the City 2, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie (and all involved in The Tourist), Hugh Hefner, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Cher and a few others I've forgotten. In under five minutes.
The blogosphere has been suggesting that his performance irritated the audience. I don't know if that's true. It certainly unsettled many of those in the room, but then I don't think they were Gervais' audience. Rather than pander to the celebrities at his feet, he was giving them a right kicking for the benefit of his audience at home. And let's face it, if you watched, you tuned in to worship, or to sneer. If it was the former, please, find a worthier deity. If it was for the latter, then you're a shallow person who's in for a treat.
Gervais has made a career out of lampooning people, most notably himself. Therefore, for him to do anything less than skewer the sycophancy that so often blights these mutual back-slappings would have been a underwhelming sell-out of the lowest order. I'm sure not all of his barbs hit their marks, but I think he deserves a great deal of credit for trying to fire off so many, and landing as many as he did. And I reckon you've got to be a pretty self-righteous believer in celebrity hype not to think that the majority of his digs were anything less than extremely (and outrageously) funny.
And it's quite ironic that in the blogs/articles I've read that criticise his performance are a smattering of inferior versions of those same barbs. So what's going on? Has Gervais crossed some kind of societal line by insulting people to their faces, rather than behind their backs? Or has he simply stolen the thunder of the blogosphere by out-bitching anything they could possibly have come up with? I wonder. Perhaps attacking Gervais could seem a prudent way of scoring a few brownie points with a few insulted celebs; who knows.
Gervais might have gone too far in the minds of some, but let's remember what we're talking about here; we're talking about a self-congratulatory awards show. For actors. It's not like he's insulting war veterans, nurses or those who actually keep society functioning. No, instead he's simply pissed on a few egos. With any luck, people will actually see vacuity of celebrity for what it is, and sales of Who and other trashy mags will plummet.
But somehow, I don't think this is going to happen. But until then, I doff my hat to Ricky Gervais. Mr Gervais, Sir, you've got balls of steel.
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