Ricky Gervais’ Critics Are Hopelessly Blind To His Genius Golden Globes Performance

Some people just can’t take a joke — even when it’s not at their expense.

With beer in hand and tongue in cheek, Ricky Gervais gleefully thrashed the pretentious idiocy of Hollywood nobility with a swagger as natural as air.

And, as expected, his brutally brilliant performance at the recent 77th Golden Globe Awards has been reprimanded by a tiny gaggle of prominent yet delicate critics, while being celebrated by pretty much everyone else.

You see, Gervais was the only one in that room with the moxie to say out loud what the rest of the world only thinks when it comes to celebrity life:

So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything.

You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.

So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and fuck off, OK?

While roughly 90% of Earth’s population got every single one of his delightfully vicious barbs, there were a handful of oblivious, humorless dorks who were eager to miss the broader points of Gervais’ quips and lay bare their cluelessness of the minds of those of us who can appreciate the wrath of a good joke.

Below are a few choice examples of these critics’ raging ignorance of the culture they claim to speak for:

His Critics Made His Performance Needlessly Political

Pop culture is no longer a refuge from the lunatic circus of our national political discourse.

Big budget movies entertain less and preach more.

Celebrities have appointed themselves spokespeople of the common man.

And critics shamelessly sing the praises of their favorite movie stars/activists.

Gervais’ harshest detractors wore their political hearts on their sleeves when attempting to condemn his “dickish” jokes, and their opinions were both hilarious and depressing.

In her Los Angeles Times article, Politics reigned at the Golden Globes. Too bad Ricky Gervais didn’t notice, Lorraine Ali seems to believe that the Golden Globes should focus more on bringing about social change and celebrating diversity of skin color & genitals than recognizing the artistry of top films and TV shows.

But at the Beverly Hilton, where the three-hour-plus ceremony took place, the mood was already sober thanks to an impeachment, the threat of war with Iran and devastating bushfires in Australia.

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.

Curse you, Ricky Gervais, for making an entertainment awards show…entertaining! A pox upon your house of burlesque!

Jo Murch’s Independent article also posits that the shallow political pronouncements should’ve taken precedence over anything approaching art or amusement at the ceremony.

The awards were certainly not free from activism — powerful speeches were given by actors including Jennifer Aniston on climate change, Joaquin Phoenix on veganism, Michelle Williams on abortion rights and Patricia Arquette on the conflict between Iran/US. But any meaningful message is dampened when the man at the helm is making schoolboy jokes about paedophiles.

That’s why film and TV fans watch these masturbatory awards shows to begin with, right? To see the upper crust of the entertainment industry circle jerk itself while extolling the virtues of a kale-only diet?

In the Slate article, Conservatives Really, Really Loved Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes Monologue, Violet Kim curiously lists a handful glowing reviews of Gervais’ performance from prominent conservative figures to subtly imply that those who criticize woke celebrities are automatically MAGA hat-wearing deplorables.

Not everyone was amused by the jokes in his opening monologue (Tom Hanks, for one, was unimpressed), but regardless of one’s enjoyment of Gervais’ shtick, his monologue was comfortingly on-brand, a mixture of lightweight jabs (James Corden is fat, Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriends are young) and body blows (jokes about Apple’s sweatshops and Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide), topped off with the forceful suggestion that celebrities should keep their noses out of politics. It was also hugely popular with conservative media, which hailed him as a preacher of moral truth rather than a peddler of jokes.

However, Kim unintentionally makes a stronger argument: liberals can’t take a joke.

This is, of course, untrue, as the SJW hive-mind of Woke Folk is a far cry from actual liberalism, and most garden variety liberal voters have no problems with offensive jokes. But if Kim wants to take a shot at the modern right, highlighting the lack of humor on the modern left is a terrible way to do it.

It should also be noted that Ricky Gervais is anything but right wing, even referring to himself as a “champagne socialist”:

Listening to the fugitive wisecracks of a master jester is exactly the distraction we need from the petty partisan bickering that’s dominated our public conversation.

Laughter is one of the few causes that can break down our ideological barriers and allow us to remember that life is an absurd thing that should be lived with the solemnity of children playing hide-and-seek.

Unfortunately, to a loud, socially conscious few, humor is yet another concept that should be robbed of its whimsical anarchy in the name of The Agenda.

His Critics Don’t Understand The Purpose Of Comedians

In another Slate article, Sam Adams attempts to rank Gervais’ Golden Globes jokes “in order of dickishness”, but he just ends up making a “best of” compilation of the evening’s greatest hits instead.

Below are a couple of Adams’ weird choices for his cringey category names:

“Just Plain Mean”

The Irishman was amazing. Long, but amazing. It wasn’t the only epic movie. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long. Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere, and by the end, his date was too old for him. Even Prince Andrew’s like, “Come on, Leo, mate. You’re nearly 50, son.”

“Truth to Power”

Apple roared into the TV game with The Morning Show, a super drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. You say you’re woke, but the companies you work for, it’s unbelievable — Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service, you’d call your agent.

According to Adams’ mangled understanding of humor, it’s ok to take swipes at mega corporations that don’t care about the masses, but it’s not ok to take swipes at millionaire celebrities who don’t care about the masses.

Gervais’ opening monologue was less of a humorous preamble to the night’s festivities and more of a successful hit job on Hollywood’s brittle ego, an ego that’s been in line for a good sniping for some time now.

The effectiveness of Gervais’ contract killing on the average person’s behalf was severe enough to attract the contempt of Emily Alford, who took his performance way too personally despite not actually being the target, in her article for Jezebel:

“Remember, they’re just jokes,” he scolded the audience both at the show and at home, in what seemed to be a preemptive effort to avoid criticism, behind an apparent shield of self-awareness. The camera cut to Amy Poehler, who along with Tina Fey, has used the Golden Globes hosting gig to call out rampant abuse by powerful men and the industry that for decades ignored it. Poehler raised her eyebrows to the people at home with a look that reminded me of the ones I’ve shared with countless women, a silent signal acknowledging that the man we’re supposed to be listening to isn’t saying anything worth hearing.

According to Alford, Ricky Gervais wasn’t really skewering Hollywood elitists — he was really attacking the Common Woman with his pointy clown-words.

Damian Wilson makes his feelings clear on Gervais in the rambling title for his RT.com article, Oh my God, he mentioned Epstein! Please stop fawning over faux-edgy has-been Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes schtick, in which he shines a spotlight on Gervais’ tamest jokes of the evening while ignoring the perfect blows he made towards Hollywood nobility — the words that actually were edgy in a crowd of self-righteous demeanors and porcelain sensibilities.

Leonardo DiCaprio likes his girlfriends young. Gasp! Imagine Dame Judi Dench licking her own bum. Outrageous! Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself. You can’t say that! Ricky drops the f-word. OMG! Where’s my phone, I need to tweet how upset I am.

By completely dismissing Gervais because of his handful of grabs at low-hanging fruit, Wilson demonstrates his illiteracy of the humor arts and accidentally makes the case for why journalists of this ilk should be rounded up in the middle of the night and forced to live on a secluded island with barbed wire around it. I hear the Bermuda Triangle is nice this time of year…

Final Thoughts

Journalists who put these stars on pedestals operate in a media landscape where integrity and farce aren’t needed to make a cushy living. Just keep feeding the bored and hungry constituents of the Twitterati the bitter red meat they crave and pat yourself on the back for a job poorly done.

If my view of entertainment journalism seems overly cynical, think of how bleak our culture really is when columnists leap to the defense of millionaire celebrities who think they can fix society with high fashion, vegan meals, and feel-good platitudes while lounging in the luxury comfort of the Beverly Hilton.

All because a pudgy British guy said some nasty words at them.

Remember, this is the A-list society that has, as Bridget Phetasy puts it in a recent article:

…the audacity to call for an “economic revolution” after making fortunes off us working-class stiffs. They look down on anyone who doesn’t vote like them because they can’t possibly imagine a world in which they might be wrong. Fame has tricked them into believing they are the moral arbiter of all that is good and right and just in the world.

Those of us on the front lines of everyday worries and struggles have earned the right to look down at those above us and laugh proudly like the virtuous folk we are.

It’s not much in this deranged world, but it’s a right worth brandishing.

Check out my other jabs at woke culture below: