When you MC an awards show the usual routine is to stroke famous egos by kissing everyone's ass. Ricky Gervais brought it back to Dean Martin Celebrity Roast level by taking aim and letting fly at every over inflated tin plated ego in the room. As a matter of fact there's little I can say about that - except Ricky I'm gonna miss you - so here it is! Oh yeah and thanks for reviving the dead art of stand up comedy.
Now this performance is a departure from the usual MC suck job. People don't go to this things to get sent up or put on; they go to debut their new plastic surgery, or their new relationship, or their new designer duds. Then they run out the next morning to get the press clippings about them. Though the press clippings are usually the same "Brad and Angelina still together" (I think that's a case where the new astrology applies - she's more Taurus than Gemini; she won't leave cause she's too bloody minded too quit! Just like Hitler in WW2.), "So & so lost weight", "Nicole Kidman had a great dress but her face still looks like she just came from the dentists"; they never get tired of reading bland compliments about themselves. So the art of the host is to be blandly complimentary! If he can do that without being obvious and while keeping up a semblance of comedy he might make toast of the town. If the MC can throw in a few cracks at Sarah Palin he might become the next Jon Stewart (though no the next Steven Colbert - cause that guy's genuinely good!).Now last night Gervais didn't make any pretense to ego stroking. He let everyone have it by more or less telling it like it is. No one in entertainment is gonna stand for that because they spend alot of time and money trying to avoid seeing how it is! As a matter of fact they'll even drop wads of cash attending New Age type seminars teaching them how they can more effectively avoid reality - "The art of the secret is focus on what you want!" In other words you don't need drugs and booze if you can keep your head full of shit at all times!
So they're not really emotionally equipped for that much reality in one concentrated doses. Especially not at an Awards ceremony - it's like telling kids that there's no Santa Claus on the night before Christmas. Let's put it this way - Gervais act was so strong that not only will he never eat lunch in that town again, but Hugh Laurie could get fired off of House over it, just for being British. That puts Gervais career right down the crapper. Then again telling everyone what they wanted to hear would be too easy, wouldn't it?
We can only hope that celebs try to keep this in perspective - for one thing this is the first time since - ever - that anyone not on the guest list has been talking about the Golden Globes that morning after. So what the beautiful people have lost in pride they've gained in relevance; thanks to Big Rick. Trashing the poor man's career would seem to be a high penalty to impose simply for making the celeb set genuinely interesting, outside of a supermarket tabloid context. Besides, if they take it egotistically it might not be so bad - if the Rat Pack could take it from Don Rickles, then surely they should be big enough to take it too. The human ego is so fucked up that it will even feel good about shit eating if it can find away to feel important about it - and let's not kid ourselves, an award's nite gala is all about feeling as important as you can!
Now here's a some some of the shots fired, courtesy of THR:
Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais kept his promise from last week that Charlie Sheen would be one of his comedic "targets" at Sunday's show.
"It's going to be a night of partying and heavy drinking -- or, as Charlie Sheen calls it, breakfast," the comedian quipped at the start of the show. "Wow, so let's get this straight, so what he did was, he picked up a porn star, paid her to have dinner with him, introduced her to his ex-wife -- as you do -- went to a hotel, got drunk, got naked, trashed the place while she was locked in a cupboard, and that was a Monday. What does he do New Year's Eve?"Sheen isn't the only one who was the subject of Gervais' jabs. In addition to suggesting that certain "famous Scientologists" are gay, he took several shots at The Tourist. The widely panned movie became the subject of controversy when the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. nominated it for multiple Golden Globes last month, including best comedy or musical film as well as acting noms for stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.
"It was a big year for 3D movies. Toy Story, Despicable Me, Tron," he said. "It seemed like everything this year was three-dimensional. Except the characters in The Tourist. I already feel bad about that joke.
"I tell you what, I'm jumping on the bandwagon, because I haven't even seen The Tourist. Who has?
"But it must be good because it's nominated, so shut up, OK? And I'd like to crush this ridiculous rumor that the only reason The Tourist was nominated was so that the foreign press of could hang out with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. That was not the only reason; they also accepted bribes."
Also on Gervais' hit list:
-- Bruce Willis, whom Gervais introduced as "Ashton Kutcher's dad." (Kutcher is married to Willis' ex-wife, Demi Moore, and stepfather to their three children.)
-- The Sex and the City 2 cast: "There were a lot of big films that didn't get nominated this year, nothing for Sex and the City 2. No, I was sure the Golden Globe for special effects would go to the team that airbrushed that poster. Girls, we know how old you are. I saw one of you in an episode of Bonanza."
-- Jorge Garcia, who played Hurley on Lost: "One of the biggest TV events of the year was the finale of Lost. It was quite a complicated finale, and I'm not sure I understood it all. From what I can make out, the fat one ate them all."
-- Cher: After quipping that the HFPA were bribed to nominate Tourist, Gervais joked: "No, all that happened was some of them were taken to see Cher in concert. Now how was that a bribe, really? It's not, because it's not 1975."
-- Talking about how Eva Longoria's introduction of the head of the HFPA compared with his tasks of the night: "I helped him off the toilet and popped his teeth in."
-- Hugh Hefner: "There's been some great new TV dramas this year, like Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead. Talking of the walking dead, congratulations to Hugh Hefner, who is getting married at age 84 to 24-year-old beauty Crystal Harris. When asked why she was marrying him, she said, 'He lied about his age. I thought he was 94.' Calm down; just don't look at it when you touch it," Gervais added, complete with helpful suggestive gestures.
I guess that Ricky must've left that event via the back door, since it must've left everyone as emotionally drained as an execution. That being said - I like his style, and it's about damned time that some one stood up and said something like that! Besides it might have been much worse -
BTW Gervais was completely out of line when he said that entertainment journalists take bribes (they're called swag), but Wondertrash is currently entertaining offers!
BTW Gary Bell & The View From Space has found a new home @ Wondertrash's sister blog Area 51. This blog is 100% conspiracy theory, so if you have to read it, wear your tinfoil hat!
