The Golden Globes is a unique event among Hollywood’s award shows in that the celebrities in attendance are encouraged to stay loose, courtesy of bottomless flutes of champagne at every seat.
The show is known for encouraging celebrities to let their guards down: It’s a rare gathering of A-listers out to have fun, a huge party across media platforms that doesn’t wield the pretentious weight of the Academy Awards. So you’d think the organizing committee for the Globes would have dozens of iconic legends eager to act as host.
Not the case, apparently.
The organizers, known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), chose Ricky Gervais to host the Globes this Sunday, and the selection has a lot of Americans asking: “Ger-who?” Gervais is a British comedian who has only one mainstream show to his credit — “The Office,” UK’s precursor to Steve Carrell’s “The Office” in the U.S.
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Americans don’t know Gervais from Adam, and they don’t particularly care for his brand of faux, off-color, dry-as-toast humor. He’s also a proven failure at hosting this very event, having hosted to enormous backlash for several years. Evidently, the HFPA missed the headlines that followed his last gig (“So long, Ricky Gervais”; “Ricky Gervais Bombs at the Golden Globes”).
But he’s back, and he’s been using his promo commercials leading up to the event to thumb his nose at Hollywood in his signature, snarky, careless style. The HFPA should rename it the Gold-Plated Globes at this point, because audiences can expect nothing special — again — this year.
All of this begs the question: Is Gervais really the best Hollywood can do? The answer is yes, because Hollywood is more interested in feigning to roast celebrities, and nobody does that better than Gervais, who is one of the laziest comics today.
When Gervais first hosted in 2010, he excused a number of snarky comments by explaining to the audience: “It’s OK, folks, I won’t be doing this again.”
He did it again in 2011 and 2012, and this Sunday will count as his fourth time as host of the Globes — Hollywood’s most blatantly raucous awards ceremony. This follows a three-year stint with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, whose quick-witted quips represented a more universally funny approach to roasting celebrities.
In contrast to Fey and Poehler, whose style of humor could be described as classier and sassier, Gervais’ humor is disingenuous. He’s British to a fault: He couldn’t care less about American cinema and the actual impact of celebrities on American culture. His jokes reflect his personal apathy, which is at best narcissistic, but borders on irrelevant.
NBC can expect a low ratings turnout, and audiences can expect more of the same tired themes throughout his monologue and transitional intros. His version of sophomoric humor is cringeworthy, and his attempts to skewer celebrities have always been half-baked. A brief review of his “best” jokes reveals a comedian who seems far more humored by his own comedy than anyone else in the room.
Case in point, his introduction of another British actor: “He’s also swooned over by women. I don’t see it. Good luck to him. … What you don’t know about Colin Firth is he’s very racist. I mean, really nasty stuff. I’ve also seen him punch a little blind kitten. Please welcome the evil Colin Firth.”
Funny? Maybe. But is the highly respected actor who won an Oscar for his portrayal of King George VI in “The King’s Speech” really the appropriate target for that humor?
Another example of his ill-placed humor came when he used juvenile, potty comedy to roast another Brit, the ageless Helen Mirren: “Farting, burping, cursing, performing wild sex acts, even pooping in the sink. I heard for research they spent the weekend with Dame Helen Mirren.”
Entertaining? Maybe for some sixth graders watching. Misplaced? Yes.
Gervais is a little-known comic from across the pond, and for good reason: He’s lazy and self-indulgent. He doesn’t care to write jokes that are universally funny because he’s overly impressed with jokes that he finds funny. That Americans don’t appreciate his humor makes no difference to him; he’s already gotten paid, as he’s noted in commercials in recent weeks.
In a sense, he’s the perfect host for a Hollywood awards show that involves celebrities patting themselves on the back for releasing so many superficial movies and shows this year. Like a lot of Hollywood, Gervais doesn’t care what America thinks.
Likewise, NBC shouldn’t be surprised if Americans don’t care to tune in.
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