Hollywood awards show in these modern days of wokeness and safe spaces and trigger words are enough to drive you to drink.
That’s why Ricky Gervias showed up Sunday night at the Golden Globes with a beer. The acerbic comedian, armed with a sarcastic and searing vitriol, walked out on stage, plunked his brew down on the podium, and announced: “You’ll be pleased to know, this is the last time I’m hosting these awards. So, I don’t care anymore. I’m joking, I never did.”
With that, Gervais launched into an eight-minute monologue that was one for the ages. A hundred years from now, awards show organizers will be programming AI robot hosts (let’s hope) to deliver the kind of scathing sermon that Gervais laid on the roomful of self-absorbed, pretentious and downright dumb narcissists who make millions by pretending to be someone else.
The comedian, hosting the program for the fifth time, let the crowd packed into the Beverley Hills Hotel know right away what he was about to do — eviscerate them and all their phony causes celebre.
“Let’s go out with a bang. Let’s have a laugh — at your expense,” he said at the outset.
Then boy howdy did he ever.
“If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a political platform to make a political speech,” he told the crowd of limousine liberals, always eager to decry climate change as they jet around the world and tan on gas-guzzling super yachts. “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 f*ck off. OK?”
He lit into the modern movie, which he called “awful, lazy, remakes, sequels.” Then he slammed the pretty boys in their Brioni tuxedos and the gorgeous women who were literally popping out of their Versace gowns. “The actors who just do Hollywood movies now do fantasy-adventure nonsense. They wear masks and capes and really tight costumes. Their job isn’t acting anymore. It’s going to the gym twice a day and taking steroids, really. Have we got an award for most ripped junky? No point, we’d know who’d win that.”
And he called the crowd a pack of amoral opportunists just out for a buck.
“Apple roared into the TV game with ‘The Morning Show,’ a superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing — made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. Well, you say you’re woke but the companies you work for in China — unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you?” he said to the actors, who squirmed in their seats.
In the perverted world of Hollywood — where everyone knew that a hideously ugly movie mogul would molest young actresses before giving them a part in his award-winning movies — Gervais warned that “the most important TV and film executives in the world … all have one thing in common: They’re all terrified of Ronan Farrow. He’s coming for you. He’s coming for you.” (Farrow was the journalist who first reported about film producer Harvey Weinstein’s escapades).
“Look, talking about all you perverts,” he said as he opened another joke. Gervais, who really did look like he couldn’t care less about the fallout of his brutal jokes, then took aim at one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Leo DiCaprio, who, if he could, would date an embryo.
Noting that “Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood” was more than three house long, Gervais said: “Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere and by the end his date was too old for him. Even Prince Andrew was like, ‘Come on, Leo, mate. You’re nearly 50-something.'”
Prince Andrew, of course, has been accused of raping a 17-year-old girl that was provided to him by Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, there’s a topic that would never come up at Golden Globes — so Gervais immediately brought it up.
Talking about his Netflix series, “Afterlife” — about a man considering committing suicide after his wife dies of cancer — he said: “Spoiler alert, there’s a season two, so in the end, he didn’t kill himself. Just like Jeffrey Epstein.” As the audience groaned, Gervais said: “Shut up, I know he’s your friend, but I don’t care.”
Think race was off limits? Think again. Gervais mocked the champagne-sipping hypocrites who make millions in America, then turn around and rip the world’s most free country as racist.
“Many talented people of color were snubbed in major categories. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about that. The Hollywood Foreign press are all very, very racist. Fifth time. So. We were going to do an in memoriam this year, but when I saw the list of people that had died, it wasn’t diverse enough. No, it was mostly white people and I thought, nah, not on my watch. Maybe next year. Let’s see what happens.”
Of course, none of it mattered. The celebrities still used their few moments at the podium to decry America for all its shortcomings. Actress Michelle Williams spent her time extolling the virtues of abortion. Patricia Arquette declared that the U.S. is on “the rink of war” and added, “People not knowing if bombs are going to drop on their kids heads and the continent of Australia on fire.” Uh, OK. And Renee Zellweger now apparently has a southern accent.
Thank God Gervais was there to at least attempt to tell the bloviators in Hollywood to put a cork in it. And let’s hope the Hollywood Foreign Press Association signs him to a lifetime gig as host.