On Sunday night, comedian Ricky Gervais exposed Hollywood in brutal fashion — their pretensions and their cruelties, their hypocrisy and their greed. It was a dazzling exhibition. And it was made even more dazzling by the obvious and insufferable inability of the Great Faces of Celebrity™ to even act as though they could laugh at themselves for a solitary moment.
No sacred cow was off limits. Gervais sideswiped Felicity Huffman, the perpetrator of a scam to defraud colleges: “I came here in a limo tonight and the license plate was made by Felicity Huffman.” He went after the top Hollywood executives, who were “all terrified of Ronan Farrow. He’s coming for you, he’s coming for you.”
He continued, “Many talented people of color were snubbed in major categories. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about that; the Hollywood Foreign Press are very, very racist. We were going to do an In Memoriam this year, but when I saw the list of people who had died, it wasn’t diverse enough. No, it was mostly white people, and I thought, ‘No, not on my watch.’ Maybe next year. Let’s see what happens.”
He blasted the Hollywood crowd for humoring the likes of Jeffrey Epstein: Speaking of his own show, “Afterlife,” he noted, “Spoiler alert, there’s a season two, so in the end, he didn’t kill himself. Just like Jeffrey Epstein.” When the room grew awkward, Gervais dropped the other shoe: “Shut up, I know he’s your friend, but I don’t care. You had to make your own way here in your own plane, didn’t you?”
He scoffed at the ridiculous wokescolds: “Apple rode into the TV game … 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 — Apple, Amazon, Disney — if ISIS started a streaming service, you would call your agent, wouldn’t you? So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech, right? 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*** off. OK?”
Gervais’ appearance is likely to draw the ire of those in Hollywood who don’t appreciate being called on the carpet for their heresies. But that’s just because Hollywood has lost its own sense of humor. They’ve grown fat and lazy making fun of those who live in the red states and don’t swill from the ocean of self-aggrandizing leftism available to the coastal elitists.
In Hollywood, the only funny joke is the one that isn’t a joke at all (see Gadsby, Hannah) or the one about Trump that isn’t actually a joke (see Bee, Samantha) or the one about abortion that isn’t a joke either (see Wolf, Michelle).
If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had any brains at all, they’d see that most Americans want to see comedians rip up celebrities rather than listening to actors lecture them on global warming. Instead of avoiding an Oscar host, they’d host someone like Gervais, who would remind them just why they’re such pretentious asses for canceling their Oscar host in the first place.
Good for Gervais. He has eyes, and he has ears, and what’s more, he has a wicked hook. He used it last night. Thank goodness for that.