Of all the times to miss the Golden Globes, last night wasn’t one of them. Ricky Gervais, who has been standing up to the left quite regularly on Twitter, took his opportunity while hosting the awards show to absolutely destroy the Hollywood woke patrol who are constantly lecturing us about how we should live. It was beautiful.
In his seven-minute opening monologue, Gervais went straight for the heart of the matter and called out the wokescolds for exactly who they are. “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,” he said while the actors on camera were visibly uncomfortable. “Well, you say you’re woke,” he continued, “but the companies you work for, I mean, unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney, if ISIS started a streaming service, you’d call your agent, wouldn’t ya?” he said pointing at the crowd of actors.
“So, if you do win an award tonight,” he scolded, “don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech, all 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.” Ouch. The low groaning and nervous laughter from the crowd signaled the discomfort this truth was causing. He didn’t stop there.
“If you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your god and f*** off, okay? It’s already three hours long.” Tom Hanks’ face says it all. (And off topic, but is Keith Urban transitioning?)
May I present, the first viral meme of 2020 #GoldenGIobes #TomHanks pic.twitter.com/oIHkN9816m
— Austin Noll (@AustinNoll_) January 6, 2020
Gervais reamed the “diversity counters” with this bit that should live in infamy. “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,” rightly pointing out that it isn’t the people in America who choose the winners or the categories of these awards but a panel of elites somewhere that does it and then complains about racism in America. He wasn’t done ripping them for the diversity hysteria. “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.”
He also went after awards shows in general and how boring they are. “You could binge-watch the entire first season of After Life instead of watching this show. That’s a show about a man who wants to kill himself because his wife dies of cancer and it’s still more fun than this.” And then came the Epstein joke that had me rolling.
“Spoiler alert, season 2 is on the way so in the end he obviously didn’t kill himself, just like Jeffrey Epstein.” When the crowd groans he shouts, “Shut up! I know he’s your friend but I don’t care. You had to make your own way here on your own plane didn’t ya?”
Perhaps the most awkward moment was when he pulled out the Weinstein scandal. “Tonight isn’t just about the people in front of the camera, in this room are some of the most important TV and film executives in the world. People from every background, but they all have one thing in common: they’re all terrified of Ronan Farrow. He’s coming for you.” The awkward silence was punctuated by the tense upper lip of Meryl Streep who lurched for her champagne. Farrow is the New York Times reporter who blew the lid off the Weinstein sexcapades. But Gervais wasn’t done insulting Hollywood’s biggest hypocrites. He also called them all perverts and pedophiles. It was glorious.
“Talking of all you perverts, it was a big year for pedophile movies.”
But my favorite part was the throwaway line at the end no one is talking about. “All right,” he says sounding exasperated, “let’s do the first award. First award!” (checks watch, sighs, almost swears, and continues in a clearly bored and uninterested tone). “The first award is for best actor in a television series, musical or comedy. To present the award are a couple of actors off the telly, what can I say?”
Gervais embodied how the rest of us feel every time award season comes around and spoiled rich people pat themselves on the back for speaking words into a camera while lecturing hard-working people everywhere on what they should think.
Watch the whole thing. It’s on fire.
Ricky Gervais kicks off The #GoldenGlobes. pic.twitter.com/ZSdqiWMudx
— NBC Entertainment (@nbc) January 6, 2020
Predictably, Slate Magazine published an article about how mean and jerky Gervais was. “Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes Jokes, Ranked in Order of Dickishness,” concluded that Gervais is just a jerk. They ranked his advice to actors about not lecturing the pubic as a “swing and a miss” — which is odd considering it’s all anyone is talking about on Twitter today and is a clearly appreciated sentiment. In fact, he cut off every celebrity who wanted to lecture the public right off the bat, making anyone who tried it look extra foolish. Cue Michelle Williams telling everyone about how her abortion made her famous. Gross. If you want to see the whole speech, just Google it. It’s too disturbing to put here.
Ricky Gervais: "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 G-d and <bleep> off. OK?”
Michelle Williams, who left school at 15 to act: pic.twitter.com/J61KxjT7Ro
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) January 6, 2020
Williams did drop out of school at 15 to pursue acting. She starts talking about her lack of education with David Letterman around the 8:00 mark. “I didn’t really go to school…my high school diploma is a little questionable.” She also was emancipated from her parents at the age of 15 to run off to LA. “I got an actual diploma but it was from the back of a magazine.” This is the exact type of person Gervais was talking about when he roasted the lack of education but the inflated sense of importance radiating out of Hollywood. They deserved every bit of his criticism and more.
Megan Fox is the author of “Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo.” Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter
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