On Twitter:
@JamesEpplerIt's not like the Hollywood Foreign Press and its Golden Globe awards show needs another reason to be viewed as sham. Never mind the winners are chosen by a secret group of less than a hundred journalists, and they've been accused of fixing the votes based on how many nice dinners they've been taken to.
That's old news. And I don't think too many people watching the Globes this year were tuning in to see who won.
Judging from all the early hype, most were excited to see the return of comedian Ricky Gervais as the host. You'll recall this time last year many people were in a huff over some of the mean jokes he told during last year's Globes. The fallout lasted for days, and in this 24-hour news cycle we live in, that's saying something. Even the HFPA reps said they weren't happy with it - offended by some of his cracks.
So they re-hired him.
It made perfect sense: after all the controversy surrounding last year, it was a sure-fire ratings grabber to have him back. What might he do or say this year? Gervais promised more of the same, and never once apologized for poking Hollywood in the eye.
But I started to worry when I read a report last week that the comedian was being forced to screen his act for the network and the HFPA. That didn't sound good, even though they promised to let him ad-lib.
When he arrived on stage to open Sunday night's broadcast, Gervais made a few fun cracks about the HFPA and last-place NBC. There was even a fun moment between him and Johnny Depp when Gervais asked him if he had, in fact, watched "The Tourist." Depp said he hadn't, and I was jealous.
Then Gervais went away for about 40 minutes. He came back to introduce someone, then went away for another half-hour. We didn't see him much all night. And when we did see him, he made some random, easy jokes about Madonna and Colin Firth. He even dropped an F-bomb at one point, but the show was one a five-second delay. He knew that.
In all, we saw the host about seven times in the span of three hours. I have this image of him handcuffed to a chair backstage while someone pours beer down his gullet, slaps him repeatedly, and tells him to be nice.
Look - I think Gervais is a very funny guy most of the time. So there can only be two options here:
1. He mailed it in, and didn't care. Why would you do that when there's so much to be gained by pleasing fans who wanted to see you rip celebrities a new one? Gervais made it clear in an HBO documentary called "Talking Funny" last year, that he doesn't much care what people think. People will pay to see him, or they won't.
2. Perhaps performing poorly was the ultimate middle finger to Hollywood and the HFPA. By not living up to the hype, he screws over the people who hit him so hard last year and then begged him to return.
I like the second option a lot better, but it still kept me up way past my bed time.
