Nolte: Ricky Gervais Proves Pompous Hollywood Can No Longer Take a Joke
by JOHN NOLTE
BREITBART.COM
6 Jan 2020
Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais brought back some old-fashioned, celebrity self-deprecation Sunday night, which made real Americans laugh and proved Hollywood and its media are now too bloated with self-importance to take a joke.
Those of us of a certain age remember when one of the great appeals of celebrity and stardom was modesty, humility, gratitude, and above all, self-deprecation.
If you go back and look at clips of award ceremonies from 30 or so years ago, you will see Oscar hosts Billy Crystal, Johnny Carson, and Bob Hope take constant shots at Hollywood, at celebrity, at the glitter and tinsel of it all. You will also see them make fun of themselves.
Take a look at those old Dean Martin celebrity roasts or when superstars appeared on all those classic variety shows. You will see everyone from John Wayne to Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra laughing at themselves, at Hollywood in general, at the whole idea of fame and celebrity.
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Jack Benny and Fred Allen, Don Rickles and Frank Sinatra, W.C. Fields and a dummy named Charlie McCarthy, … These guys deliberately launched phony feuds as a means to keep each other’s egos in check. They would make fun of their looks, their weight, their age, their talent, their failures… you name it. The public loved it. Ate it up.
As ambitious and egotistical as these men and women were, as driven and insecure as almost every big star is, back then they understood that one way to endear themselves to the public was through self-deprecation and self-effacement. For all their flaws, they were still smart, secure, decent, and grounded enough to laugh at themselves. For all their flaws, these guys still knew how lucky they were to be as rich and famous as they were, so they never took it for granted, never acted entitled.
Compare that to celebrities today, to their sense of entitlement, their pompous sense of self-importance, to the stone faces that greeted Ricky Gervais when he took a few swings at celebrity while hosting Sunday’s Golden Globe awards.
Here’s how the far-left Los Angeles Times described it:
The 58-year-old former Golden Globe winner (“The Office”) and five-time host also flippantly reminded the packed room that, “No one cares about movies anymore,” and advised, “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.”
Meryl Streep shook her head. Eddie Murphy refused to smile. Quentin Tarantino looked more disturbed than usual.
And because the entertainment media is filled with sycophants, rather than praise Gervais for having the courage to speak truth to the power in the room, for bringing back a sense of old-fashioned class and style, for pricking the pompous, these media suck-ups are all siding with the humorless celebrity prigs.
Los Angeles Times again:
But at the Beverly Hilton, where the three-hour-plus ceremony took place, the mood was already sober thanks to an impeachment, the threat of war with Iran and devastating bush fires in Australia.
The last thing anyone needed was for the smirking master of ceremonies to reprimand them for having hope, or taunt the room for trying to use their influence to change things for the better.
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