The Golden Globes are long over, but the controversy lives on! The Hollywood Foreign Press is pretty displeased with Ricky Gervais’ hosting at last Sunday’s awards, and they’re making it known to everyone just how angry they are at him. But that’s not all they’re making known. Take a look at this quote from Popeater:
“Ricky will not be invited back to host the show next year, for sure,” a member of the [Hollywood Foreign Press Association] told me, adding that Ricky’s relentlessly mean shtick could have even larger consequences. “For sure any movie he makes he can forget about getting nominated. He humiliated the organization last night and went too far with several celebrities whose representatives have already called to complain.” […]
“Ricky blew it big time. It’s one thing to make fun of celebrities but it’s another to make them totally uncomfortable,” an insider tells me. “People in that room were furious but had to sit and smile because the camera’s were on them. It really says something when several people who attended said they would have felt safer with Kathy Griffin hosting.”
Okay, okay, I get it. He bruised some celebrity egos, and they had to just sit there and take it. GOOD! In my opinion, Gervais was the best thing about the awards. I mean, let’s be honest here: the Golden Globes are a middleweight awards event. They’ll never be as big as the Oscars, and the films they nominate and award are generally just the popular choices. Not that it even matters, since no one would care if the Globes made a controversial or surprising choice when it came to handing out those little trophies. But what really steams my tomatoes in that quote is this line: For sure any movie he makes he can forget about getting nominated. I see. So what the Hollywood Foreign Press is essentially saying is that no matter how high the quality of a film, if they don’t like someone involved in it, the film won’t be nominated. At least they’re being honest and public about their biases, I guess. I think the Hollywood Foreign Press needs to take a step back and look at what people are saying about Gervais online. I know I’m not the only person who loved his hosting gig. Rather than placating celebrities and delivering an entirely bland awards ceremony – which is undoubtedly what we’ll get next year because of this “scandal” which I call “satirical lampooning” or just “roasting” – they should pay attention to the people who bother to watch the awards. Do the HFP really just want a room full of happy celebrities with no one to watch it? Seems like banning Gervais from hosting again in the future is only doing one thing: draining the awards of the last thing it had going for them – fun.
But wait! That’s not the end of the story! Look under the cut for more!
Apparently, though, Gervais is trying to quash the rumours that are emerging about how displeased the HFP was with his hosting. Check out this quote from his blog:
Obviously the rumour that the organizers stopped me going out on stage for an hour is rubbish. I did every link I was scheduled to do. The reason why the gaps were uneven is because when I got the rundown I was allowed to choose who I presented to. I obviously chose the spots that I had the best gags for. They couldn’t move around the order but I could move around however I wanted.
All the same conspiracy theories as last year too… “So and so was offended”… “hasn’t been invited back yet”… exactly the same as last time. “Paul McCartney was furious”…no he wasn’t. And nor was Tim Allen and Tom Hanks. I was drinking with them after.
Why do people have to embellish? They’re allowed to say they hated it. They’re allowed to say they didn’t find it funny, that it was tasteless, over the top, or whatever. But why do they speculate and make stuff up?
Don’t worry, I know the answer. Because it’s more interesting than “it went fine and some people won some awards and then went to a party”. But that’s all that happened.
So what does any of this mean, ultimately? It seems like even though we have both sides of the story represented here, we don’t know the full story at all. Personally, I’m inclined to believe Gervais when he says that everything was fine following the awards ceremony, if only because he seems like a genuinely smart and level-headed individual who wouldn’t lie about this sort of thing. On the flip side, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the HFP really did react the way the quote from “a member” made it sound like they were. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what becomes of all this. Just a shame that we won’t know anything for certain until this time next year, at the 2012 Golden Globes.