The Hard Truth from Ricky Gervais

This year, the Golden Globes Award Show was hosted by Ricky Gervais, who created quite the controversy with some of comments he made.

Caroline Lilleoer, Columnist

To begin, Ricky Gervais promised the Hollywood stars that they would get roasted with the allowance from NBC to say whatever he wanted. If you were expecting mean, honest jokes about the glamorous movie stars, there is no way that you could be disappointed.

Gervais came up with so many personal lines, which received a lot of criticism from people around the world. One of them was about Caitlyn Jenner, who is a role model for a lot of transgender people. Gervais said, “I’m going to be nice tonight. I’ve changed — not as much as Bruce Jenner. Obviously. Now Caitlyn Jenner, of course. What a year she’s had! She became a role model for trans-people everywhere, showing great bravery in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes. She didn’t do a lot for women drivers. But you can’t have everything, can ya? Not at the same time.” Gervais made this comment in regards to Jenner’s accident which resulted in the death of one person.

He was hired to be funny and entertain people, but at the same time, some of the things he had to say were just straight up mean. It is not funny to hear about someone’s money problems or an ugly divorce. It may be the truth, but it may not be appropriate in a show, where the actors and actresses are there to be honored and not to feel bad about their personal lives.

Gervais said to the stars that it is embarrassing to get emotional and grateful for a Golden Globe; in fact, he said “Remember if you do win tonight, no one cares about that award as much as you do. Don’t get emotional, it’s embarrassing. That award is, no offense, worthless. It’s a bit of metal some nice, old, confused journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and have a selfie with you, okay? That’s all it is!” When the winners obviously got emotional and honored, it just seemed awkward, because it was adverse to what he had said earlier.

On the other hand, we are dealing with some of the most successful people in the world. They should be able to handle some good, pure truth. If they can not, then it is fortunate that they are very good actors. It is the opposite from what Hollywood stands for: being fake and pretending that everything is perfect. Yet, it is not. So, by having Gervais hosting the annual Golden Globe award show, it sort of gives us a moment of reality, and as a watcher of the show, you might even feel better about yourself. Regular award shows’ purpose is to show everybody how beautiful and successful everyone in Hollywood is, while Gervais gives us another side of the story.

A lot of the jokes were really funny as well, being intelligent and well-thought. However, there were the ones that should never had been mentioned in front of the whole world.