And once again, hatred wins. I just ready that Ricky Gervais will be hosting the 2012 Golden Globes. And it just makes me wonder . . .
Why do people hate the very same celebrities that they pay hard-earned money to see in movies and on TV? This question is a fascinating one to me. As I watched the replay of the 2011 Golden Globes, and the “hosting” skills of Ricky Gervais, whom I usually find at least mildly entertaining, I was confused as to why anyone finds that kind of cynical, brutish, playground-level “humor” either entertaining or even remotely appropriate at a venue whose goal is to honor those who daily work in a field that provides the entertainment for the world.
I, like many, don’t feel that celebrities or other professionals in the Hollywood realm are either royalty or sacred cows that are above reproach. However the tone presented by Ricky Gervais’ scathing, lowball attacks on the personal lives of those celebrities felt less like a good “roasting” and more like an outright verbal stoning, rooted in the idea that saying tacky, tasteless, and crude things about the actors personal lives on national television for millions to snicker at was somehow what those awful celebrities “deserved.”
This interests me. Particularly because as I watched clips from the Golden Globes 2011 on Youtube and other sites, and read the commentaries done in the Telegraph and the Tribune, the comments around Ricky Gervais’ performance seemed to consistently echo the same sentiment. That Hollywood celebrities are overpaid stuffy blowhards who deserve to be verbally trashed at every possible opportunity, and that Ricky Gervais was displaying some kind of “bravery” by pointing out their shortcomings whether it be problems with drugs and alcohol, or the fact that Tim Allen’s career didn’t reach the same level as Tom Hanks. (A fact, I’m certain Tim Allen is aware of - and what on earth did Tim Allen ever do to anybody to deserve having that pointed out to the world? The guy was just there to present an award and he suddenly has to get compared to Tom Hanks professionally? Wow.)
But the vitriol surrounding the articles and Youtube videos was consistent and clear: Celebrities are a**holes, and deserve to be “taken down a peg.” Which begs the question, why do so many people hate the very same actors, actresses, and other Hollywooders who provide them the very daily entertainment that most of the world pays money to see every day?
From a psychological standpoint, I suppose it is quite easy to hate those who not only have more, but who remind us with their public persona, of how much, perhaps, we do not have in our lives.
But perhaps that explanation is a bit too cerebral for some. (A great deal too cerebral for others.) So let’s just talk about taste.
Sure, the Golden Globes and the Oscars and many other award shows are big swanky affairs that are built around the model of putting beautiful people in pretty, expensive clothes, and parading them down a walkway of adulation and fluffy interviews. And certainly it is a bit noxious if you’re sitting in your trailer home eating a bologna sandwich, wondering how you’ll pay your electric bill, to watch people who get paid tens of millions of dollars - sometimes in one day - get told how wonderful they are by other people who make tens of millions.
I can see how that would irk people.
But in the end, if you are choosing to watch, it is likely because in some small way, you are interested, or care about at least one show, or one star. Or you are really just that bored. Regardless, it is entertainment, provided for you at little to no cost (depending on how you’re watching), and the celebrities know this and that’s partly why they show up. It’s a job requirement, part of the deal for doing the projects they do. But, in the end, it is also their night to honor those who they feel have contributed to the art or business they are involved in. They didn’t create this idea, and they are certainly not the only people to feel the need to honor their co-workers and others in their field. Every job I have ever had has held some kind of annual meeting, party, or event with awards and honors for the people doing the job. Even Kenny Roger’s Roasters. (Where I won no awards, I will have you know.) The only thing that makes these award shows more unusual than, say, a McDonald’s regional conference, is that they just happen to be a televised event. Televised why? Because people WANT to see it. People want to see celebrities doing, well, anything. They will buy endless magazines that might offer the slightest glimpse into a celebrities life, love life, favorite food, favorite hobby, favorite pair of socks if that’s all we can get. We are interested in celebrities, because when we “meet” them in a film that we like, (or hate), or “discover” them in a television series that cracks us up (or makes us cry), we form a sort of “relationship” with them. In some ways, we begin to feel that we know them. We form an idea of who we think they are based on snippets of things they may have said, from MSN, or Vogue or some girl in our class, or some guy at work. And when you “know” someone, well, then you get to have an opinion about them. And, if you are feeling irritable, cynical, insecure, or just plain bitchy, you can talk shit about them.
And, truly, that’s your right. If it makes you feel a little better about your day to snicker at the fact that Charlie Sheen has struggled with alcoholism and has made really sad personal choices in his love life, I mean, if that’s your thing, who’s to say you’re wrong? Not me. But to feel that that same kind of mean-spirited, “Ha ha, you made bad choices.” sentiment is appropriate at an event meant solely to honor people working in the field of entertainment is a stretch. Celebrities expect to be attacked. The highest paid ones spend the better part of every day of their lives trying to keep people from climbing their fences and shoving cameras in their windows, in their cars, in their baby strollers. They get to have tabloids writing public commentaries for millions of grocery store stands about their cellulite, private phone arguments with their spouses, moments of being shitty drunk, miscarriages, separations from their partners, financial troubles, job performance, drug rehabilitation, child abuse, sexual histories, and of course, their deaths if it so pleases the world. Yes, they make millions. Yes, they own nice things.
But read that list of life-struggles again and ask yourself, do you really think they get spared any pain this life? Any more than you or I? They may not have to worry about how they’re going to pay the mortgage. But it doesn’t keep your family from being murdered ( like the tragedy that happened to the family of Jennifer Hudson in 2008), the money doesn’t keep you from suffering with alcoholism, divorce, and difficult relationships with yourself, your co-workers and your children (Charlie Sheen.) Success certainly doesn’t shield you from having painful strife with your father, or watching your own mother die too young of cancer (Angelina Jolie, who by the way had mourners send donations to Cedars Sinai Cancer research center in lieu of flowers) and it doesn’t comfort you when you’re coming home from a football game one night and get into a head-on collision where you and your brother are injured, and your father is killed right beside you. (Tim Allen).
We all feel that it would be a glorious, truly glorious thing to have All. That. Money. Oh, the wondrous things WE would do with it that THOSE spoiled jerks don’t. I mean, wouldn’t we? Hmmmm. But then, if we did have it, how much would it suck to suddenly realize that with that money came instant hatred from the teeming millions who DIDN’T have it? And why don’t you do MORE with that money? And why are you so selfish with it? And why do you think you’re better than everyone with that money? And why don’t you pay off all your families mortgages,and open some orphanages, and stop global warming, and tip better, and buy better gifts for your staff, we know you have it! You suck!!
Hmmm. Maybe All. That. Money. wouldn’t be THAT great.
Celebrities are in the public eye at most of the times in their lives, no matter how fabulous and glamorous, how mundane and boring, or how desperately painful, embarrassing or tragic the time in their life might be. It is the price they do pay for all that envied freedom, fame, attention, “love”, and yes, money. But, make no mistake, they do pay a price. And they, like all of us, don’t get out of this world without being beaten down to nothing a few times.
Why Ricky Gervais feels that it needs to be done to them, in public, at an award show, and why people get such a kick out of that, is fascinating on the one hand - and truly heartless on the other.
But I suppose I could get off the somber horse for a moment to say that Gervais is not the first person to think this kind of slanderous rude behavior is funny. Perhaps he’s just not my cup of tea, as it were. And that’s o.k., really. I mean, as long as the jokes are funny, right?
But there’s the rub. Gervais makes obvious jokes, about obvious targets, in a sadly uninventive way. I mean, Bruce Willis is Ashton Kutcher’s dad? Why not just say. “Bruce Willis is older than Demi Moore’s second (future ex) husband and that is funny.” Yes it is Ricky. To 12 year olds. And a May/December joke about Hugh Hefner? Really? Hefner himself was funnier when he retorted in a later interview: “I’m used to cheap shots. It comes with the territory. It’s ironic that living with 3 young girls prompts a hit TV show, but marrying one prompts humor.” How is it possible that Hugh Hefner is at once funnier, edgier and more insightful than Gervais?
The easiest thing on earth to do is make fun of wacky celebrities. Anybody on earth can make a drunk joke about Charlie Sheen, an old man sex joke about Hugh Hefner, and a boring joke about a movie that wasn’t very good. Truly incredible comedians can go beyond the blatantly obvious, to the sublime, the way, say Stephen Colbert, or Tina Fey do every day of their lives. It isn’t “new” or “edgy” to call out celebrities in public on embarrassing behavior, or for making a bad film. Andrew “Dice” Clay and Howard Stern both have made a living spewing incredibly uninventive vitriol to the incredibly unimaginative people who dig that kind of thing.
They make a living, because in the end, mean spirited people, who feel hateful about the success of others, love seeing those successful ones being taken down. It’s a sad way to entertain yourself, when the awards themselves are really just honoring people for telling stories that are usually fascinating, inspiring and UPLIFTING. At the same Awards Show where Ricky Gervais found it just so “edgy” to mime a blow job from Crystal Harris to Hugh Hefner, Claire Danes stood up and recognized Temple Grandin, the autistic pioneer and genius whom she portrayed in an HBO film of the same name saying: “I have to thank Temple. She’s still at it. She’s still working to illuminate mysteries about autism, and about animal science and behavior and I have to thank you on behalf of the literally millions of lives that have been dignified and improved by your genius.” Temple, the astonishing human being herself, whose story would not have reached millions were it not for those “awful” Hollywood people, stood, seeming quite thrilled that her incredible life’s work was being recognized so publicly and graciously and that beautiful triumph was only slightly muted by the terribly ugly tone being set between awards by Gervais. Temple has spent a lifetime lifting others up. And those same “awful” Hollywood people that we so want to see taken down - are the ones who gave a worldwide voice to her important life, work, genius and message.
While Ricky Gervais “inventively” accused “someone” of being a gay Scientologist, which is at best a tired joke, and at least a shockingly insensitive joke to make during a time when gay teenagers are literally being bullied to death in America’s schools, Glee’s Chris Colfer, who won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, showed more class, heart, intelligence and humility than most men twice his age, stating: “To all the amazing kids who watch our show, and the kids our show celebrates who are constantly told ‘No’ by the people in their environments and the bullies at school who tell them that they can’t be who they are, or have what they want because of who they are, well, screw that, kids.” Now, that, Ricky is how you make people laugh, and inspire them at the same time. Gervais went on to publicly trash Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp’s film, the Tourist, which was panned by critics and which many believed did not deserve a nomination. But the fact that Jolie and Depp were already quite aware of the critical failure of the film they spent many months of their lives making didn’t stop Gervais from shoving it in their faces in front of all of their peers, you know, just for fun. While Jolie and Depp are likely not too shocked by being taken down whenever anyone gets the chance (it IS easy to hate someone like Jolie who appears to have it all), it seemed so incredibly petty to mock the film, being that it wasn’t Jolie and Johnny whose careers will be harmed, or feelings hurt by the incredibly public outright criticism, but rather the hundreds of people and the families of those people behind the scenes of that film, who already knew their film wasn’t going to win, and then had to endure hearing in front of the world, how useless their work was. If you’re the cameraman on that film, or one of the screenwriters, it’s bad enough you have to read shitty reviews of your film and realize that you didn’t make the film you hoped to make, but now you have to sit beside your wife, while some comic, trying to be “edgy” mocks you in public for the world to hear for the sake of his own shits and giggles. Really big of Ricky, don’t you think? And he has so much room to talk, with his monumental contribution to the world of film. I, for one, found Ghost Town to be a breathtaking classic. Sigh.
In this age of Sarah Palin-esque style cutting down, where the results of spewing hatred for anyone different than yourself somehow substitutes for deep thought, one would hope that a truly intelligent human being, such as Gervais, would use his incredible pulpit to say something worth saying, even it is wasn’t a PSA. Gervais seemed to be completely and totally unaware that tearing others down in a blatantly hateful way isn’t a good-natured roasting (which Robert Downey Junior did to himself, in a FUNNY way during his presentation of the Best Actress award) but is rather just another way to validate the idea that hating people different than you, belittling them for their faults, and viciously attacking their work, their lives and even their speculated upon sexual orientation, is “funny.” In a nation where hatred spurs violence every single day, validating that ideal, especially in an unfunny manner, is neither “brave”, nor “edgy.” It is uninventive, in poor taste, and does nothing to further comedy, or humanity for that matter at all.
Making light of Hollywood and the strange alternate reality that exists therein is a grand tradition. And there are plenty of tabloids, info-tainment television shows, talk shows, and other mediums in which to do that very thing, if you like. But encouraging hatred, vitriol, envy, derision, spite and ill will toward those who spend their lives making the very entertainment that often uplifts, ennobles and inspires millions every day, is a sad way for a smart man to spend a career, and certainly a strange way to spend an evening that is supposed to be about honoring them. I, for one, like seeing craftsmen honored for what they do, whether it’s televised or not. But to use that occasion to belittle the very people there to be honored? I, for one, see no honor in it that at all.
