Stars such as Russell Crowe, Michelle Williams and Joaquin Phoenix were right to ignore his request the time for silence on issues more pressing than showbiz has long passed
You know nothing about the real world, Ricky Gervais told the audience at Sunday nights Golden Globe awards. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. Should you win an award, he advised, thank your agent and your God and fuck off.
Yet what unfolded at this years ceremony was a mass rejection of such apoliticism, with winner after winner using the stage as a platform for speaking up about, variously, climate change, abortion rights, democratic inclusivity, LGBT visibility, the dubiousness of Facebooks ad checking policies.
In theory, of course, Gervais is correct. Hollywood stars are obviously out of touch. However wryly intended, Joaquin Phoenixs request that people think twice before from taking their private jet to Palm Springs wouldnt have struck a chord with more than a dozen people in the room, and may have alienated many at home.
But hes mistaken if he believes the scepticism us plebs feel for Hollywood isnt bound up not just with revulsion at its excesses but because everyday news currently trumps it time and time again for horrific drama and wild comedy. A speech in which an actor remained wholly inside their bubble would now be far worse than one in which they acknowledged that bubble was expensively insulated within a burning building, in a city on fire.
Political speeches used to be a turn-off, but that was when A-listers calls for action were largely in-house. However much they were at pains to link Hollywoods problems with gender parity or racial bias or sexual harassment to the wider world, their anxieties always felt like first world concerns.
This year, no one talked about the troubles in Tinseltown. Not even they care anymore. When Patricia Arquette called for wage equality in her 2014 Oscar acceptance speech, she was hailed as groundbreakingly radical. We have all moved on. This year Arquette spoke about young people risking their lives, people not knowing if bombs are going to drop on their kids heads, then begged everyone to try and give our children a better world.
Gervaiss call for silence on what everyone is talking about marked another way in which his presence felt like a throwback to a previous era; certainly a time before last years Oscars, when the necessity of the Kevin Hart implosion meant the ceremony went host-less to unanimous acclaim.
However clever or irreverent, the presence of one man telling us all how its going to go simply no longer sits easily. And, three hours after his initial instruction, even Gervais seemed more in the mood to ignore it. Introducing Sandra Bullock to announce the final award, he said: Our next presenter starred in Netflixs Bird Box, a movie where people survive by acting like they dont see a thing. Sort of like working for Harvey Weinstein.
This was a considerable escalation of the acid reserved for the people in the room, less than a day before Weinsteins trial is set to start. Gervaiss final words did not relate to Hollywood, however. They were: Please donate to Australia.
Original Article : HERE ;
from MetNews https://metnews.pw/ricky-gervais-is-wrong-political-engagement-at-the-golden-globes-was-essential/
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