We’ll be honest – we were a little disappointed to learn that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey wouldn’t be back to host the Golden Globes once again. Sure, we knew Ricky Gervais would be funny, and had more potential to seriously offend some of the A list (always fun), but Tina and Amy are always brilliant. And to be honest, after watching the show, we really did miss them.
So, how did Ricky do this time around? It was a bit of a mixed bag.
The Good: Ricky totally undermined the importance of the awards; over and over again
'That award is – no offence – worthless,' said Ricky in his opening monologue. 'It’s a bit of metal that some nice old confused journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and have a selfie with you.' True, to be fair.
The Bad: The transphobia
Ricky’s opening monologue included a joke about Caitlyn Jenner breaking down stereotypes – but not doing much for women drivers. He also referred to her as Bruce, although he did clarify that she’s 'Caitlyn Jenner now.'
He went on to discuss how Jeffrey Tambor deals with his balls while wearing a dress, before doing a weird bit about thinking Eddie Redmayne was a woman. Just unnecessary.
The Good, we think? Ricky’s equal pay comments
During his monologue, Ricky gave Jennifer Lawrence’s essay on the wage gap a shoutout, saying that 'all joking aside, women be paid the same as men for doing the same job.' He then made what was either a very damning joke about the industry’s treatment of women, or just undermined the entire equal pay movement by bragging about his paycheque. We’re not entirely sure.
'I’m getting paid exactly the same as Tina and Amy did last year. Now, I know there was two of them, but it’s not my fault if they want to share the money, is it?'
The Bad: Ricky’s declining interest in the ceremony as a whole
The jokes about the awards not mattering were pretty enjoyable. But when the host acts like he genuinely doesn’t want to be there, it does make the show drag on a bit. At one point he said that the Globes were 'way too long' – prompting 'maybe they should cut you out to speed it up' retorts on Twitter.
The Good: Ricky didn’t back down from the Mel Gibson weirdness
Is it ridiculous that NBC welcomed Mel Gibson back to present an award, as if he’s magically been brought back into acceptability? Absolutely. So we were pleased to see Ricky refusing to quietly pretend it was entirely okay for Mel to be there, managing to massively piss Mel off by making references to his drinking problem, alluding to his anti-semitism, and finishing it all off by asking Mel 'what the f***” sugartits even means'. Bravo.
The Bad: The lack of any genuine celeb enraging
Ricky’s always counted on for genuinely shocking remarks about the most powerful people in the film and TV industry. Those just weren’t there this year. There were a few genuine zingers, sure, – that Roman Polanski quip, dissing the powers of NBC, and the entire Mel Gibson interaction – but many of the jokes felt reused and stale; the Charlie Sheen gag, for example.
Add to that Ricky’s tendency this year to make fun of women and transgender issues, and we just wish he’d set his aim a little higher.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.