Stumbled onto Comedians on High Horses Getting Sour

I love stand-up comedy. I love stand-up comedians. They write the best series, they open the best ceremonies (see previous post), they are the best talk show guests (again, see previous post) and some of them, late in their careers, surprise you with some sort of acting chops. I think everyone remembers the first time they watched George Carlin hysterically rant about religion and airplanes, with pretty much the same rigour, or the first time they saw Michael McIntyre’s physical comedy or heard Louis CK’s controversial paedophile jokes. Comedy just seems to open up a whole new window of communication; it is challenging rather than straightforward, it can be amazing in its dumbest and most thought-provoking forms alike and it invigorates our dull, everyday life. It applies to everyone; everyone appreciates whatever they consider funny, be that a Gerard Butler romcom or a Gerard Butler action film. I do not take comedians’ work lightly, I have great appreciation for them. If it weren’t for the drugs and polygamy and psychological damage that seem to be prerequisites for the job, I would aspire to marry one. So, it is probably people like me that have given them so much power and self-importance and for that I apologise.

I know I just elevated comedians to gods, but in all honesty, they are the adult version of a clown. And except Joaquin Phoenix, no one gets that much critical acclaim pretending to be a clown. But there is an emerging trend to treat these entertainers like messiahs and that results in two major mistakes; taking what they are saying way too seriously and taking what they are saying way too seriously. The first mistake is essentially quoting Colbert to make an argument, which I am guilty of, when the monologue you are referencing involves an eyebrow dance, an oversimplification of the political climate and a spelling mistake ripped to pieces. The second mistake is thinking Ricky Gervais is right-wing for making fun of the Hollywood Elite’s activism, considering he is one of them and he himself tweets about animal cruelty about 50 times per day. Rightfully so. I love Conan more than life itself, but whenever I see comments on YouTube such as ‘Conan 2020’ I begin understanding why Trump won the elections. It is perfectly fine and enjoyable for comedians to have political opinions and many times a lot of comedy revolves around politics, but in no way is ‘funny’ a useful qualification for most other jobs. Again, there is some crossover, like Al Franken, but in general, coming up with funny nicknames and doing impressions might not be the best criteria for office. And because I am clearly talking about Trump in the previous sentence: dumb nicknames and unwarranted impressions. And to throw in a Greek example, looking like Mr Bean shouldn’t be a criterion either. But yeah, if a comedian is getting more claps and political endorsements than laughs, maybe they should add a few more one-liners, Jimmy Carr style.

Taking comedians too seriously is our fault, not theirs. What is mostly their fault is this spoilt, privileged complaining about the struggles of political correctness. White, male comedians (mostly) can no longer perform racist, sexist, homophobic, insensitive materials and this is an injustice they cannot stand. What are they meant to do? Come up with new material that reflects this time and age? Adapt? Like in all other professions? There used to be professional typists and one day, out of nowhere, Microsoft Word came out (not sure if this statement is historically accurate, maybe something predated Microsoft Word, but I have no means to find out). I am assuming these people learnt a different craft, or at the very least learnt to use a computer keyboard rather than a typewriter. Outside courthouses that is. Comedians are especially privileged because even if they do not adapt and they perform this jaw-dropping, norm-shaking ‘uncensored’ material, they will find a crowd that likes it; they just might not like the crowd. I refuse to feel sorry for Louis CK having to make less money by performing in red states because he wants to make, in my opinion, unfunny remarks about the Parkland shooting high-schoolers. If he had a funny joke that involved the Parkland survivors without the sole goal of insulting them, I have confidence that the liberal world he dearly misses would laugh with him again.

I began my day thinking I would write about how much I hated Veganuary, or how I did not like ‘The Irishman’ and would take any ‘theme-park’ superhero movie than watching a CGI version of DeNiro for three and a half hours and I ended up trying to convince myself to take comedians less seriously. None of my goals were achieved today. I would vote for Tom Hanks if he run for Greek office.

Image from Reddit.

Stumbled onto yet another hostless Oscars ceremony

The Oscars are such an amazing time of the year. Each year there is an insane influx of beautiful films, the resurgence of directors who do not produce a film per month but instead spend time on their craft, speculation about Brad Pitt’s love life and unnecessary insults to the MCU. And that has been the case since the very first ceremony in 1929.

I have been a faithful viewer for the past six or seven years, which may not sound like a lot but considering they start at 1am on Sunday night/Monday morning depending on what kind of person you are, I consider myself a very dedicated viewer. My favourite bit of the Oscars tends to be the host monologue, the jokes, the performance, the references, the dabs, the food (!) and I am therefore incredibly annoyed that for two years in a row they have decided to go hostless. As if the host is equivalent to an animal product I have given up for stupid Veganuary! This is possibly an unrelated rant. And in order to top that up, I have read so many articles praising this decision to go hostless! Practical arguments for the hostless Oscars include runtime, presenters taking the lead with the bits and the comedy, previous hosts having been involved in some controversy, some financials that obviously no one but the people on the Oscars committee cares about. But they are all missing the point; which is I love hosts.

I don’t necessarily mean Ricky Gervais should bring his Golden Globes game to the Oscars; let’s be honest, if they could not handle Kevin Hart’s homophobic tweets from a thousand years ago, no one ever associated with Gervais could host this thing. But that doesn’t mean no one at all should host. Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart have previously brought a late night television vibe to the Oscars, with their ongoing Matt Damon feuds and their political humour popping up every now and then. I am of course addicted to late night and therefore have gone back more than once to look up the monologues and will not rest until the rightful late night host presents the ceremony! Oscar Wilde was, after all, Irish! Bring out the American Ginger! Apart from personal preferences, if anyone has the credentials to keep a crowd going for four hours, or however long the Oscars last, keep good track of the time and resolve tension when Warren Beatty announces the wrong winner, it is the talk show hosts! Any one of them would bring some character to the ceremony, at least the first time round. Apart from Jimmy Fallon. If he ever gets the Oscars, I will personally fly to New York and burn NBC to the ground. Wheel of musical impressions, my ass.

It doesn’t even have to be established hosts. Hugh Jackman brought out his angelic voice and vibrant moves for the ceremony, reminding us all why ‘Wolverine: Heart Not Made of Adamantium’ is not the Broadway musical we deserve, but it is the Broadway musical we need. Neil Patrick Harris even did a semi-decent job with similar props and a catchy song about ‘Moving Pictures’ (instead of ‘Motion Pictures’, which was a nice touch). Both were a much more beautiful spectacle than, well, nothingness. I mean Hugh Jackman is a much more beautiful spectacle than most things. NPH possibly also, but not more beautiful than Hugh Jackman. Bub.

Of course, not all hosts go down well in history. Not all hosts do well. But is there anything more enjoyable than the Oscars presented by Ann Hathaway and James Franco? You are left there trying to trace back the thought process that led to this pairing. You try to figure out what happened in rehearsal that did not alert the organisers that this was a mistake. You try to decide if James Franco was high. And start wondering if this wasn’t all a plot by Seth Rogen so that he could then be the more popular of the two. Franco has helped Rogen’s case since then, of course. This ceremony is probably my favourite, I flourish in awkwardness and cringeworthiness and I am certainly not the only one. I want them to try and get good hosts, and possibly the ultimate host whose name rhymes with O’Ryan, but I don’t mind when they mess up. There is certainly a quote in some culture about trying and failing rather than not trying at all.

This will be a good year for the Oscars, movie-wise. A lot of the contenders have excelled in all fronts and it promises to be an interesting race. I mean, the worst of the nominated films I have seen is the Joker and that is still quite good. I will swallow my bitterness about the lack of a host and enjoy as much of the ceremony as I can. Hopefully Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph will save the day for the second year in a row with a short monologue that they could easily have performed as hosts. But sure, the ceremony might be ten minutes shorter.

Stumbled onto the Ricky Gervais’ monologue at the Golden Globes

Does anyone else feel that this blog is essentially a commentary on awards ceremonies for this past year? Good. Let’s get the premise out of the way. The Golden Globes are frequently described as the Emmy’s and Oscar’s trashier, drunker cousin. Those nominees that haven’t won one do consider them important, but my understanding is that the rest of Hollywood regards them as a bit of a joke. Granted, they tend to be good predictors of what will happen at the Oscar’s, but also not good enough; I would say a little over chance. I think that is why NBC has more than once chosen Ricky Gervais to be their host. No musical introduction requiring a large budget, just a plain-old, funny monologue. A bit shocking too, maybe.

First time round, it was genius! It was a room full of Hollywood celebrities were getting ripped apart by a British comedian they had never heard of before. I think back in 2010 people still thought Steve Carell came up with the Office. Next time round: surprisingly good, still. Third time hosting: very entertaining. In 2016, right before the #MeToo movement, I personally laughed the most. I am not necessarily saying that was the best one yet, but that is when I was most up to date with current events. Plus a dig at the Kardashians makes my day any day. This was his fifth and final time hosting and while his performance was somewhat less impressive than other times, it still got me furiously searching through YouTube for Golden Globes clips first thing in the morning. Yet, the contemporary equivalent of a loud, conspiracy theorist you would find at a dodgy corner, Twitter, and a number of journalists have taken great offence at Ricky Gervais’, dare I say, tame jokes. He has been called right-wing in a very apolitical monologue. Unless I am missing something. It is likely I am missing something.

Let me start by saying why I do not think his monologue this year levels with the previous ones. It is the inevitable fact that he is no longer an unknown. I think the underlying joke that elevated those first monologues is that the hottest names in Hollywood were sitting there, unaware and this seemingly chubby nobody was tearing them a new one. It was absurd! Then, as he got progressively more famous in the US, the crowd interacted nicely, we got some fun banter with Steve Carell, an admittedly good comeback from Mel Gibson, one of Gervais’ most brutally attacked celebrities, and just a more relaxed Hollywood crowd, ready to laugh at themselves. As they should; half of them come to these events dressed like peacocks. This year, Gervais was one of them. Some of his shots seemed self-contradictory. For example, going after Amazon as a big, bad corporation while working with Netflix himself? Telling others to refrain from political statements just after his own comment on aforementioned big, bad corporations? Telling them they are out of touch when he is possibly richer than most of them? Saying he doesn’t care when his latest stand-up special is a collection of his self-selected best Twitter comebacks? Those just took away from the authenticity an earlier Ricky Gervais would have brought to the jokes. Other than that, I do not get the fuss.

I labelled this year’s jokes as tame. I suspect it might be a case of what Gervais calls: ‘People confuse the subject of the joke with the target of the joke’. For example, take that Judi Dench, ass-licking joke. The whole reason that was funny is because she is Judi Dench. Because she is a dame. Because you look at her and the word ‘ass’ evades you. It is an absurd, unexpected association. My brain finds those very amusing and instructs my mouth to produce a much less amusing sound in response. Next, the joke about Greta Thunberg spending few hours at school. No one is denying climate change, no one is even demeaning Greta Thunberg. This is just some parameter our mind would not have considered; she has probably missed tons of hours at school. To me, that just felt like another absurd, unexpected association. Happy brain, once more.

Let’s move along to him calling James Corden a ‘fat pussy’. Some called this a poor joke at Corden’s expense; poor because it is an obvious, juvenile wordplay as far as ‘pussy’ is concerned (my repressed self is twitching every time I type the word ‘pussy’), and at Corden’s expense because he was body-shamed. I will not have it. First of all, we are all 14-year old boys at heart and wordplay is a loveable form of comedy. Secondly, his role in CATS is ‘fat’. That is it. That is why he was cast and that is his character’s arc; I am not exaggerating, his name is Bustopher Jones (sidenote: CATS looks like an awful, awful movie). I am therefore very confused as to why Gervais is out of line to bring that up. It is as if people are out of line telling Skaasgard that he looked like a clown in ‘IT’. If anyone body-shamed Corden, it was CATS! I get why they would not want to add ‘body-shaming’ to their list of problems they have to deal with. But correct me if I am wrong, the same journalists were calling out Amy Schumer’s ‘I Feel Pretty’ movie, where a slightly chubbier woman hit her head and decided she was beautiful while we were told she wasn’t because she wasn’t skinny. If that is insulting and body-shaming, why is Bustopher any different? I mean other than the whiskers.

Some people took offence at his joke about Leonardo DiCaprio dating very young girls. Not LDC himself, as Brad and I call him, because he seemed to be laughing at the joke. Is Gervais really the sleezy one here? The joke followed with a Prince Andrew reference, which I understand some people may have considered as equating borderline creepy with illegal behaviour. Far-fetched, yes, but again possibly the most common premise for a joke. Like ‘taking your shoes off in planes should be illegal’. No one really thinks it is worth time in prison. I think. I hope. I mean on long flights, it happens. People in the US need to start watching Frankie Boyle and calm down. Lastly, the joke about the lack of female directors nominated received a lot of backlash which I do not even understand. I thought he essentially called out the lack of female nominees. If Awkwafina said the same joke about ‘better yet not let women direct altogether’ she would be getting a standing ovation for stretching out how ridiculous the lack of female nominees was.

I came to this monologue predisposed with love for Gervais but I honestly think some people went in predisposed that Gervais would bring in a politically incorrect speech and that is all. I don’t think he went after anyone other than Epstein, Weinstein and celebrities that shouldn’t and didn’t, for the most part, take themselves too seriously. I didn’t feel he mocked any group of people, opinions or movements, complained about being ‘censored in this hyper-sensitive world’ like other white, male or white-male comedians. I will admit I am a bit weary because it seems he got a new wind of right-wing following on Twitter, which either proves me naive, or shows that the self-proclaimed right-wing Twitter is an idiotic crowd with no understanding of political stands altogether. One does not exclude the other, of course. I am generally quite naïve.

Also, to end on a more pleasant note, Ramy Youssef won ‘Best Actor in a comedy series’! Irrefutable evidence that someone has been reading my blog.

Link to the monologue:

https://www.nbc.com/the-golden-globe-awards/video/ricky-gervais-golden-globes-monologue/4093467

Oh and Happy New Year!