This year’s Golden Globes, once the most lighthearted and humorous award show in the Hollywood pantheon, reminded us just how irrelevant — and unfunny — the entertainment industry has become.
What is often dubbed “Hollywood’s best party” quickly became its biggest flop. Minutes into the opening dialogue from first-time host Jo Koy, the audience, both in person and at home, realized this would be about as much fun as binge-watching Netflix’s documentary on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The newbie comedian, who most had never heard of until Sunday night, was hired just two weeks prior to awards show. His lack of preparation was evident, but so was his lack of professionalism. Like any good victim, he blamed the producers.
“Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago,” he proclaimed, and not in a tone to elicit any sort of empathy. “You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up!” he cried after his multiple jokes about the Barbie movie failed to garner anything more than an uncomfortable chuckle: “And Barbie is [about] a plastic doll with big boobies.” Ummmm…
It’s hard to believe the show’s writers would allow such an immature, devastatingly dull line, but, apparently, they did, because Koy also blamed the writers for all the barbs that didn’t land: “I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.” Yikes. Not exactly what one would call a gracious host.
Understandably, the 52-year-old comedian must have been under immense pressure as a first-time host in a room full of peers and a national audience of 9.4 million viewers — up 50 percent from last year, but still a dramatic decline from a few years ago.
I wanted to give the guy some grace, so I watched some of his other skits. Nope. Still not funny.
Which comes as no surprise. Very few comedians are funny these days. They’re not allowed to be because the truth is no longer tolerated.
As many comedians — from George Carlin to Dave Chappelle — have asserted, funnymen are the truth tellers, prophets, even. They make bitter poisons palatable. Comedians help us to look at the darkest parts of humanity and ourselves without dropping into deep despair.
When you can no longer tell the truth, you stop being funny. You resort to jokes about “boobies” and base, lewd behavior rather than intelligent insights.
As one 2013 article in Esquire in described, comedians are “[t]akers of liberty, givers of offense[;] their hostility is deliberate, their cruelty relentless — freeing us to laugh at our weakness, pain, and rage. No wonder we repay them with our love.”
Not only with our love, but also with generous paychecks. Chappelle earns $20 million from Netflix any time he chooses to do a performance for the streaming platform. He has done at least five specials since 2016. Despite fierce backlash for his recent jokes about the transgender religion, Chappelle isn’t backing down. In fact, in his most recent show, The Dreamer, he doubles down.
He recounts a story about how excited he was to meet for the first time Jim Carey, who, portraying the legendary comic Andy Kaufman, wouldn’t break character while shooting Man on the Moon. Chappelle describes, at length, how disappointed he was knowing it was Carey but having to pretend he was someone else. You wonder where he is going with the whole bit until he finally delivers the punchline in the way only Dave Chappelle can: “I say all that to say — that’s how trans people make me feel.” The crowd goes wild. The clip went viral within minutes.
That kind of laughter, particularly these days, is gold. But very few have the courage to even get near the golden calves of today’s insane culture obsessed with gender, sexuality, politics, and microaggressions — all ripe fodder for belly-aching laughs.
Ricky Gervais has always been funny because he is so politically incorrect, serving cutting insults to those closest to him — actors. In fact, the last time the Golden Globes saw a funny host, it had Gervais at the podium. Whenever I’m in need of a good laugh, I still watch his iconic 2020 opening monologue, which chided Hollywood’s elite for consorting with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as for their blatant hypocrisy.
“Well, you say you’re woke, but the companies you work for, I mean, unbelievable,” he ranted. “Apple, Amazon, Disney — if ISIS started a streaming service, you’d call your agent, wouldn’t ya?”
He didn’t stop there:
So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech, alright? You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So if you win, right, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your God, and f*** off.
The reactions in the room were priceless. Needless to say, some did not appreciate his facts.
Those at the top seem to be fine with jokes as long as they’re not the butt of them. Taylor Swift, who is at the prime of her career, demonstrated no graciousness whatsoever at what may have been the only funny moment Koy had all night.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL?” he asked. “On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.”
It was funny because it was true. Swift did not agree. The camera panned to reveal a look that would have turned anyone to stone.
Taylor Swift reacts to host Jo Koy’s joke at the Golden Globes (Page Six/YouTube)
Predictably, the Guardian published a piece slamming the two most popular, and likely most wealthy, stand-ups with the headline “Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais sink to new depths,” referring to their jokes about what many now refer to as “the oppressed.”
While it’s difficult to get viewership for shows on Netflix (they don’t disclose those statistics), it’s safe to say the studio has made a solid bet with Chappelle. His most recent special is currently at No. 2 in Netflix’s top 10, with many clips from the show flooding social media.
In an ironic twist, Gervais’ current show, Armageddon, won a Golden Globe this year for best performance in stand-up. As if to demonstrate how little Gervais cares, he wasn’t even present to accept the award.
According to the Guardian, those accomplishments don’t constitute success. The byline on the article describes the men as “two once-funny comedians continuing to punch down in a desperate quest for relevance.”
Their recent accolades would suggest they are actually quite relevant. And that is what comedians do — punch. They punch down, up, sideways, and any which way they can to give us some reprieve from a world that seems all too tragic these days.
But this is what Hollywood and, indeed, much of our society has become — a humorless minority without so much as a hint of humility. While we used to laugh with them, now we just laugh at them.
