Marketed as the host who would pull no punches in dealing with the celebrity guests at the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards, Ricky Gervais is surprisingly generating excessive outcry for his comedic tone at Sunday’s broadcast.
Gervais, who mocked celebrities like Charlie Sheen, Steve Carell and (seemingly) Tom Cruise with his biting material, has been on the receiving end of harsh judgment from online critics. Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com called the Globes the “meanest awards show ever” and cracked that Gervais, who no one expects to return for a third time next year, “will” need good luck.
Implications throughout that website expressed a likelihood that talent managers and agents would convey their unhappiness with Gervais’ hard-hitting approach towards celebrity mockery.
AOL’s Popeater, meanwhile, cites a Hollywood Foreign Press Association member in claiming that Gervais will not only be bypassed for future hosting invitations but will face difficulty getting nominations for any of his films.
“Ricky will not be invited back to host the show next year, for sure,” says the source. “For sure any movie he makes he can forget about getting nominated. He humiliated the organization last night and went too far with several celebrities whose representatives have already called to complain.”
That source attributed the greatest level of frustration to Gervais’ mocking of HFPA president Philip Berk; Gervais cracked that while Eva Longoria had the difficult role of introducing him, her challenge was nothing compared to his duty of helping “the HFPA president off the toilet and [popping] his teeth back in.”
