Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globe awards ceremony nearly a year ago, tossing off a few jokes that were sharper than the norm and getting some laughs in the process. Not long after the Hollywood Foreign Press released a statement saying "we loved the show," and Gervais said that twice was enough and he wouldn't host the show again. All settled, right?
It would be if we were dealing with a normal person, or someone who doesn't see their role in life as to be the unwanted court jester to the movie industry. Instead we're dealing with Ricky Gervais, who continued to bring up the Golden Globes on his blog, at one point even suggesting doing a live 3-hour podcast making fun of the Globes while they aired, then crowing when he received an Emmy nomination for his job hosting the Globes. Even well after the world had moved on from his hosting gig and gone back to making fun of Hollywood with their own jokes, Gervais was hanging on to his status as a renegade, a man speaking truth to power-- even when all he did was crack a joke about Robert Downey Jr.'s former drinking problem, with Downey Jr.'s permission.
Now, a solid 10 months after the last rumors died down, Gervais is doing his best to stir up more discussion that he might host the Globes again. This morning Page Six printed a rumor that Gervais had met with the HFPA about potentially hosting, and Gervais himself tweeted a link to the report with the teasing phrase "Oooooh! The plot thickens…" Despite the amount of times he's sworn up and down that he'll never do the job again, Gervais wants to drag us down this rabbit hole of speculation again, before they inevitably hire Neil Patrick Harris or Melissa McCarthy to do the job instead.
Shut up, Ricky Gervais. No one is clamoring for you to host the Golden Globes again, and even if they are, they do it because they're not expecting the smirking self-satisfied goon you've become when talking about the Globes incessantly for the last year. Sure, maybe the HFPA wants Gervais back because he brought in good ratings this year. But his wounded attitude about the Globes, mixed with his constant need for self-promotion and to position himself as some outspoken Gandhi for the entertainment industry, is exhausting, and so distant from the truly great comedy he's put out in the world in the past. There are plenty of people who would do perfectly great jobs hosting the Globes-- Gervais himself did it twice. Move on from this idea, and maybe Gervais will finally move on too.
