rant of the week: people who take themselves too seriously

Last night the golden globes were on!

personally i can't bear to watch awards shows. i just find them so incredibly painful. from famous actors failing to read the teleprompter correctly to painfully awkward and unfunny acceptance speeches, i basically spend the entire time cringing. why would i waste 3 hours of my life on something so painful?

needless to say, i did not watch the golden globes last night. however, as you may or may not know, i happen to adore ricky gervais (who was hosting), so i watched a clip of his performance online this morning. the clip was linked to from washington post and guardian uk articles that basically panned his performance, calling it "mean-spirited" "lazy and perfunctorily smarmy" and stating that it "drew more gasps than laughs". (the washington post article was more critical, but why would i even take it seriously when, in the same piece, the author praised an actor from "The Big Bang Theory" as being so deserving of his best actor award? ugh).

anyway... i watched ricky gervais' monologue. it was biting and mean and hilarious. it was hilarious because it was biting and mean. i'm sorry, but when did we start feeling badly for charlie sheen and trying to protect his feelings? dude. if he can't handle people making a little fun of him, maybe he shouldn't have trashed a hotel room in the first place...?

i actually think it was awesome that ricky gervais did that monologue while the people he was making fun of were in the room. it's not mean spirited at all. it is essentially the same idea as a roast: poking fun at people because no one should take themselves so seriously that they can't laugh at their own failures and embarrassing moments. i mean, is angelina jolie so insulated from reality that she can't even admit that her own movie was shit? and besides, when they asked ricky gervais to host, the producers of the golden globes had to know that his style of humor - and actually, probably the reason he was chosen to host last year - is based on the fact that he views hollywood as a ridiculous place filled ridiculous people. which it is. was it over the line? probably some of it (the acting out of the hugh hefner joke was a bit much for network tv) but honestly, if they didn't want someone pushing the boundaries, then why did they ask him to host again?

people seriously need to lighten the eff up.