British comedian Ricky Gervais chastised Hollywood’s elites during his opening monologue at the Golden Globes award ceremony on Jan. 5 for compromising their professed beliefs by working for companies criticized for ethical issues.
He also called on the movie industry award winners to avoid political pontification in their acceptance speeches.
“You say you’re woke, but the companies you work for, I mean, unbelievable—Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service, you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you?” he said, referring to the terrorist group.
He praised Apple’s contribution to the TV show production “The Morning Show,” but slammed the company.
“A superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing made by a company that runs sweatshops in China,” he said.
Gervais then made a recommendation:
“If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech, right? 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,” he said, referring to the Swedish teenage activist who spent much of last year traveling the world to talk about her concerns about the effects of humans on the world’s climate.
Some of the speakers and award recipients, including actors and actresses Russell Crowe, Patricia Arquette, and Michelle Williams, chose not to heed Gervais’s advice, and used their time to air political messages.
Hollywood celebrities have previously faced criticism for giving speeches about social, political, and environmental issues, despite having limited expertise on the subjects and sometimes displaying behavior that runs counter to their stated ideals.
Epstein Comments
In his speech, Gervais also made reference to skepticism about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, a well-connected financier arrested in July 2019 for allegedly running a child prostitution ring.“Spoiler alert,” Gervais said about his character in the “After Life” TV show. “Season two is on the way, so in the end, he obviously didn’t kill himself—just like Jeffrey Epstein.”
Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019. The death was ruled a suicide, but has been broadly questioned by the public because of some unusual circumstances surrounding his death, along with suspicion that he possessed compromising information about his many powerful friends and acquaintances.
“Shut up. I know he’s your friend, but I don’t care,” Gervais responded to a loud “oh” from the audience.
“You liked to make your own way in your own plane, didn’t you?” he added, referring to many prominent figures who took flights in Epstein’s private jet dubbed the “Lolita Express.”
Gervais’s speech made waves online, with more than 750,000 tweets mentioning his name by noon of Jan. 6.
But some in the entertainment industry milieu have criticized Gervais.
