Comedy Gold

It's been impossible to get a word in edgeways over the past week amid the hype surrounding last Sunday's Golden Globe Awards and Ricky Gervais' controversial performance as host. The climate has started to calm, and with the tide back out, there's a clearer picture that paints the brouhaha as nonsense.

Gervais crossed the Atlantic more swimmingly than most British comedians. Typically, we are met by a deadpan America (ditto for our musicians); but with Gervais, they laughed. A welcome like that allowed him to flourish, not just in TV and stand-up, but in film too. His success means he is now at home at HBO as much as he was at the BBC - something the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) realised when they invited him to host the Globes back in 2010.

It was there that the world stood up to listen: Ricky Gervais, from Reading, England, taking the game to Hollywood's elite, the rich and the famous - and the otherwise untouchable. Because that's where comedy is best: not when it goes through the motions, but when it is revolutionary and courageous. And yes, at times his comedy pushes the boundaries - and indeed it did that night - but you never see it cross the line.

The playing-with-fire strategy he went with last year had been his intention from the outset. In fact, he has said he took the gig because of that. His rationale: how can I inject life into an awards ceremony? You only have to look at his opening - where he mockingly applauds the great work done by cosmetic surgeons to the faces in front of him - to realise that he had lived up to his promise. It's lines like that - and "worse" - which left the HFPA with little choice but to invite him back this year.

Unfortunately, a year is a long time in showbusiness. If there was a measure of hostile reaction, this year's post-Golden Globes hype would outscore last's by a mile. And that's where part of the problem lies: in 2010, he tested the water and the feel was good; this year, he found that the current had changed - drastically. So where's the sense, then, in scapegoating Gervais for what was, essentially, an updated version of a previous performance?

In reality, the answer to that is neither here nor there; regardless of whether we witnessed a new Gervais last Sunday or not (we didn't), the real issue was the content. A quick glance at the celebrity press over the past week and you'll notice "mean", "cruel", "offensive" - and Robert Downey Jr's "sinister undertones" - hogging much of the review space. Those behind these words no doubt realise that this year, Gervais is even more a part of the Hollywood community (or was, at least, prior to the show) - enough reason, they'd think, to sit back and avoid offending his peers. Thankfully, he didn't. Because instead of staying loyal to his new Hollywood family, he stayed loyal to his comedy. As such, we again witnessed a host doing exactly what hosts should do: calling the shots. Often that meant raising the eyebrows of some of his guests - and making some of them frown - but nevertheless, more often than not, it meant making them smile.

That oxymoronic approach says it all about Gervais. His sign off on Sunday - "...thank you to God for making me an Atheist" - stems from an essay he wrote last month for the Wall Street Journal, explaining his religious stance. Some Christian eccentrics didn't like it, and many attributed a lack of faith as quintessential to a lack of morality. To those atheists reading, I know what you're thinking: mental! And you'd be right - these are the maniacs that blow up planes, trains and automobiles.

Gervais [not that he needs to] disproves their idiocy in his comedy; though at times he appears "sinister", he performs from a conscience that is compassionate: trace through his work and you'll find a comedian who spots humour in what is chosen, never in what is already determined (he explains this raison d'être better than I can here). Even in his "mean-spirited" performance last Sunday, you'll still see the principle at work.

In his interview with Piers Morgan earlier this week, Gervais said that "just because you're offended does not mean you're in the right. A lot of people are offended by mixed marriages - it doesn't mean they are right". This is something that we ought to remember before denouncing Gervais. The taboos he confronted on Sunday were borne out of a Tinsel Town that knows better than to take things to heart - even if Gervais did sail close to the wind in how he confronted them.

It's a testament to Gervais that the viewing figures from last Sunday were NBC's best since the 2010 awards. But that shouldn't be the gauge to measure his success as a comedian. Instead, we sould judge him on his comedy principles: Gervais has not just the ability to make people laugh, but the integrity to know never to use it at any cost.