Ricky Gervais promised to offend Hollywood when he hosted the 73rd annual Golden Globes on Sunday night, and the comedian didn’t disappoint, leveling many of his sharpest jokes at Mel Gibson, Bruce Jenner, and Jennifer Lawrence.
“I’m going to be nice tonight,” Gervais said during his opening monologue at Sunday night’s ceremony. “I’ve changed, not as much as Bruce Jenner obviously – now Caitlyn Jenner, of course. What a year she’s had! She became a role model for trans people everywhere, showing great bravery in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes. She didn’t do a lot for women drivers. But you can’t have everything, can you? Not at the same time.”
Gervais’ joke predictably stirred up accusatory news reports in left-leaning media, who rushed to brand the comedian “transphobic” for poking fun at Jenner. The Huffington Post and the Advocate called the joke “offensive,” and Buzzfeed took issue with the joke’s “sexist stereotype.”
“I know his thing is to make fun of everything, but I think if more people understood the violence trans people face every day, it would be harder to make jokes about it,” Transparent creator Jill Soloway complained to Buzzfeed.
After the show, Gervais had written that he “can’t wait” for news outlets to report that people were offended, and in a series of Twitter posts on Tuesday, the comedian stood defiantly by his jokes about Jenner, likening those branding all jokes about the reality star “transphobic” to someone calling all jokes about Bill Cosby “racist.”
Gervais added that his quip about Jenner was not focused on gender, but on the car crash Jenner was involved in that killed a woman in Malibu last year.
Gervais followed up with a series of tweets indicating he would not back off of his politically incorrect humor, and even appeared to revel in all the offense he’d caused.
Jenner was hardly the only celebrity to endure Gervais’ wrath on Sunday night. The British comedian mocked Jennifer Lawrence’s equal pay essay, Transparent star Jeffery Tambor, and director Roman Polanski all within the first five minutes of the telecast. The actor also poked fun at The Danish Girl actor Eddie Redmayne, introduced Matt Damon as “the only person Ben Affleck hasn’t been unfaithful to,” and called Latina actresses Eva Longoria and America Ferrara “two people who your future president, Donald Trump, can’t wait to deport.”
Check out Gervais’ complete monologue from Sunday night’s Golden Globes above.