“You disgusting, pill-popping, sexually-deviant scum,” Ricky Gervais said at the top of his Golden Globes monologue Sunday night, full beer in hand. “I want to do this monologue and then go into hiding, OK? Not even Sean Penn will find me...Snitch.”
Caitlyn Jenner was an early target, or as Gervais called her, Bruce. “What a year she's had,” he said. “She became a role model for trans people everywhere, showing great bravery in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes.” Then came the punchline: “She didn't do a lot for women drivers.”
Some of the comedian’s most piercing material concerned the pay gap for women in Hollywood, brought to light by Jennifer Lawrence over the past year, and first broken by The Daily Beast.
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“Jennifer Lawrence made the news when she demanded equal pay for women in Hollywood and she received, yeah, overwhelming support from people everywhere,” he said as the crowd in the room cheered. “There were marches on the street with nurses and factory workers saying, 'How the hell can a 25-year-old live on $52 million?'”
“Of course women should be paid the same as men for doing the same job, and I would like to say now that I'm getting paid exactly the same as Tina and Amy did last year for hosting this,” Gervais said of last year’s hosts Fey and Poehler. “Now I know there were two of them, but it's not my fault if they want to share the money, is it?”
The host called the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters film “brilliant for the studios because they get guaranteed box office results and they don't have to spend too much money on the cast.”
Before turning over the stage to the first two presenters of the night, Gervais reminded the nominees in the audience that the award is “worthless.” He added, “It’s a bit of metal that some nice old confused journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and have a selfie with you. OK? That's all it is.”
