Golden Globes cemented Ricky Gervais' transformation into The Office's David Brent

The Muse

Gervais' fifth time hosting the Golden Globes is proof that he's become his iconic cringe-inducing character from The Office, says Emily Alford. "In the original U.K. version of The Office, his character David Brent was often openly sexist, racist, and homophobic," says Alford. "But his offensive jokes weren’t actually the joke. The unfairness of a power imbalance that left Brent’s employees unable to call him out was the punchline. The Dickensian nature of modern-day office power structures and Brent, along with his mean-spirited jabs, were the villains of the show. Gervais seems to have forgotten that fact and instead imagines that criticism is the same as persecution. He openly jokes about a member of a marginalized group and then claims that those who push back against that humor are a threat to his free speech instead of people exercising their right to engage with the rhetoric he presented. He has become David Brent, cornering his staff to make sh*tty jokes in the conference room and throwing a fit when they don’t laugh, assuming the fact that he’s been paid to tell jokes obligates the audience to chuckle along. In lieu of sharpening his humor, his reaction to that perceived persecution seems to be shutting down and lecturing other celebrities not to get political in their acceptance speeches, telling nominees, 'You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.' While that could be true for many of the guests in attendance, including Gervais, who seems to know little about trans people, nor which of his jokes are casually sexist, there were people at the Globes who made political speeches that absolutely related to their lived experiences."

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