Critic: Gervais's 'Mortality' Golden Globe Win Undermines Stand-Up

Ricky Gervais’s Netflix special "Mortality" won the Golden Globe for best stand-up comedy on television on Sunday, the second time he has taken that Globe in three years, Jason Zinoman wrote in The New York Times. Zinoman, a critic at large for The Times, called the special “dismal” and “meandering,” arguing that it recycled material, relied on lines previously delivered at the Golden Globes and even included a joke Gervais acknowledged “needs a bit of work that one.” He said Gervais billed the show as his “most honest and confessional” but “proceeds to say nothing we don’t already know.” The column criticizes Gervais’s focus on a long-running cancel-culture theme — quoting him saying, “They’ve tried to cancel me for 15 years” — and singles out a bit about a busboy’s sniffle as emblematic of what Zinoman called “smug anger and dopey cruelty.” He also noted that Netflix has continued to release Gervais’s specials and that the comic repurposes material rather than offering fresh arguments.

Zinoman argued the Globe win sends a troubling message about how stand-up is valued, saying the Globes’ stand-up prize lacks a more prestigious analogue and that nominees this year (including Brett Goldstein, Kevin Hart, Bill Maher, Kumail Nanjiani and Sarah Silverman) suggest the awards favor fame over humor.

Key Topics

Culture, Ricky Gervais, Golden Globes, Mortality, Netflix, Jason Zinoman