Wanda Sykes walked onto the Golden Globes stage Sunday night and did what the ceremony desperately needed: roasted the industry’s most insufferable “free speech” crusaders right to their faces.
“There’s some people pissed off that a queer Black woman is up here doing the job of two mediocre white guys,” Sykes announced while presenting the award for Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television. The camera caught Bill Maher looking decidedly less amused than usual.
THE DETAILS: Sykes didn’t waste any time before going after Maher, whose HBO special “Is Anyone Else Seeing This?” was nominated in the category. “You give us so much,” she told him. “But I would love a little less. Just try less.”
Then came Ricky Gervais, who wasn’t even in attendance for his nominated Netflix special “Morality.” Sykes seized the opportunity: “Ricky Gervais, I love you for not being here. No, I love you. But if you win, I get to accept the award on your behalf, and you are going to thank God — and the trans community.”
Of course, Gervais did win. And Sykes made good on her promise.
“He would like to thank God and the trans community,” she announced to the crowd, a pointed jab at Gervais’s 2022 Netflix special “SuperNature,” which featured a string of anti-transgender jokes — including one about women with “beards and cocks” — that sparked widespread backlash.
WHY IT MATTERS: The moment landed differently given where both targets have positioned themselves in recent years. Maher raised eyebrows last year after dining with Donald Trump at the White House, despite previously criticizing the president. On his podcast last month, Maher defended the decision, calling himself the “Trump whisperer” and suggesting America “would do a lot better to have more people like me talking to” the president.
“You know, it’s not like I was ever deceived before or after I had dinner with him, and I want to have dinner with him again,” Maher said. “I think he needs more people… and he likes talking to people.”
Gervais, meanwhile, has spent years positioning himself as a truth-telling provocateur while punching down at marginalized communities for laughs.
BOTTOM LINE: In an awards season where Hollywood often congratulates itself while dodging anything too controversial, Sykes reminded everyone that calling out mediocrity — especially the kind that cloaks itself in “edginess” — is its own form of comedy gold.