Misdemeanors at the Golden Globes: You Be the Judge

I cannot forgive Ryan Gosling for skipping out on the Golden Globes. Oh wait—my friend says Ryan has been photographed on a romantic getaway in France with Eva Mendes. I can totally forgive Ryan Gosling for skipping out on the Golden Globes. Oh wait—every tabloid says Ryan was in Thailand filming his next movie. Let me get this straight: Ryan Gosling was not only denying me his presence at the Golden Globes, but he was also denying Eva his presence as a boyfriend? I cannot forgive Ryan Gosling for skipping out on the Golden Globes.

Not only was Ryan Gosling missing in action last Sunday night at the award show, but Meryl Streep’s glasses took vacation as well. Streep, who won for The Iron Lady, took the stage, took her award, took out her note card, and realized she forgot her glasses. The “bleep” that immediately followed rekindled in me memories of home. She cursed. My mother always loses her glasses, and obscenities inevitably result. With this in mind, I can forgive Meryl Streep for losing her glasses.

George Clooney also can forgive Streep for this accident. He got up during the speech to find Streep’s glasses. He found them and passed them forward. The glasses crowd-surfed a table or two but never made it to the stage. Clooney and I understand that losing your glasses is an experience that renders you helpless; it makes you legitimately illiterate. I hope you can forgive Meryl Streep as well, because the foibles of Streep and my mother foreshadow our own futures. We will all need glasses someday, and we will all lose them someday. Let’s just hope we lose them at home and not on public broadcast.

Speaking of problems we could eventually inherit, Ricky Gervais foreshadowed another: alcoholism. In a completely unspoken but hysterical bit, Gervais returned to the stage every time with a new glass of liquor. He joked at what a novelty it was to drink and yap and get paid. His tone as a host was self-deprecating, but forgivable. If I were 21, and Steve Carell quit my show, I’d be drinking too.

I can imagine an allergic reaction broke out when the crew from the Artist, which won Best Picture in the Musical or Comedy category, chose to bring the dog from the film into the theater. However, I hope I speak for most inhaler-carrying people when I say, we did not mind. That Jack Russell Terrier was as much a scene-stealer at the awards as he was in the film, in which he heroically rescued the artist from a burning house. He risked his four-legged little life for the artist, and I would gladly take a bullet, or rather an epi-pen for him.

Finally, Morgan Freeman, who received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, was teased with an early clip from his career on the TV series, The Electric Company. Cue a younger, less dressed Freeman taking a bath in a casket while singing. Watch it! That unparalleled performance does not need to be forgiven.