Review: Politics reigned at the Golden Globes. Too bad Ricky Gervais didn’t notice

Forget the escapist magic of Hollywood. Nihilism was the name of the game when host Ricky Gervais opened the Golden Globes on Sunday night with a gloom-and-doom monologue so cynical it made the effervescent Tom Hanks scowl.
"Let's go out with a bang. Let's have a laugh at your expense," said the snarky British comedian to the crowd of A-listers who'd looked eager to get the party started until hestepped onstage. "Remember, they're just jokes. We're all gonna die soon and there's no sequel, so remember that."
The 58-year-old former Golden Globe winner (The Office) and five-time host also flippantly reminded the packed room that, "No one cares about movies anymore," and advised, "If you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world." ...

Gervais' disingenuous call for an apolitical evening was also answered by Russell Crowe — in absentia — when he won for actor in a limited series or TV movie for Showtime's Roger Ailes docudrama "The Loudest Voice." ...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-golden-globes-ricky-gervais-review-20200106-w3bilbr5vzadpm6qaolv6xjqpi-story.html

n a 1960 article for Esquire that anticipated the election of John F Kennedy, Norman Mailer alluded to a “subterranean river that is the dream life of a nation.” He was probably referring to the hidden political passions of the left and right but in the age of Trump, middle of the roaders also have elusive dreams, some of which were dramatized for the past six years in the CBS TV series Madam Secretary which aired its series finale on December 8th.

For the most part, the mainstream press either ignored or condescended to the political drama which starred Tea Leoni as Secretary of State for the first five years. Keith Carradine played the President who appointed her until the show’s final season when his successor, Elizabeth McCord, became America’s first female President. In an affectionate farewell, Margaret Lyons of the New York Times nevertheless referred to Madame Secretary as “the least hip of shows,” and downplayed its political relevance.

Yet the “conservative” website MRC (whose slogan is “Exposing and Combatting Liberal Media Bias” and which Breitbart often links to) published three separate attack pieces about the show in the last few months beginning with the snarky exhortation “Liberals rejoice! Your dream of a Hillary Clinton presidency is finally coming true.” ...

Madam Secretary’s primary story arc in its final season revolved around election interference by Iran—which in real life has been the favorite bogeyman of neo-conservatives. Unlike Trump, McCord knows nothing of a foreign country’s meddling, was outraged when she found out, and cooperated unreservedly with Congressional investigations. There was an unsettling aftertaste of “both sides do it” in this convoluted formulation...

...

The right-wing media site MRC indignantly wrote, “Madam Secretary subscribes to the theory that fake videos not only spread lies but radicalize people into racists as well.” Yet I suspect the complaint obscures the actual reason that a painstakingly centrist drama was the source of so much libertarian ire. Madame Secretary’s real sin was that it portrayed an effective female President who oversaw an executive branch populated by earnest hardworking policy wonks who worked for the greater good of the United States. Most of the issues dramatized by the series will fade in relevance over time, but its sympathetic vision of the foreign service will live on via Netflix (which also offers all seven seasons of The West Wing). The show’s aspirational portrayal of government service is probably what triggers the rage of Trumpists—and what makes Madame Secretary, neo-liberal warts and all, a subterranean dream worth re-visiting.

https://www.thenation.com/article/madame-secretary-television-centrists/

Note: "What Kind of Day Has It Been" is also the title of season finale episodes of the other Aaron Sorkin TV series Sports Night (season 1, episode 23), The West Wing (season 1, episode 22), and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (episode 22).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Newsroom_episodes#cite_note-27

Orson Bean was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of Marian Ainsworth (née Pollard) and George Frederick Burrows. His father was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a fund-raiser for the Scottsboro Boys' defense, and a 20-year member of the campus police of Harvard College.[1] Among his other relatives is Calvin Coolidge, who was president of the United States at the time of his birth and was his third cousin twice removed.[2] Bean graduated from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School; and between 1946 and the end of 1947, he served 18 months in the United States Army. While stationed in postwar Japan, he developed and refined a magic act during his off-duty hours...

In an interview on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1974, Bean recounted the source of his new name.[4] He credited its origin to a piano player named Val at "Hurley's Log Cabin", a restaurant and nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts, where he had once performed. According to Bean, every evening before he went on stage at the nightclub, Val would suggest to him a silly name to use when introducing himself to the audience. One night, for example, the piano player suggested "Roger Duck", but the young comedian got very few laughs after using that name in his performance.[4] On another night, however, the musician suggested "Orson Bean", and the comedian received a great response from the audience, a reaction so favorable that it resulted in a job offer that same evening from a local theatrical booking agent. Given his success on that occasion, Bean decided to keep using the odd-sounding but memorable name...

Although Bean was placed on the Hollywood blacklist for attending Communist Party meetings while dating a member, he continued to work through the 1950s and 60s.[2] He played the title character in the 1960 Twilight Zone episode "Mr. Bevis". In 1961, for the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, he starred as John Monroe in "The Secret Life of James Thurber", based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber...

In 1965, he married actress and fashion designer Carolyn Maxwell with whom he had three children: Max, Susannah, and Ezekiel.[15] The couple divorced in 1981. Their daughter Susannah married conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart (died 2012) in 1997.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Bean