Paper Monitor
13:00 UK time, Tuesday, 18 January 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
There's nothing the papers like better than to check out how our exported British talent is performing Stateside. And this morning there are three Brits under the American media's microscope.
One joked his way to notoriety, one stuttered and one sat on a cream armchair asking questions.
First up, it's naughty Ricky Gervais, who finds himself cast as enemy number one and possibly even blacklisted in Hollywood after poking fun at Tinseltown royalty as host of the Golden Globes Awards in Los Angeles.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ website yesterday provided a neat summary of some of his offending gags, but today the papers get stuck in, with a mixture of admiration and disapproval.
The creator of David Brent received full backing from Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail:
You have to recall that these starlings of global glitter are dim birds, prone to follow the flock. And the flock did not know what do because it had never encountered such risky mockery... One of the paradoxes of the American film world is that it purports to celebrate individuality... but it has a terror of independence of mind
It might have been a performance that raised Gervais in the estimation of many British observers. But the American commentators were not amused.
The New York Times was among the kindest, merely , but the Washington Post spoke for many when it said Gervais was miscast, even inquiring whether the country was at war with England.
Not all Americans failed to see the funny side. Robert de Niro was visibly amused, apparently, and had his own irreverent joke when on the stage, and .
For those that like to see the British uphold a more deferential standing when abroad, then Colin Firth supplied a blend of gentility and humour in accepting his Best Actor award, quipping about staving off a mid-life crisis.
But the third Briton in the news, Piers Morgan, received a cooler reception on his debut in one of the highest-profile jobs on American television, taking over the Larry King Show on CNN.
According , he was "too fawning" when interviewing his first guest, Oprah Winfrey.
A demonstration that British humility and deference is far from dead, despite events elsewhere.
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