Jan 17, 2011 07:43 GMT  ·  By

The 2011 Golden Globe Awards were held last night, January 16, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, with Ricky Gervais on hosting duties. Though he did give fair warning of the jokes he’d make, his humor still proved too much for some.

Starting from the first moments of the ceremony, Gervais managed to get people in the audience a bit confused as to whether they were expected to laugh at the jokes or be offended by them.

In the end, as the video below will also show, many of them chose not to applaud and just stand there frozen-faced. Some, though, like Robert de Niro and Tina Fey, were clearly amused.

Still, that doesn’t change the fact that Gervais didn’t know how to work the crowd, PopEater says. Instead of making surprising and easy jokes, he went for clichés and nasty humor.

In his opening monologue alone (which you can see below), he included the who’s who of celebrity world, giving voice to what bloggers have been saying for months about stars like Charlie Sheen, Tom Cruise and films like “SATC 2” and “The Tourist.”

While some are defending Gervais saying British humor is more direct, several media outlets, like PopEater, believe he crossed the line of common sense and good taste, reveling in nastiness.

Take for instance the joke he made about “The Tourist,” of which he said it was the only thing in 2010 not to come in 3D because it had one-dimensional, bad characters.

While there’s no denying that the film was a commercial and critical flop, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie are not exactly actors that can be mocked in such a cheap manner. Depp was obviously affected by the joke, even though he tried to hide it beneath a smile.

However, PopEater believes the most offensive jab was the one about Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, who play lovers in “I Love You Philip Morris,” and of whom Gervais said they were straight dudes playing gays.

“So the complete opposite of some Scientologists, then,” he added, taking a swing at an absent Tom Cruise. He tried to cushion the blow by saying he’d written this line with help from his lawyers.

The problem with Gervais as host was that he did not know who to pick on, PopEater believes.

‘Here was the problem with Gervais’ jokes: He didn’t play to the room. Ricky went after soft targets with some hard jokes,” the e-zine says.

“There’s a reason every Oscar host gives Jack Nicholson hell every year – it’s because Jack laughs back from behind his shades and knows how to play along. Most of the time at last night’s awards, no one was laughing with or at Ricky,” PopEater writes.

If you didn’t see the entire ceremony, below is Ricky Gervais’ opening monologue. Watch it and judge for yourself whether it was too nasty for the Golden Globes.