I sat down to the Golden Globes a this past January fan-girling in anticipation. The deadly funny duo of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey hosted the event for the second year in a row. Trying to be as objective as possible, which is pretty much impossible for me to do when it concerns Poehler or Fey, I would say that the best parts of the show always involved one of these hilarious women. They controlled the entire show. When the tempo went down they came back on stage and cranked it right back up.

As I sat an enjoyed I wondered to myself what the Golden Globes would do without Poehler and Fey. This brought on the obvious realization that Ricky Gervais hosted the program three years in a row, prior to Fey and Poehler. I had never remembered thinking the Golden Globes were all that exciting before last year. I chalked it all up to Gervais not being as funny or charming as these two female comics. It wasn’t just me who thought this; his reviews were terrible, full of people taking personal offense to what he was saying.

However, after watching Gervais’ three monologues on YouTube I was shocked to observe that his jokes were fairly similar to the ones told by Fey and Poehler. Of course all of their content was original, and time appropriate, however, many of their jokes fell into the same category. Most of the humor was rude, immature, inappropriate, or some sort of pun.

So really what I am wonder is: why did Fey and Poehler pull of a funny and well reviewed show, while Gervais was called under fire after hosting each year. How come Gervais couldn’t get away with telling these kinds of jokes? And how come Fey and Poehler make it come across in such a lovely way?

It could be a gender issue. It could be because Poehler and Fey have that gift where they can manage to be sarcastic ad charming at the same time. It may just be that women can perhaps get away with saying things that men can’t. When a Woman calls out a man and tells a joke at his expense it’s daring and empowering to watch. However, when a man cracks a crude joke about a woman, he is called a sexist and impolite. Is this really fair to Ricky Gervais? He can’t help his gender, shouldn’t funny jokes be funny regardless of who tells them? In a perfect world yes, But in reality we have ingrained biases that we can’t ignore. I find myself as a great example of this. When Tina Fey said “For his role in the movie Dallas Buyers Club Matthew Mcconaughey lost forty five pounds, or what we actresses call being in a movie.” I found this absolutely hilarious and just that Fey called out Hollywood for its distorted view of women. Gervais said “No awards this year for Sex and the City 2. I was sure the Golden Globe for special effects would go to the team that airbrushed that poster.” At the time I felt incredibly offended. Thinking to myself “how dare he take a stab at beautiful older actresses.” Feeling personally offended because I associated this with older women not having many roles, while there are plenty for older men. Now as I reread that joke objectively I admit it was pretty funny. If Amy Poehler had said that about an older actor I probably would have laughed. Maybe sarcastic joke telling is just where women have the upper hand. When it comes to being rude women get away with it.

Another major issue Gervais’ trio of hosting gigs brought up is the idea of drinking alcohol on stage. Who really knows if it was actually alcohol but the “bit” was set up to look that way. In all three of his shows Gervais drank a glass of beer on stage. This was greatly critiqued and ridiculed. It was called trashy, inappropriate, and not funny. Yet in both of their hosting gigs Poehler and Fey were sipping on cocktails. Last year after both women lost in the best leading actress in a TV comedy category, they were both drinking on stage. Proudly proclaiming “well it’s time to start drinking since we’re all losers tonight!” Then earlier this year when Poehler won in the same category they were both having celebratory drinks. No one even batted an eyelash.

This year’s Golden Globes was one for the ages. Every joke was rude and sarcastic and hilarious. But were we left laughing because of the quality of joke, or the person who is telling it?