The British are coming! The British are coming!
Actually, at this point, with the announcement Monday that Eddie Izzard will be hosting the 25th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards on March 5, Paul Revere has become positively passé as Hollywood surrenders without a shot to the latest British Host Invasion.
Last year it was Russell Brand at MTV, last week it was “Office” creator Ricky Gervais as the first host of the Golden Globes in 15 years, and now it’s Izzard’s turn to fly the Union Jack over Tinseltown.
Despite once being called “the funniest man in pretty much all of the known universe” by one critic, despite an HBO special and various late-night appearances, Izzard, whose latest tour hits L.A. this week, is better known to most Americans as an actor – the FX series “The Riches,” the “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise and his voiceovers in the “Narnia” films -- than for his pitched and rambling absurdist comedy, much of it conducted in drag.
Which means on March 5, IFC viewers at home and a giant tent full of hard-partying Hollywood stars won’t know what hit them.
That’s kinda what happened in 2008, when Brit Russell Brand shocked the sensibilities of the MTV Awards with his irreverent and provocative asides on George W. Bush -- whom he called a “retard” and that “in England, he wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors” -- and the Jonas Brothers' purity rings.
Outrage and the resulting death threats is one thing, but surging viewership is another. No wonder the former junkie and self-confessed sex addict, who became a movie star off appearing in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” in the interim, was asked back to host the 2009 MTV Awards, the highest rated in years. Now he’s got a multi-picture deal, eats at Dominick’s in West Hollywood and is engaged to songstress Katy Perry.
Still hate the hair, but well done, Russell – cause that’s the thing -- Brits have been pillaging America for years onstage and on air.
Brits are in love with America’s largesse, and Americans seem to love to be made fun of by people who -- based on an Empire they actually helped dismantle, the stage directions of ole Bill Shakespeare, the witticisms of Oscar Wilde and the tunes of John, Paul, George and Ringo, among others -- they trick themselves into feeling less intelligent, sophisticated and canny than.
We forget that it was Ed Sullivan who made the Beatles superstars and gave ravenous working class boys like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin and later the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Oasis, the Streets, the Libertines and now the Cribs, who are on a West Coast tour this week, the keys to the American Kingdom.
It was a Dallas PBS station in the mid-'70s that made Monty Python the worldwide sensation that they nearly did not become after a meandering couple of seasons on British TV. "Pop Idol" may have made record company hack Simon Cowell just another well-known git with an extremely punchable face, America and “American Idol” made him an international icon of the mean-spirited.
