Gervais on Culture

Ricky Gervais' monologue on fame (from the last year's season finale of Extras) on the current state of popular culture is amazing. Go here to watch it. Click below for the text of the monologue.

" I'm just sick of these celebrities living their lives out in the open all the time. Why would you do that? It's like these pop stars choose the perfect moment to go into rehab. They call their publicist before they call a taxi. Then they come out and do their second autobiography. This one is called 'Love Me or I'll Kill Myself.' Oh, go kill yourself then! And the papers lap it up. And they follow us round and that makes people think we're important and that makes us think we're important. If they stopped taking pictures of us, people wouldn't take to the streets going, 'Oh, quick! I need a picture of Cameron Diaz with a pimple!' They wouldn't care. They'd go on with something else. They'd get on with their lives. You open the paper and you see a picture of Lindsay Lohan getting out of a car and the headline is 'Cover Up, Lindsay! We Can See Your Knickers!' Well, of course you can see her knickers. Your photographer is lying in the road pointing his camera up her dress to see her knickers. You're literally the gutter press. And ... you, the makers of this show as well! You can't wash your hands of this . . . . "

. . . You can't say, 'Oh, it's exploitation, but it's what the public wants.' No! The Victorian freak show never went away. Now it's called 'Big Brother' or 'American Idol' . . . . And ... you for watching this at home. Shame on you. And shame on me because I'm the worst of all. Because I say, 'I'm an entertainer because it's in my blood!' Yeah, it's my blood because a real job's too hard. I would've loved to have been a doctor. Too hard to put the work in. I wanted to be a war hero. Too scared. So I go, 'It's what I do,' and I have someone bullocked if my cappuccino's cold or if they look at me the wrong way. Do you know what a friend of mine said? I'll never be happy because I'll never be famous enough."