Short Aside: Meta Meta Gervais?

I just saw Ricky Gervais on 60 Minutes. The funniest bits were of course the supposedly straight interview bits. But I don't know, was that unintentional by 60 Minutes? Was it unintentional by Gervais? Probably yes to the first, yes and no to the second. Gervais is too self-aware not to realise how funny the 60 Minutes interview will seem to himself and fellow Brits. At the same time, Brits are absurdly proud of any perceived success in the USA. So just as with the characters he's "straightforwardly" analysing, so as with his ambiguous intentions and post-show reactions: amused by the quietly subversive absurdity and also absurdly proud. Gervais has already rolled himself in so many protective layers of ambiguous self-analysing perception that there's no way to touch him. He and Eminem are birds of a feather, embodying cultural ethos of their time, fading now, as the Hangover-Obama age have made clear: self-hating joke's over, world is serious place, time to be serious, in the arts, politics, business, everything. Pre-detainee Iggy was one or two evolutionary cycles early, a seemingly unaware post-modern actor while Gervais & Mathers are hyper-aware unaware actors. Through the self-questioning their work has provoked, they have helped pave the way for the aware awareness of today. The reaction to their work was "can't be serious?", and forced decision, is he and am I, yes or no? Am I superficial tosser or am I real and decent, do my words and acts have meaning or not? Obviously, majority chose meaning, as they always do, because unmeaning is suicide.

He's a good guy, Gervais. What I'll always wonder when watching programs like 60 Minutes or occasional glimpses of TV NFL is whether Americans really are so unironic, so straight? From what I know, vast majority, yes. Of course one can cite Simpsons, Family Guy, etc., as self-congratulatory ironic rebuke to the rest by self-considered cultural elite, in widest possible sense of term (arrogant teenager online is member of this "elite"). But of course that irony, given its almost didactic intention, is as straight, in its way, as supposedly straight culture. To do it right you've got to do it like Gervais, mod-style. Don't even let the glimmer of a wink or smile appear, don't be clearly over the top, like Kaufman, Steve Martin, etc., just play it seemingly straight, just ever so much too straight, tie tied just a little bit too well, suit cut just a little too sharply, etc.. Maybe easier for Brits because of legacy of mod culture, which itself speaks to aspiration to safeguard and popularise soul of aristocratic culture and humour, aggression hidden behind apparent blandness and manners. Irony is an incredibly mean, aggressive, aristocratic tool at heart - only "we" are supposed to get the joke and the duffer who doesn't, doesn't even realise he doesn't and doesn't realise "we" do, as "we" don't even smile or anything, and the joke is thus on him. Cruel, very cruel. Very "Normand". I know Gervais is supposed to have Canadien roots, but there is some extraordinary statistic out there that something like 70% of proper London families, real Londoners, going way back, are of Huguenot origin. Anyway, reminds us once again how close English and French cultures are, and how they are distorted images of one another. But think of "Diner des cons" and think of Gervais on 60 Minutes. Same game but different, eh?