On the Graham Norton show, there used to be a slot in which the audience would assess the appearance of random men and then decide if they were "Gay, Straight or European?" A similar question was raging all across America last week, provoked by Ricky Gervais's hosting of the annual Golden Globes ceremony. Was he funny? Cruel? Or merely British?

The New York Daily News called him "tasteless, bordering on nasty". While Robert Downey Jr commented that he was "mean-spirited with vaguely sinister undertones". That's Robert Downey Jr, about whom Gervais said: "Many of you in this room probably know him best from such facilities as the Betty Ford clinic and Los Angeles county jail." To give you the background on this: that's Robert Downey Jr, who you probably know best for his stints in the Betty Ford clinic and in the Los Angeles county jail.

It's enormously hard to see what exactly the problem is with what is known in certain circles as "the truth". Or what exactly Robert Downey Jr would prefer? To be remembered for his star turn as Dr Kozak in 2006's Shaggy Dog ("A man tries to live a normal life despite the fact that he sometimes turns into a sheepdog")?

Even the Economist weighed in. Gervais, it said, demonstrated "the nihilism of the British way". British banter, it told its international readers, just as it has explained such concepts as "the pub" and "buying your round" before, can "baffle and perturb foreigners… even tamer badinage in this country can, to a foreign ear, sound like enmity". And it quoted the US comedian Reginald D Hunter, who claims that "Britain is the only country where people will introduce you to a friend by saying: 'This is my mate Barry, he's a bit of a twat'."

Was Gervais funny? Oh, who even cares? He was rude, bitchy, made potentially actionable statements about celebrity Scientologists, sent Robert Downey Jr into a teenage hissy fit, and all things considered, deserves an OBE for Services to Ego Deflation. More than that, he presented an alternative vision of British manhood from the other examples on display last week: Colin Firth, who won a Golden Globe for best actor, and Piers Morgan, whose chat show launched on CNN, and who both come from the Hugh Grant School of Vowels and Hair Management. (It sounds posh, I know, but I'm told it's somewhere outside Epping.) On the Deadline Hollywood website, beneath an article which reported that after three nights Morgan had dropped to third place in its time slot, after Fox News's Sean Hannity and MSBC's Rachel Maddow, a number of commentators made intelligent, reasonable points. Such as: "What sort of stupid name is Piers, anyway?" And "wasn't Piers Morgan the WORST Bond ever?"

If I was American, I think I'd be worried, too: this is a country of 300 million people, the nation at the heart of the world's industrial-entertainment complex, the cultural superpower that gave us Citizen Kane and Martin Scorsese. If they've taken Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell, what will they want next? The Archers? Nick Clegg? Our world-renowned air-conditioning units? So, yeah, it's like this, America. Meet my mate Ricky, he's a bit of a twat. But, to be honest, it sounds like you need him.