Hosts normally make good-natured fun of celebrities, sometimes veering over the line into the odd insult, but it's never meant to be pointed or hurtful. The thing Gervais lacks from the above is a good nature. He set out to be an asshole, not in the "ooo-ooo I'm a crazy Brit with crazy hair saying crazy things, I might soil meself next" like Brand. He knew he was going to make enemies and didn't care. He must be in a pretty cold & bitter place to think it's all just a laugh. Harvey Weinstein vowed to ruin him.
Granted the HFPA is a joke, as are the awards, and they deserve to be smacked around, but that's not what he did. He took random shots and low blows, so anything that might have been "brave" about what he did (like some are saying) is lost in the fact that he was such an asshole to the wrong people too.
I don't know why it still has me in a snit...the casual pleasure he took in it knowing that the audience wanted to kill him was a little sick to me. Or maybe he was just that drunk.