The Golden Globes are back—but do they still matter?
As the controversial awards show tries to script its own Hollywood comeback, the industry seems unsure if it should embrace or avoid the Globes
Film Features Golden Globes
In a bit of unabashedly cheeky marketing flair, NBC and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have dubbed the upcoming return of the Golden Globes “An Evening of Joy and Devastation.” You can’t fault the network (or the awards body, really) for wanting to get ahead of the endless headlines that will no doubt surround the restoration of Hollywood’s booziest awards show. After all, the past few years have seen the HFPA embroiled in a string of crises that many had thought (and others had quietly hoped) would bring down what was documented to be an exclusionary, glad-handing, and cliquey group that had somehow branded itself as the must-see TV event to kick off awards season.
If we are to trot out the tired cliché of Hollywood loving itself a comeback, we should also wonder how and why the upcoming telecast will mark such a definite return to form for the erstwhile chaotic organization’s annual celebration.
First, some context. In case you’ve forgotten, back in 2020 a lawsuit brought against the HFPA alleged that the insular, 87-member nonprofit organization, as the Los Angeles Times reported at the time, acted “as a cartel that stifles competition for its members.” Snickering whispers that had plagued the HFPA and the Globes for decades—that its members were eager to schmooze with A-listers and line their pockets with the organization’s coffers—were seemingly finally brought to light. That the lawsuit was eventually dismissed didn’t quite distract from the group’s other questionable choices (namely the lack of Black journalists in its ranks; perhaps a reason why high-profile projects like Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Judas and the Black Messiah underperformed in that year’s Globes ceremony) and a system that felt out of step with a rapidly changing Hollywood that, on paper, seemed committed to diversity and inclusion.
Scandals, boycotts and pulled plugs
The scandals and the investigations led to some high-profile boycotts. Netflix and Amazon Studios, for instance, stopped their activities with the HFPA following outcry from 100 or so Time’s Up members, who’d urged tangible actions by the organization. This led to a Globes-less 2021–2022 awards season. That’s right, NBC pulled the plug on last year’s telecast, a seeming death knell for the show after eight decades. But rather than slinking away quietly, the HFPA has been not so quietly burnishing its brand yet again. New members, new policies, a new owner, even—the trades have kept us all abreast of such changes.
Which brings us to this year: on January 10, 2023, NBC will air the 80th edition of the Golden Globes. Emmy-winner Jerrod Carmichael will serve as host, while a pair of Murphys (Ryan and Eddie) will each receive lifetime achievement awards. Will the show, which will be simulcast on Peacock (huzzah for corporate synergy!), mark the end of a tumultuous era or will it be a hollow attempt to revive a property still in need of major revamping?
If the lineup of presenters and attendees is anything to go by … it may be too soon to tell. For every Quentin Tarantino and Ana de Armas confirmation, there are bound to be just as many no-shows. Brendan Fraser, who’d allegedly been sexually harassed by an HFPA member years ago, is not attending. Nor is Tom Cruise, who publicly returned his Globes last year, despite Top Gun: Maverick earning two nods this year. Many A-listers have cited scheduling conflicts—sorry, Julia Roberts fans, we won’t get her signature cackle on TV this year!—while others have, wisely, perhaps, quietly opted to neither confirm nor deny their attendance.
As Helen Hoehne, president of the HFPA told Variety recently, the upcoming show will be “a chance for us to come back to NBC and showcase our unique relationship with our audience and the world.” Stressing how important it was to uplift this year’s roster of nominees, she explained how the telecast will undoubtedly function as a rebranding of sorts: “The media landscape continues to shift,” she added, “and our only goal is to provide a unique, unbelievably entertaining show. We want to continue to grow, and honor our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Still in crisis mode
The whiff of PR-speak feels a tad overbearing, yes. Then again, this is an organization still in crisis mode and a lot will be riding on their weekday telecast. Moreover, the HFPA has spent the better part of the last year boasting via its social media channels about its philanthropic endeavors. The group’s hope, no doubt, is that whatever financial and cultural good it can be associated with will at least help us forget, and maybe even forgive, the longstanding accusations.
With Carmichael at the helm, not to mention appearances by the likes of Tracy Morgan and Ana Gasteyer, there’s little doubt that NBC and executive producers Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon will be able to put on a funny show full of “joy and devastation” (whatever that means). That has rarely been a problem, especially in the last decade and a half, where Ricky Gervais, and especially Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, made the Globes a wildly entertaining, bordering on gloriously inane, evening. But it’s unclear whether the Globes 2.0 (or would it be 3.0, since they already had to alter their business practices back in 1968 following an FCC investigation?) even deserve a spot in the merry-go-round that is Hollywood’s award season.
Sure, the Critic’s Choice Awards, with its Oprah-like approach to nominations (“And YOU get a nod! And YOU get a nod!”), the Indie Spirits, with its titular indie focus (still a much too cool and laid back affair), and the SAG Awards (far too restrained and workmanlike) have never quite found a way to elbow out the Globes and their braze chaotic/evil energy. Their idiosyncrasy was always the Globes’ selling point. Figuring out what bonkers nomination would get all of us scratching our collective heads (remember three-time nominee The Tourist?) became a ritual for seasoned awards watchers. And that was before the boozy speeches and scathing monologues made the night itself feel unpredictable in all the right ways. As the Oscars move toward staid and, to some, quite stuffy corners, not to mention a cratering ratings spiral, the Globes could always deliver good TV. This in spite, and sometimes because, of the fact that they were doled out by 90 or so foreign journalists who loved playing kingmaker.
At its most elemental the Globes always laid bare what is true of most (all?) of these types of award shows: this is little more than a publicity-based machine. Where the Oscars and the Emmys (and the SAGs and other union awards, even), can hide behind the notion that this is a peer-driven chance to celebrate the best in the industry, the Globes could never be faulted for merely reminding us that glad handing, photo-ops and schmoozing weren’t just incidental parts of this circus but maybe their very reason for being. Such brazenness (seriously, speeches over the years have made this almost a required joke in itself) is likely why the show’s comeback feels all but assured.
Images, impressions, and dollars
Hollywood, town and industry alike, runs on image making. Which is to say, on carefully curated imagery. Systemic problems—especially those shared by an industry that, despite pledges to overhaul its own endemic problems around diversity, inclusion, gender parity and representation—continue to lag behind. Award season has long been a dog and pony show where publicists orchestrate months-long campaigns that seek to (re)present the best the industry has to offer. Why would a town and an industry so devoted to glittering glamor deny itself yet another chance at such a practice? Why would it forgo the millions of social media impressions, red carpet shots, and FYC billboard dollars a show like the Globes generates year in and year out? Especially when, to hear the subtext of what’s been happening this past year, the organization is committed to using philanthropy to launder its reputation?
Even if the ratings don’t quite match the record-breaking numbers the HFPA and Dick Clark productions had come to expect in the years leading up to its dark year in 2022—heck, even if the winners don’t manage to very much influence Oscar voters’ minds—the Globes’ return should serve as a reminder that comebacks in this industry are rarely little else but rebranding opportunities. In essence, whatever happens on Tuesday is almost beside the point; just the fact that it’s happening at all, and so soon, points to a well-oiled publicity machine ready to shake off its “off year.” Let the joy (and devastation!) continue apace.
38 Comments
“Still?”
I guess they aren’t as relevant as The Saturn Awards and the Avoraiz International Fantastic Film Festival but well done for your awards.
Underrated comment
Remember when they were supposedly a preview of Oscar odds? Good times.
Exactly! The only reason anyone fake cared about these things was because in the 24×7 News era and especially the internet news era, content must be mined and another awards show is more content. The Globes have always been a joke.
Perfect. No notes.
Figuring out what bonkers nomination would get all of us scratching our collective heads (remember three-time nominee The Tourist?)
became a ritual for seasoned awards watchers. And that was before the
boozy speeches and scathing monologues made the night itself feel
unpredictable in all the right ways. As the Oscars move toward staid
and, to some, quite stuffy corners, not to mention a cratering ratings
spiral, the Globes could always deliver good TV.
And there you go! The Globes gives a shake-up and an experiential variety to the lives of those that watch the industry.
It makes life a bit less dreary for the director debutantes and the media groupies.
And I just flagged a pair of imposters that have been using these imposter accounts in order to try to drive off other commenters from within the Giz family articles.
That’s one effect of allowing the trolling to go on and on, is a reduction of participation on the Giz sites.
Again, I apologize that my imposter continues to attempt to troll using an appearance of an established account.Shriveled souls seem to attempt to bring more misery to the world around them, including via impersonation and vileness spreading from that impersonation.
Do any trophies fucking matter
They do when I’m drinking cider out of them with the lads.
Participation trophies matter.They don’t, of course, but just the fact that someones panties got bunched up over that statement keeps me warm on these brutally cold winter nights. 😊
When they throw a couple awards at the Asian Buttplug Multiverse movie, everyone will be claiming they’re more relevant than the Oscars.
All award shows are an industry patting itself on the back and getting high on its own farts .. so no , it doesnt matter .
Honestly surprised movies and tv haven’t went the way of video games in that their are literally so many different groups giving out “awards” and none is really considered the authority that every game can get one, with enough cash. The Game Awards is trying to be a central force but everyone pretty much understands that it’s less of an award organization and an excuse to be a method to hype new games. Honestly kind surprised the movies haven’t went that way as well and just started having the Oscars be the place where trailers for new movies get premiered. At the end of the day all awards are pretty silly and shouldn’t matter to any of us. People should like what they like and not care if some group of mostly old white men like the same things or not. And people should care even less about what public polls think. Like what you like. Take advice on new things to experience by actual peers who share your interests. Seek out new things because they interest you and not because someone fifty years ago decided they were the “best”. I’m not saying experience award winning media is bad or not worth seeking out, but I find peoples online these days seem to need to have their loves be validated. Like Snyder-verse fans demanding those movies win awards. Edit: wow that was a ramble. Doc changed my adhd meds and maybe I need to wait a couple hours after I take the dose before I go posting.
The modern movement against the Oscars and film awards is really a modern phenomenon you didn’t see until maybe the 2000’s and really when everyone and their mother started having an opinion on the host. They were an artistic analogue to Sports events and you don’t really see the anger towards them until Fox News basically put Hollywood on constant blast for being out of touch elites (which they are to be fair, just like their sporting counterparts) and after that ran long enough liberals started hitting them on the other side for being elitists (which again they are) through #oscarssowhite, #metoo, and most recently the nepo babies trend.It’s not that people inherently disliked the awards show, but it’s status as watercooler talk died as people fell out of love with the people involved.I guess what I’m saying is – you can look at the fall of the Oscars/Golden Globes as a combination of social/political attitude shifts and the diffusion of entertainment options pulling it out of it’s elite status.The interesting thing has been how Hollywood has been slow to react either by telling their own to shut up, or by not holding their ground on certain issues that basically highlighted just how arbitrary and capricious it all is to begin with. Were I the Oscars/Golden Globes – I’d kick out the cameras for at least a decade. Yea they’ll lose money, but blindly chasing the public fallen out of love with them is doing more self harm.
To an extent there’s comfort in tradition – there are certainly people who consider Oscar winners the legitimate “best,” but there’s also the low-key fun of seeing which movies of the past got that accolade and how movies of the present correspond. That said, the Oscars telecast is punishingly dull and goes on forever, and several factors (my age, the decline in moviegoing, and the Oscar eligibility of streaming exclusives) mean that I’ve hardly heard of the winners the last few years.
It’s like Geocities Awards at this point.
I agree.Unless I win a Signal Award on Tuesday, in which case they’re relevant and a genuine signifier of creative works worth celebrating.
Pretty much this. Besides does anyone outside of the elderly and entertainment journalists even watch any more.
Awards shows don’t matter at all. Never have. The Globes were fun to watch because it was just 2 or 3 hours of tipsy celebrities, and they didn’t force me to watch the acceptance speech for “Best Gaffer in a Documentary Short-Foreign” (before you get your pitchforks, I’m in favor of everyone getting recognized. It just doesn’t make for great TV). All good, though; my backlog of unwatched shows is ever-growing.
I mean, no one had that award show anyway. Those people are all shunted to the technical awards no one watches. Honestly, if a drunken electrician or carpenter or focus puller showed up on camera “to tell us all what’s really up”, that might actually disrupt the public’s current relationship with those award shows which is, at best, toxic and brand destroying.
Yeah the Globes always seemed more fun because while they are just more awards that don’t matter, there is the chance that someone will get too liquored up and get on stage/on camera looking dumb. Which you just don’t get at the Oscars. You have to hope a joke lands wrong and pisses off the wrong dude, or a celebrity to read a card wrong for that show to provide some real entertainment.
Imagine someone getting a slap at the technical awards? You insult some teamster’s wife and your head is coming off.
This whole process suggests that the HFPA was the only awards giving body that had a poor history of representation and gave out nominations based on campaigning and glad-handing, and that it has now been fixed.
It matters as much as any other corporate awards night.
Meaning I hope they pay the catering staff and DJ well.
I guess the answer depends on what we mean by “matter.”NBC and Peacock will air it, I’ll watch it in the hopes of being entertained, and this website will cover it, commenters arguing about their choices, etc., so in those ways… yes?
exclusionary, glad-handing, and cliquey group that had somehow branded itself as the (AV Club)
Get rid of awards shows and awards altogether. They don’t mean anything. It’s all vanity and phony prestige. But humans like to gamble/bet and compete over shit that has nothing to do with them so
Where else will fashion designers get free advertising?
Instagram.
They never mattered. They were able to brand themselves as a fun alternative to the Oscars but it never seemed to me that winning one ever carried any weight.
I’ll look (with professional interest as a seamstress) at a gallery of the (mostly ill-fitting and badly made) clothing worn by a parade of indistinguishable people over the next day or so. Watch it live? Are you nuts? Would I care if it never took place again? Nope. I probably wouldn’t even notice.
I didn’t realize there was no golden globe awards the last couple years, so apparently they don’t matter.
Remember that gag on The Critic where the guy named Oscar who looked just like an Academy Award was married to Mary Golden Globes and the two had a daughter named Emmy and a son named B’nai B’rith Award? That was a great show. But it didn’t win any Golden Globes. So I guess the Go-Gloes, as we call them, don’t matter. I need a drink.
Not one of the awards shows matter anymore, they are all too political and self aggrandizing.
I wouldn’t be interested in watching this except I want to see Jerrod Carmichael.
I’m surprised nobody (to my knowledge) has set a movie around an awards ceremony/campaign. For example, wouldn’t it be great to see an actor nominated for an Oscar in a movie where their character is nominated for an Oscar?