On the Globes cancellation
Tuesday, May 11, 2021 at 9:32PM You probably heard the news today that NBC has cancelled the Golden Globes for January 2022. The past couple of days have been a flurry of stars and distributors and PR firms condemning the Globes and boycotting them. Or 'stepping back from' to use Scarlett Johansson's gentler euphemism. But we find the timing of this sudden wave of condemnation to be suspicious and more than a little hypocritical of the industry given their own ethics problems and systemic racism and sexism. First and foremost, it's all happening three whole months after the Golden Globes exposé in the Los Angeles Times which touched a nerve with its revelation that the organization, which is made up of 87 people, had no black members. (Exacerbating that particular problem -- though nobody likes to try to understand structural problems as it's easier to simply condemn and move on -- is that they only allow one member to represent each "foreign" country and many aren't as diverse as the US; that 'per country' rule, at least, will have to go.)
Did Hollywood rise up against the Globes after that expose? Nope. They went right on courting their favor until awards season had entirely played itself out! There were awards to be won and films and tv shows to promote. No stars boycotted the ceremony and neither did any studios. But now, everyone is in the clear for another year. Distributors don't have to think about campaigning for awards or promoting their films and television shows in that particular way for a while now...
I apologize for being so cynical but the other thing that's really maddening is hearing the Globes ethical lapses cited as one of the reasons for various studios and distributors to boycott them. The Globes have historically had trouble resisting gifts and being wined and dined. Everyone knows this is true. But who exactly was funding this gift-giving and throwing the junkets and paying for the airfare and such? A luxurious trip for Netflix's Emily in Paris this season was cited by many as the reason for the show's controversial nominations at the Globes. And Netflix was one of the first studios to cut off ties to the HFPA this week. Go figure.
I made you this beautiful meal and now I will condemn you for eating it.
It would be like if Sony had condemned the Globes right after those nominations for The Tourist which were also blamed on excessive expensive courting of favor. I'm not here to tell you that the HFPA is a squeaky clean organization or that they don't have significant flaws. But virtue signalling combined with hypocrisy is really f***ing exhausting.
Tom Cruise, hardly an unproblematic figure himself, returned his three Golden Globes this week. Scarlett Johansson, also a perennial favourite of the Globes, publicly condemned them and asked other stars to join her. Strangely she equates them with Harvey Weinstein. I don't doubt for a second that the HFPA has sexism problems (most organizations run by men do) but the Golden Globes popularity and influence in Hollywood pre-dates the existence of Harvey Weinstein's career by a lot. They've been around since 1944 and televised nationally since 1964. Weinstein wasn't reshaping the awards circus as we know it until the mid 1990s and Aughts. Maybe Scarlett doesn't know this but it feels like a careless conflation, especially since none of the members (to our knowledge) have been accused of rape or sexual harrassment.
As to the absence of the ceremony itself...
Here I must restate my own bias which I've always been honest about: I enjoy the Golden Globes ceremony more than other awards show each year (barring the Oscars and even then the enjoyment is for entirely different reasons). And I will miss it. The Globes are the most "fun" and they have a point of view. I cherish points of view even when I don't agree with them. It's why I regularly bemoan the homogeneity of 30+ critics awards all loving the exact same 4 actors and 5 or 6 films each years.
Yes the Globes point of view is questionable at times. Sometimes it's downright bizarre and silly and ethically compromised. And it always involves star-f***ing tendencies and an insatiable desire to crown the new (in television) or the musical (in film). But at least it's a point of view. The Critics Choice Awards don't have a point of view but just nominate everyone (as the increasing amount of nominees in the marquee categories indicates). And no one really cares about that show. SAG is very narrowly focused and the audience interest isn't as intense. There is nothing like the Globes and the season will be very different without them.
At the very least one sad casualty that I hope everyone can agree on is that there will be less recognition of comedies, which is something almost every organization that gives out movie awards struggles to appreciate other than the Globes.
What will happen in the media vacuum?
Media outlets have been quick to condemn the Globes of course. But what will they do without their favourite punching bag which they both obsess over (even if it's often in a negative way) and profit from? The Film Experience is a small indie movie site but I am willing to bet that percentages are similar across the board for the large corporate sites since they are definitely similar in terms of TV ratings. The Oscars are the King and always generate the most reader interest and page views. The Globes generate passionate conversation as well and regularly spur interest if not quite in as sizeable a way as the Oscars. All other awards pale in comparison when it comes to audience interest as if people only half care about anything awardsy that isn't the Oscars... with the Globes being an exception that's usually tossed under the umbrella of 'guilty pleasure'.
NBC claims that if the HFPA commits to "meaningful reform" they hope to air the show again in January 2023. The HFPA has stated in response:
Regardless of the next air date of the Golden Globes, implementing transformational changes as quickly -- and as thoughtfully -- as possible remains the top priority for our organization. We invite our partners in the industry to the table to work with us on the systemic reform that is long overdue, both in our organization as well as within the industry at large."
Hollywood has of course been under attack on all sides these past few years for the industry's systemic sexism, ethics, and racism problems. Now a much less important body that is basically Hollywood-adjacent (the HFPA) is under attack for many of the same reasons and Hollywood's power players are piling on. Do they feel relief that the target has shifted? Is this part of their own reform and evolution or just virtue-signalling at utterly no cost to them happening at what is the most convenient time possible for literally every studio, star, and PR firm? Only time will tell.
Golden Globes, Netflix, Oscars (20), Punditry, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Cruise
Reader Comments (67)
This is silly and performative, and speaks to what a circus Hollywood truly is. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon when it's cool and easy to do so.
I have a feeling the Globes will find a new platform and it'll be better than they ever were on NBC. I hope so anyway, because I do enjoy them more than the others. It was always refreshing to have one organization with an actual personality, unafraid to go their own way.
Burn the whole place down. We are way too focused on stupid things like Hollywood rather than being present in our own lives. I'm happy that I consume so much less of this stuff now. If I want to watch a movie or TV show, I do. But I mind my business and don't worry about celebrities or their off-screen performances anymore. It's all a sham to keep us distracted from focusing and improving ourselves.
Anyway... also not surprised "Film Twitter" is rejoicing bc the entire Twitter platform gets off on cancel culture and genera misery. That's most of the internet for you.
Mr. T - many have "cut the cord" to save lots of cash. Haven't you? Some live in a city where reception is superb and get over 100 digital channels (San Francisco here, near the Sutro Tower, so have HD reception), and have their own DVRs to record at will, use "chasing playback" to skip over commercials while the recording is in progress, etc.
Well I hope they come back in some form- I mean they are more fun than the Oscars well NOTHING can be worse than the last Oscar show
@XO: Maybe 'institutions come and go' but it's rather sad when institutions die after several dozen of years. No one would cry after Critics' Choice or SAG but Globes were almost as long as Oscars and the world without them will be a sadder place.
Cancel culture hits again.
One thing that hasn't been said enough is that they were way more open to new TV shows than the Emmys.
The Globes is the only show I've enjoyed throughout the years - more than the Oscars and SAG and all the rest. It's so fun to watch actors giving their speeches whilst slightly tipsy or like Nat said, the recognition for comedies. In short, it doesn't take itself too seriously.
We give a lot of attention and authority to the HFPA, an organization that is not much bigger than a local critics group, and whose collective opinion is not much more statistically significant than any of our individual opinions. They have enjoyed a thin layer of legitimacy for sucking up to powerful people for a really long time: Conrad Hilton, Merv Griffin, Dick Clark. They pal around with movie and TV people alike, back to a time when those were more separate industries. Even their awards ceremony has historically been about ingratiating themselves into the Hollywood family: young star recognition, Miss Golden Globe, the use of Cecil B. DeMille's name...
Everything about the HFPA -- the exclusive membership, the private screening events, the lack of accountability -- is about pretending to live the fanciest correspondent life possible. Nice work if you can get it, but it's designed so that outsiders can't.
The Globes get the headlines, but the truth is that nothing the HFPA does (even the good stuff, like charitable causes and mentoring of young filmmakers) is important enough to keep going. Foreign entertainment news correspondents, still on payroll? In-person press junkets? It's a dinosaur of a business model. I watch the ceremonies, but they are not essential, and it would not trouble me to see the Globes/HFPA be the first casualty of a bloated, unsustainable awards season.
@Working stiff I can see you've been doing some online research. I just threw Finland and Norway out there as off the cuff examples. (Norway was the first country in Europe to ban slavery. I know that. When I've been in Finland I never heard a thing about racism against Blacks, and I've been there several times, but I wasn't exactly researching the topic.) I don't know what your sources are, and I really don't want to spend my days debating this, but to assume racial priorities are or need to be the same around the world is shortsighted. Even if we assume all European nations are especially racist against Blacks, the Hollywood Foreign Press is not just made up of Europeans. Each nation has its work to do. I just doubt, say (and again I'm just throwing out an example here) Japan's most pressing concern has to do with making things right by Black people. They have their nasty history with Korea to atone for.
Fascinating read. Well done. I agree the HFPA *really* needs to be fixed but I've always loved the show so much and hope they can find a way to start fresh.
Well that didn't take long. I've had to delete some tweets of commenters calling each other names and some impersonations. We really cant go very long here without comment moderation which is so very sad as we dont have time for it and dont want to be in a parental role.
I hope everyone can learn to express themselves in a more civil manner. I guess it might take a few years for the Trump era of vitriol and constant hatred and name-calling as the norm to wear off.
I mostly agree, Nathaniel. Thanks for the post.
@ Dan
"Off the cuff" is good. In any case, I'm still not sure what your point is, but I couldn't just let your statements go without a response—as a Black person who splits his time between the U.S. and Central Europe and is very familiar with systemic and everyday racial issues in both places. And I never said "racial priorities are or need to be the same around the world," whatever that means. Anti-racism is anti-racism, wherever (and whoever) you are, be it the U.S., Finland, Norway or Japan.
Face it, you're just 'Working Limp' in this thread.
The GG are indeed the most fun of all award shows.
Who will forget the moment when winner Ving Rhames called Jack Lemmon to the stage and presented him with his Globe?
Or the time Christine Lahti was in the bathroom when her name was called out. They waited for her (with the help of Robin Williams) and she came hurriedly, still wiping her hands with a towel. "I was in the bathroom, mom!", she said.
@Working Stiff. I don't think what I'm saying is that difficult to understand. There seems to be this aghast response to the idea that there are no Black members of the HFPA. I'm saying that the issue should be more broadly framed and looked at with more nuance. In Latin America, there's arguably more racism against indigenous people by people of European descent. Has anyone asked if any of the correspondents from South America are pueblos aborígenes or Andean? In some European countries my understanding is that the Romani suffer the highest amount of prejudice and bigotry. Why focus only on people of African decent on that continent? Suggesting that this is merely a Black vs. white issue is simplistic and America-centric. And I'm not saying YOU are saying that, nor did I suggest that you said "racial priorities are or need to be the same around the world." I'm saying that the general hand wringing about the lack of Black people in the HFPA, or as the Entertainment Weekly correspondent on CNN the other day put it, the lack of, ahem, "African Americans in the HFPA" by observers in general needs to be more nuanced. Aaaaand I'm done with this whole tempest in a teapot sub thread. Peace.
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