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Do the Golden Globe Awards Nonetheless Matter?

by Icecream
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Image from the 79th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 09, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California.

Picture from the 79th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 09, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California.
Picture: Emma McIntyre/Getty Photos for Hollywood Overseas Press Affiliation (Getty Photos)

In a little bit of unabashedly cheeky advertising and marketing aptitude, NBC and the Hollywood Overseas Press Affiliation have dubbed the upcoming return of the Golden Globes “An Night of Pleasure and Devastation.” You possibly can’t fault the community (or the awards physique, actually) for desirous to get forward of the limitless headlines that can little question encompass the restoration of Hollywood’s booziest awards present. In spite of everything, the previous few years have seen the HFPA embroiled in a string of crises that many had thought (and others had quietly hoped) would carry down what was documented to be an exclusionary, glad-handing, and cliquey group that had in some way branded itself because the must-see TV occasion to kick off awards season.

If we’re to trot out the drained cliché of Hollywood loving itself a comeback, we also needs to surprise how and why the upcoming telecast will mark such a particular return to type for the erstwhile chaotic group’s annual celebration.

First, some context. In case you’ve forgotten, again in 2020 a lawsuit introduced in opposition to the HFPA alleged that the insular, 87-member nonprofit group, because the Los Angeles Occasions reported on the time, acted “as a cartel that stifles competitors for its members.” Snickering whispers that had plagued the HFPA and the Globes for many years—that its members have been desperate to schmooze with A-listers and line their pockets with the group’s coffers—have been seemingly lastly dropped at mild. That the lawsuit was finally dismissed didn’t fairly distract from the group’s different questionable decisions (particularly the dearth of Black journalists in its ranks; maybe a purpose why high-profile tasks like Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey’s Black Backside and Judas and the Black Messiah underperformed in that yr’s Globes ceremony) and a system that felt out of step with a quickly altering Hollywood that, on paper, appeared dedicated to variety and inclusion.

Scandals, boycotts and pulled plugs

Brendan Fraser attends The Whale New York Screening at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on November 29, 2022 in New York City

Brendan Fraser attends The Whale New York Screening at Alice Tully Corridor, Lincoln Heart on November 29, 2022 in New York Metropolis
Picture: Jamie McCarthy (Getty Photos)

The scandals and the investigations led to some high-profile boycotts. Netflix and Amazon Studios, for example, stopped their actions with the HFPA following outcry from 100 or so Time’s Up members, who’d urged tangible actions by the group. This led to a Globes-less 2021–2022 awards season. That’s proper, NBC pulled the plug on final yr’s telecast, a seeming loss of life knell for the present after eight a long time. However slightly than slinking away quietly, the HFPA has been not so quietly burnishing its model but once more. New members, new insurance policies, a brand new proprietor, even—the trades have stored us all abreast of such modifications.

Which brings us to this yr: on January 10, 2023, NBC will air the eightieth version of the Golden Globes. Emmy-winner Jerrod Carmichael will function host, whereas a pair of Murphys (Ryan and Eddie) will every obtain lifetime achievement awards. Will the present, which will likely be simulcast on Peacock (huzzah for company synergy!), mark the top of a tumultuous period or will or not it’s a hole try to revive a property nonetheless in want of main revamping?

If the lineup of presenters and attendees is something to go by … it could be too quickly to inform. For each Quentin Tarantino and Ana de Armas affirmation, there are certain to be simply as many no-shows. Brendan Fraser, who’d allegedly been sexually harassed by an HFPA member years in the past, just isn’t attending. Neither is Tom Cruise, who publicly returned his Globes final yr, regardless of Prime Gun: Maverick incomes two nods this yr. Many A-listers have cited scheduling conflicts—sorry, Julia Roberts followers, we received’t get her signature cackle on TV this yr!—whereas others have, properly, maybe, quietly opted to neither affirm nor deny their attendance.

As Helen Hoehne, president of the HFPA advised Selection just lately, the upcoming present will likely be “an opportunity for us to come back again to NBC and showcase our distinctive relationship with our viewers and the world.” Stressing how necessary it was to uplift this yr’s roster of nominees, she defined how the telecast will undoubtedly perform as a rebranding of kinds: “The media panorama continues to shift,” she added, “and our solely aim is to offer a novel, unbelievably entertaining present. We need to proceed to develop, and honor our dedication to variety, fairness and inclusion.”

Nonetheless in disaster mode

Ana de Armas attends Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s New Film Blonde at TCL Chinese Theatre on September 13, 2022 in Hollywood, California.

Ana de Armas attends Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s New Movie Blonde at TCL Chinese language Theatre on September 13, 2022 in Hollywood, California.
Picture: Picture by Jon Kopaloff (Getty Photos)

The whiff of PR-speak feels a tad overbearing, sure. Then once more, this is a company nonetheless in disaster mode and rather a lot will likely be using on their weekday telecast. Furthermore, the HFPA has spent the higher a part of the final yr boasting by way of its social media channels about its philanthropic endeavors. The group’s hope, little question, is that no matter monetary and cultural good it may be related to will a minimum of assist us neglect, and possibly even forgive, the longstanding accusations.

With Carmichael on the helm, to not point out appearances by the likes of Tracy Morgan and Ana Gasteyer, there’s little doubt that NBC and government producers Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon will have the ability to placed on a humorous present filled with “pleasure and devastation” (no matter meaning). That has not often been an issue, particularly within the final decade and a half, the place Ricky Gervais, and particularly Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, made the Globes a wildly entertaining, bordering on gloriously inane, night. But it surely’s unclear whether or not the Globes 2.0 (or would it not be 3.0, since they already needed to alter their enterprise practices again in 1968 following an FCC investigation?) even deserve a spot within the merry-go-round that’s Hollywood’s award season.

Certain, the Critic’s Selection Awards, with its Oprah-like strategy to nominations (“And YOU get a nod! And YOU get a nod!”), the Indie Spirits, with its titular indie focus (nonetheless a a lot too cool and laid again affair), and the SAG Awards (far too restrained and workmanlike) have by no means fairly discovered a method to elbow out the Globes and their braze chaotic/evil power. Their idiosyncrasy was at all times the Globes’ promoting level. Determining what bonkers nomination would get all of us scratching our collective heads (bear in mind three-time nominee The Vacationer?) grew to become a ritual for seasoned awards watchers. And that was earlier than the boozy speeches and scathing monologues made the night time itself really feel unpredictable in all the suitable methods. Because the Oscars transfer towards staid and, to some, fairly stuffy corners, to not point out a cratering rankings spiral, the Globes may at all times ship good TV. This in spite, and generally as a result of, of the truth that they have been doled out by 90 or so international journalists who beloved enjoying kingmaker.

At its most elemental the Globes at all times laid naked what’s true of most (all?) of a majority of these award exhibits: that is little greater than a publicity-based machine. The place the Oscars and the Emmys (and the SAGs and different union awards, even), can conceal behind the notion that this can be a peer-driven likelihood to have a good time the perfect within the business, the Globes may by no means be faulted for merely reminding us that glad handing, photo-ops and schmoozing weren’t simply incidental components of this circus however possibly their very purpose for being. Such brazenness (severely, speeches through the years have made this nearly a required joke in itself) is probably going why the present’s comeback feels all however assured.

Photos, impressions, and {dollars}

Hollywood, city and business alike, runs on picture making. Which is to say, on rigorously curated imagery. Systemic issues—particularly these shared by an business that, regardless of pledges to overtake its personal endemic issues round variety, inclusion, gender parity and illustration—proceed to lag behind. Award season has lengthy been a canine and pony present the place publicists orchestrate months-long campaigns that search to (re)current the perfect the business has to supply. Why would a city and an business so dedicated to glittering glamor deny itself one more likelihood at such a follow? Why would it not forgo the thousands and thousands of social media impressions, purple carpet pictures, and FYC billboard {dollars} a present just like the Globes generates yr in and yr out? Particularly when, to listen to the subtext of what’s been occurring this previous yr, the group is dedicated to utilizing philanthropy to launder its status?

Even when the rankings don’t fairly match the record-breaking numbers the HFPA and Dick Clark productions had come to count on within the years main as much as its darkish yr in 2022—heck, even when the winners don’t handle to very a lot affect Oscar voters’ minds—the Globes’ return ought to function a reminder that comebacks on this business are not often little else however rebranding alternatives. In essence, no matter occurs on Tuesday is sort of irrelevant; simply the truth that it’s occurring in any respect, and so quickly, factors to a well-oiled publicity machine able to shake off its “off yr.” Let the enjoyment (and devastation!) proceed apace.



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