We thought the Golden Globes couldn't get any worse. We were wrong.
The Golden Globes were bad until they tried to get better.
It's not easy to find your floor and drop below it, but one should never underestimate the Golden Globes, the awkward uncle of Hollywood's awards season famous for drunk celebrities, angry Ricky Gervais barbs, and a diversity scandal that nearly ended the show altogether.
Sunday's ceremony, the first since the disbanding of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which handed out the Globes for the first eight decades of its existence, proves that bad things can always get worse if you just try hard enough.
The host of the cursed ceremony, comedian Jo Koy, couldn't take all the blame for its abject failure, although he didn't do much to help. A no-name booked just 10 days ago after many more famous and talented names gave hard passes, Koy bombed harder than "Oppenheimer" in a monologue that preceded a slog of a show that should embarrass every single person who took part in it – yes, the winners and nominees too. Thanks, I guess, to the Golden Globes Foundation.
If the "Golden Globes Foundation" sounds made up, that's because it was, very recently. It's the organization that rose from the ashes of the HFPA, the besmirched entity the winning actors once thanked on the stage. But a 2021 Los Angeles Times report highlighted the lack of diversity among the HFPA's 87 members (as in, no Black members at all). That led to actor and studio boycotts of the Globes and, ultimately, to NBC opting not to renew its contract to air the awards.
What happened next was like a Greek tragedy, although not one worthy of being made into a movie. The HFPA dissolved, and the Globes brand was bought by Dick Clark Productions (now owned by Penske Media, the parent of nearly every major Hollywood trade publication including The Hollywood Reporter and Variety magazine). CBS snapped up the rights to air the show at a fire-sale price. The awards are now voted on by "more than 300 member journalists from around the world, of whom half are ethnically and racially diverse," at least according to the Globes Foundation.
Did any of this lead to something better? No. The new voting body acted much like the old one if a little more in line with the choices pundits predict the Emmy and Oscar voters will make at their ceremonies on Jan. 15 and March 12, respectively. The speeches ranged from occasionally sweet to mostly fine and sometimes bad. The telecast was atrocious. And perhaps the best achievement the Globes ever had – to spotlight superb but unfamiliar film and TV – has been completely neutered by the damage to the show's reputation and the already-depressed ratings in an era of award show fatigue.
As the show opened with Koy outright yelling at the audience that somehow still included the biggest names in Hollywood, the celebrities in the Beverly Hilton ballroom appeared to cringe as one, with muted applause and mere whispers of laughter. It was as if they had all been held hostage.
Of course, everyone hates being there until they win a trophy. More than one actor said the Globe, which all of Hollywood once eschewed, "meant the world" to them. There were real tears and prepared speeches. Only the unflappable and bulletproof Robert Downey Jr. deigned to mention the changes to the makeup of the people who voted on the awards. Will Ferrell bellowed "The Golden Globes have not changed!" as if anyone at home has followed the decidedly inside-Hollywood saga enough to get the joke. "Oppenheimer" composer Ludwig Gorranson even accidentally thanked the HFPA.
Dissolving and rebranding of the organization has done little other than make it impossible to book a host and turn the Globes into an even more cheap, self-aggrandizing dress rehearsal for the Emmys and Oscars. Did we need really all those standing ovations? They used to be special.
I could nitpick at all the problems with Sunday's telecast, from the hugely terrible to the mildly annoying. The only presenters who seemed to remember they were performers meant to entertain people were Andra Day and Jon Batiste ? both musicians not actors, mind you. Even the room was poorly set up. It took awkward seconds of silence, and the front section scooting like a Little League team in an overcrowded Denny's booth, for the winning cast and creator of Netflix's "Beef" to make it to the stage.
The Golden Globes used to be the worst awards show. Now it's all the worst things about them, wrapped up into one: Glittery fodder for the naysayers who would do away with long nights of the beautiful and the rich handing awards to each other. The sad truth is that awards shows can be great: They can celebrate art sincerely and can be as entertaining as the movies they nominate. How many people remember Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Globes monologues? Many more than can remember past Globes winners, that's for sure.
Koy may not have been able to land a joke tonight, but the Globes have turned into one giant punchline. Do we really have to do this again next year?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Golden Globes review: Awards show attempted improvement but got worse
