The ceremony’s humiliations might be leading toward an equally humiliating end
By JACOB ANDERSON — arts@theaggie.org
The bourgeois game of Hollywood award shows is in a sad state: with the Oscars’ plummeting year-over-year ratings and the Emmys facing annual accusations of racism, the Golden Globes fits right in with its ever-ballooning rap sheet of nepotism, structural racism and unpopularity, topped off with a despicable incorrigibility.
Following the revelation earlier February of last year that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which is responsible for the show, is comprised of absolutely no Black people, as well as various other accusations of self-dealing among member journalists and studios that resulted in a number of high-profile boycotts from Netflix and WarnerMedia, NBC has decided not to air the ceremony.
Given that the Globes have been the habitual target of ridicule by comedians and actors and social commentators for years already, the HFPA’s tepid attempts to placate its critics with new diversity policies (only for the organization’s diversity consultant firm to quit) have been unsurprisingly rejected by observers, which was the primary impetus behind NBC opting to break their 25-year agreement.
But even as the nominees for this year’s awards are announced, it’s unclear whether the HFPA will be able to secure a broadcast agreement with another network, which could leave the show online only or perhaps unbroadcasted altogether.
On top of the show’s issues with even getting aired, prominent nominees have been ignoring the event entirely, with a sparse number even acknowledging its existence. It’s tempting to view these optical nightmares as one of many portents for the apparently oncoming death of the Hollywood award show, but the HFPA’s situation is uncommonly egregious, even within the onanistic world of industry awards.
The HFPA has also attempted to resuscitate their image by contracting Snoop Dogg to read the nominations on Dec. 13, 2021, a move so transparent as to be humorous — doubly so given Dogg’s repeated failures to correctly pronounce nominees’ names. It’s clear that the HFPA believes such sycophantic moves will convince the celebrities and onlookers who have all but completely abandoned them to return, but if anything the situation only appears to be getting worse.
The awards remain scheduled for Jan. 9, but given the tumult both in and out of the organization, the precise details of the event remain evasive. The HFPA seems to believe that a return to the earlier glory of the Globes isn’t an impossibility, but even somewhat more reputable events such as the Oscars remain on an unprecedented decline without controversies of comparable magnitude.
It could be that the Globes are on an intractable downward course even without their current embarrassments, and that there are huge cultural movements taking place that are invalidating it and similar events such that these are funny little bumps, extra humiliations on the ineluctable path toward irrelevancy. In either case, it would be in the Globes’ best interest to give Dogg some more prep time before future speaking engagements.
Written by: Jacob Anderson — arts@theaggie.org
