Golden Globes 2.0: The HFPA strikes back
The previously cancelled Golden Globes are reportedly making a resurgence on NBC. Once an important precursor award ceremony at the annual awards race, the Golden Globes have earned a reputation of being mocked at and ridiculed for the indifference with which they carry themselves, and in light of recent controversies, perhaps rightly so.
Why: For starters, the Globes are rarely taken seriously - both by awards prognosticators that desperately look for possible links with the Oscars and by the nominees themselves, who have infamously spent more time at the open bar at the ceremony.
And though the Globes have been practically cancelled out of existence following the decade-long controversy surrounding its white-washed voting body - the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) - the Globes have unfortunately had a history of significant linkages with the Best Picture lineups later on at the Oscars.
Road to Oscars: The Globes draw (unfortunate) relevance from their status as the first industrial award ceremony of the award season to be televised, generally on the first Sunday of every new year. For a film to perform well at the Academy Awards at the end of the season, an important precursor criteria for it to do so is the ‘Holy Trifecta’ at the Globes.
The ‘Holy Trifecta’ (as dubbed by award season pundits) refers to the three major categories to bag nominations at the Globes, - Best Picture Drama or Comedy/Musical, Best Director and Best Screenplay - picture, direction and writing. A film must land nominations in all three categories for it to stand a chance at winning the top prize at the Oscars later on.
The aberration: The only film to have broken the pattern in a very long time has unsurprisingly been last year's Best Picture winner at the Oscars, Apple TV’s CODA, which did not receive either directing or writing nominations at the Globes. Interestingly enough, CODA marked an anomaly in the pattern in the first year since the cancelling of the Globes.
Who are the HFPA: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, or HFPA, consists of a group of 105 journalists and photographers from approximately 55 countries who report on the entertainment industry in the United States for media. This means for any newspaper, magazine, television or digital media association.
In February 2021, a Los Angeles Times piece revealed that no members of the HFPA were black, as a response to which the HFPA announced a reform package with specific interest in recruiting black members.
However, the damage had already been done and a TimesUp-led coalition of PR firms slammed the association for its lacklustre efforts and that no real accountability or change was at play.
The cancellation: In May, 2021, shortly after the HFPA’s reformation announcement, Netflix and Amazon Prime announced they would stop all association with the organisation until there was sufficient and credible change and many other media companies soon followed suit.
The National Broadcasting Company or the NBC, responsible for televising the Golden Globes ceremony every year, joined the boycott movement against the HFPA and announced that it would not televise the ceremony this year. The cycle had been completed and the Golden Globes were officially cancelled.
A lawsuit: The final blow came after a long and controversial history that the HFPA and the Globes have faced over the many years of their existence. The most recent including a Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa alleging that the HFPA consistently rejects qualified new applicants like herself whose work competes with that of existing members.
In a scathing LA Times report of the lawsuit filed by Flaa, she alleged that the HFPA is an “illegal cartel” operating under a “culture of corruption”. Although dismissed by the judge, the action opened the conversation surrounding the ‘non-profit’ status of the HFPA and the fact that it enjoyed tax exemption privileges.
No one takes the Globes seriously: Even the hosts and guests at the ceremony themselves have had a majorly dismissive attitude towards the Globes. Ricky Gervais, who hosted the 2016 ceremony, called the Globes “worthless” and just “a bit of metal that some nice old confused journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and have a selfie with you”.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC is planning to air the 2023 Golden Globes on Tuesday, January 10, 2023, with this edition remaining un-televised like the previous ceremony.
What now: Verdict’s still out on whether the HFPA’s newfound commitment to inclusivity standards is a genuine attempt at reformation, or just another tokenistic PR stunt to feign extinction.