LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) – The 79th Annual Golden Globes were last night without the red carpet, celebrities, or fanfare. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) had a ceremony Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel … alone. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and surging variant(s), organizers scaled back the event to include, well, no one. The decision for the scaled-back ceremony followed the NBC announcement it would not broadcast this year’s show due to lack of diversity among HFPA membership. The Globes went dark twice before, the 36th annual ceremony in 1979 and again in 2008.
Once upon a time, the Globes were celebrated, anticipated, and revered. Their prestige came second only to the illustrious Academy Awards in American pop culture. The tradition began in 1943 with the founding of the Hollywood Foreign Correspondents Association (HFCA) by a group of journalists who joined together to formalize their relationship with the studios and facilitate their work of interviewing movie stars and film directors for publications around the world. Their motto, published in 1953 was, “Unity Without Discrimination of Religion or Race”.
The only awards show where celebrities sat at tables, drank alcohol on national TV, laughed a lot, relaxed, and seemed well, almost human. Where else would you see Gene Kelly conversing with Julie Andrews, Dean Martin having a cigarette and bourbon with Mr. John Wayne, or Ellen DeGeneres taking an epic selfie with Jared Leto, Bradley Cooper, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, Lupito Nyong’o, Julia Roberts, wife Portia de Rossi and Meryl Streep?
Alas, amid accusations of financial mishandling and questions regarding diversity, past prestige wasn’t enough. Once NBC announced it would not broadcast the show until the HFPA made changes within the organization and facing boycotts from Hollywood, with Tom Cruise returning all three of his Globes, the HFPA went to task reforming all their bylaws and releasing a list of 21 new members recruited under the reform. Of the new members, Variety reported that 48% identify as women, 29% identify as African American, 24% identify as Asian, 29% identify as Latinx and 19% identify as Middle Eastern/North African.
There’s hope in the name of Snoop D-O-double G, who was a surprise guest at the December nominee announcement ceremony. Snoop was humorous in his mispronunciation of names, “Been Aff-fleck” rolled off the tongue of Long Beach’s native son, as Snoop said, “My fault, sorry about that Ben”. After realizing he couldn’t pronounce Ciarán Hinds, you could hear him say, “Work with me now”. The Globes need a shot of humanity as they’ve had the boring, stuffy reputation among audiences for years. The public have not held back with opinions on social media as numerous comments have been made about the Globes being outdated, antiquated and “behind the times.”
However, among the winners, West Side Story won for Best Motion Picture – musical or comedy, beating out Licorice Pizza and the critically acclaimed Don’t Look Up. West Side Story star, Rachel Zegler won for Best Actress, Andrew Garfield took home Best Actor for Tick, Tick … Boom! and woman director Jane Champion won for the Netflix movie, The Power of the Dog. Mj Rodriguez took home Best TV Drama Actress for her work in Pose. The first Golden Globe given to anyone who identifies as transgender.
“OMG OMGGG!!!! Thank you! This is the door that is going to open the door for many more young talented individuals. They will see that it is more than possible. They will see that a young black Latina girl from Newark who had a dream, to change the minds others would WITH LOVE. LOVE WINS,” she posted via her Instagram.
Snoop Dogg as host for 2023 anyone?
You can view the complete list of nominees and winners for this year’s telecast by clicking here for the Golden Globes official website.
