It’s January, and that means awards season has officially kicked off with Hollywood’s…fourth biggest night!
It had put up a good fight, but the Golden Globes was irreparably wounded and ready to go the way of a lame horse.
In recent years, that’s what the Golden Globes ceremony felt like: an afterthought. The show has long been the subject of jest among both the Hollywood elite and at-home viewers. Even couch pundits had begun to dread sitting through the Globes, despite the telecast formerly being required viewing for anyone who wanted to see what might happen if celebs were sat next to their competitors and plied with enough expensive champagne.
It didn’t help that years of controversy have marred the Globes, mainly a 2021 investigation by the “Los Angeles Times,” which revealed that the show’s voting body — then called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — had no Black members. There was also Brenden Fraser alleging that the HFPA’s former president had sexually assaulted him, a long history of an extremely white winner base and a slew of hosting gigs that ranged from tepid to utterly futile. When NBC decided not to air the 2022 Globes ceremony following the voting party controversy, viewers barely batted an eye. Gee, what would be missed the most: another lame button-pusher from Ricky Gervais, or another award given to one of Hollywood’s millions of brave, white men?
After sacking Gervais, shuttering the HFPA to rebrand as the Golden Globes Association and being acquired by Dick Clark Productions, it seemed like there might be one final gasp of life left in this relic of an awards show. While a one-off 2023 hosting stint saw Jerrod Carmichael doing his best to revitalize the whole affair, last year’s host Jo Koy crashed and burned during a particularly abysmal telecast. It had put up a good fight, but the Golden Globes was irreparably wounded and ready to go the way of a lame horse. But before anyone could finish loading the shotgun, we got a surprise that no one saw coming with a Golden Globes ceremony that was as close to phenomenal as the show has been in well over a decade.
The Jan. 5 ceremony was far from the tired, foot-dragging telecast that it was expected to be. Instead, a bevy of intriguing new production tricks, a superbly charismatic host in Nikki Glaser, and a handful of exciting, unexpected wins managed to rejuvenate the show as well as any Beverly Hills plastic surgeon could. The ceremony didn’t bashfully suggest the show’s potential, rather, it kicked awards season’s door wide open, telling viewers that the Golden Globes is a powerhouse brand with plenty of fight left for another round. After years of feeling like a funeral you really didn’t want to attend, the Golden Globes successfully revamped itself into the hottest ticket of awards season.
It was immediately apparent that something was different when Glaser blew past her opening joke for a slew of other knockout punchlines and jabs that followed. “Welcome to Ozempic’s biggest night!” Glaser announced with a smile. It was the kind of low-hanging fruit that another host might lob into the air, waiting for the crowd's shock to die down. But Glaser, who has been on a micro-press tour leading up to Sunday night’s ceremony, came prepared to wow. “Tonight we celebrate the best of film and hold space for television,” Glaser said before getting in a few more quips about how film and television are blurring. In fact, the only stumble Glaser took would be her off-color handful of jokes about the allegations surrounding Diddy. But as soon as she felt the crowd balk, she kept things moving and ultimately defined the tempo for the night.
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Glaser had a remarkable sense of presence and pacing, and the show’s new production tricks kept the entire affair feeling deceptively intimate. In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, ads touted the Globes as the place where “the greatest from film and television come together in one room.” Angled shots that captured the audience behind presenters and wide shots of the audience sitting close to one another made the telecast feel cozy for viewers from the comfort of their couches at home. Instead of positioning itself as a prestige show and a legacy that audiences should automatically respect, the Globes intentionally crafted a show where the viewer would feel like they were in the room, taking part in the ceremonies too.
That was an especially successful endeavor when it came to the awards themselves. 2024 was an exceedingly strange year in film and television, and not just in terms of any specific works. Dramas are still being plunked into the comedy categories and, meanwhile, half of the movies up for the biggest awards of the night are either about to enter or are still in a limited release — or, perhaps, only ever had a limited release to begin with. “Emilia Pérez” led the night with a whopping 10 nominations, which was a good thing for viewers watching from home, considering that it was one of the few movies they could see before the ceremony (as long as they had a Netflix subscription). Others, like “The Brutalist,” “The Last Showgirl,” “A Different Man” and “Flow” have all had scattered release dates as they expand, if they’re expanding at all.
The inability to access some movies before awards season begins has always created a strange dissonance during the Golden Globes for viewers who don’t live in major cities. While streamers rectify that to some degree, they also prohibit viewers from getting the full theatrical experience. (What they do to devalue the importance of moviegoing is another matter entirely, and a gauche scoreboard that had distribution companies like A24 and Searchlight sitting side by side with Netflix and Max was proof you can’t teach an old dog like the Globes too many new tricks.) Undoubtedly, seeing the night’s biggest and best winners on the big screen contributed to the excitement surrounding their wins. The infamous 215-minute long epic “The Brutalist” might’ve pissed the bed in its second half, but there was no denying that director Brady Corbet deserved his win for Best Director when seeing his sweeping efforts on a massive screen.
During his speech, Corbet thanked his daughter Ada, who sat at a nearby table, tearfully peering at her father onstage as he accepted his award. While this was, of course, a happy accident for all the (probably) fine folks at Dick Clark Productions, it only helped make the ceremony all the more personal for the viewer at home. That approachability is exactly what Hollywood and the Golden Globes have been missing recently. “Emilia Pérez” director Jacques Audiard later told the audience that they would need “nerves of steel” for 2025, seemingly referring to the thorny political and social climate. His comment stressed the importance of cinema, television and the entertainment industry. We don’t just use these things as ephemeral amusement — art helps us make sense of our lives at their most critical impasses.
That the Golden Globes was even able to make any kind of cohesive throughline statement was a miracle already, but then came a handful of big wins that were so surprising that they have managed to up the show’s credibility tenfold. Two heavy hitters came in a row in Demi Moore winning Best Female Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy for “The Substance,” followed by Sebastian Stan winning the opposite award in the Male subcategory for “A Different Man.” Moore’s speech tore the roof of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. It was the kind of invigorating speech one might save for the Oscars. But considering that her Golden Globe was the first “major” award she’s won in the span of her 45-year career, it was wise of her to take the opportunity now.
Smaller, less accessible movies are often where the larger and more important conversations are happening.
In her speech, Moore referred to a producer who once called her a “popcorn actress,” suggesting that she was only good for people who want easily digestible blockbuster fare and that she was not destined to be acknowledged for her work. “That corroded me over time, to the point that I thought, ‘Maybe this is it.” Thankfully, it wasn’t, and Moore went on to praise writer and director Coralie Fargeat, who brought her one of the most incredible roles of her long career in “The Substance.” That Moore won at all is a major achievement for someone who has been undervalued for too long, but to win for a movie like the bloody, bonkers, highly original and unapologetically French film like “The Substance” is another thing entirely. From a Cannes premiere in May to a word-of-mouth sensation last fall, that very small movie was one of the year’s biggest success stories, and it’s admirable that the Globes voters honored it with one of the biggest awards.
The same can be said about “A Different Man,” the genre-hopping story of a man who undergoes experimental treatment for his facial disfigurement condition and winds up both “better” and much, much worse off than he was before. The film bounces between comedy and chaos, violence and valiance, and Stan is completely committed the whole way through. In his speech, Stan first thanked his costar Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis and on whom the film’s director, Aaron Schimberg, based Stan’s character’s look. “Our ignorance and discomfort around disability and disfigurement has to end now,” Stan began. “We have to normalize it and continue to expose ourselves to it and our children, to encourage acceptance. One way we can do that is by continuing to champion stories that are inclusive.”
Stan went on to talk about the importance of discussing tough subject matters through filmmaking, once again illustrating that smaller, less accessible movies are often where the larger and more important conversations are happening. Watching performers like Stan and Moore talk about the critical state of cinema and its changing guard was a major get for anyone who loves entertainment already. But seeing musicians like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross accept an award for their “Challengers” score, Latvian animated film “Flow” beat out Pixar and DreamWorks, and Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres win over established North American Hollywood luminaries was a truly refreshing sight to boot. I can’t remember the last time I found the Golden Globes refreshing, let alone current in any sense of the word.
While I’m hesitant to crown this a new dawn for the show, it certainly is a bit of bright morning light beginning to stretch up from the horizon. That the Globes have been able to make it through the dark for this long is something of a marvel. That the show has listened to its critics, thoughtfully revamped itself and has been unique enough to lead the awards season conversation by handing trophies to unexpected, well-deserved recipients, even more so. Hollywood loves a comeback, and if the Globes keep up the work at this level, this show could be one for the ages.
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