Lower than 5 years in the past, the Golden Globes had been hanging by a thread.
Within the wake of a Occasions investigation that uncovered the group’s self-dealing and moral lapses and an entire lack of Black illustration amongst its membership, NBC pulled the ceremony off the air as Netflix and Amazon Studios and greater than 100 publicity businesses minimize ties with the embattled Hollywood Overseas Press Assn.
It acquired so unhealthy that Tom Cruise despatched again his three Golden Globes to the HFPA in protest, an act not fairly on the extent of Sean Penn’s 2022 menace to smelt his Oscars, although it grabbed headlines all the identical.
However the Golden Globes have returned from the brink. The awards present, now run by Penske Media Eldridge, owned by Jay Penske and Todd Boehly, introduced its newest slate of movie and tv nominations Monday. And the protection, led by commerce publications owned by Penske, has contained little to no point out of the present’s troubled previous — or the controversies that proceed to swirl across the ceremony, which can once more air in January on CBS as a part of a five-year broadcast deal signed in 2024.
So, sure, for all intents and functions, the Golden Globes are again. However concerning moral practices, at the moment’s for-profit Globes might be worse than ever, crossing the road in methods which might be extra egregious than the shady maneuverings that put the awards on life help not so way back.
As a part of the present’s rehabilitation, the Globes have expanded their voting pool to 300 folks, together with Black voters. Fifty of the unique HFPA members had been grandfathered into the group and supplied an annual wage of $75,000. The Globes terminated that coverage earlier this yr, calling the transfer “an acknowledgment that continuing to pay members could add to a perception of bias in voting.”
It’s onerous to not be skeptical of such principled reasoning in mild of more moderen occasions. In Might, the Globes introduced a brand new class for podcasts. A shortlist of 25 adopted in October, chosen by audio analytics firm Luminate, which, shock, can be owned by Penske Media.
The eligible titles ranged from Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” and Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” to political packages like “Pod Save America.” Conservative commentators Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Theo Von and Candace Owens all made the shortlist. (Surprisingly, “New Heights,” the favored podcast hosted by Jason Kelce and his brother Travis, the all-pro Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tight finish engaged to singer Taylor Swift, was omitted. If the purpose in creating the brand new award was to discover a solution to coax Swift into attending the ceremony, anyone forgot to avoid wasting her a seat.)
However the true motivation behind the podcast class turned obvious quickly afterward: cash. Per the Ankler, Penske-owned commerce publication Selection had its gross sales group pitch nominated podcasts an array of paid advertising and marketing partnerships, together with a $25,000 purchase to grow to be a Podcasting FYC Fest supporting accomplice and a $75,000 deal for the podcaster to be given the Selection Inventive Influence Award in Podcasting.
With these costs, no surprise Luminate appears to have made recognition — and thus monetary sources — a core criterion for eligibility. Plus, there was the hope that a number of the 25 shortlisted exhibits would purchase FYC adverts in Selection and Penske’s different commerce publications, the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, all of which depend on FYC {dollars} to maintain the lights on.
What number of bit? Shapiro is one outstanding identify, shopping for adverts on Deadline and partnering with awards prediction web site Gold Derby (sure, one other Penske property) in a paid video interview along with his podcast group. (The stumping didn’t repay in the long run: The ultimate six nominees within the class had been “Armchair Expert,” “Call Her Daddy,” “Good Hang with Amy Poehler,” “The Mel Robbins Podcast,” “SmartLess” and “Up First.”)
“It’s just a money grab,” says a veteran awards advisor, who requested not be recognized so as to shield business relationships. “Everybody used to knock the Globes, but they were just goofy. … This is next level.”
You need subsequent degree? How about Penske providing three pairs of Golden Globes tickets for $70,000 every through a “concierge gift guide” in its luxurious way of life journal Robb Report? After the New York Put up reported these shenanigans, the supply disappeared on the publication’s web site.
Privately, there was pushback. Publicly, not a lot. We dwell in a tradition at massive the place we’ve come to simply accept flagrant corruption because the norm, and Penske’s Globes are simply one other instance, skating by way of our collective numbness.
The Golden Globes have lengthy been excused for his or her scandals and idiosyncratic membership and, in fact, mocked for his or her irrelevance. Ricky Gervais dismissed them as “worthless,” calling the award “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.”
The membership has turned over, however the trophy’s worth continues to be inconsequential.
But the ceremony retains on chugging alongside, remaining, within the view of filmmakers behind the type of grown-up film fare that’s changing into an more and more endangered species, a necessary advertising and marketing platform. The January ceremony introduced in 9.3 million viewers — not Sunday Evening Soccer numbers, however not shabby on this fragmented media panorama.
For one night time, the pondering goes, films like “Marty Supreme,” “Hamnet” and “Sentimental Value” (amongst this yr’s most-rewarded contenders) are celebrated and, maybe, found. Studios nonetheless platform their movies’ growth into extra theaters on the weekend after the Globes ceremony. In case you award it, the pondering goes, folks will come.
All of us need these films to proceed to be made. Little question a good variety of moviegoers purchased a ticket to see the Brazilian political drama “I’m Still Here” after its lead Fernanda Torres received a Globe earlier this yr.
However including classes for podcast and, two years in the past, “cinematic and box office achievement” solely squeezes the period of time that the present can highlight the nominated movies and their actors.
There’s a saying, first coined by Maya Angelou, that’s been repopularized lately: “If someone shows you who they are, believe them.” The identical could possibly be mentioned of awards exhibits.
The Golden Globes could also be right here to remain. However let’s cease pretending they’re any higher than they had been earlier than the final scandal.
