Is the Golden Globes reclamation project actually working?
For the second year in a row, the embattled awards show and its hundreds of new voters got through nominations morning without the kind of embarrassments that used to be de rigueur in these parts. Its slate of nominees went largely as expected and was largely sensible, no doubt aided by the fact that all of its categories remained super-sized after being bumped up from five to six nominees last year.
And that makes it easier for the industry to shrug off the scandals that caused a wholesale reorganization of the awards show three years ago and took it off the air for one year. There’s still a lot to worry about with a show rife with conflicts of interest – but if the industry really wants to look the other way, voters gave them a reason to play along.
Yes, it’s too bad that that the nominations couldn’t find room for, say, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, June Squibb, Clarence Maclin and Danielle Deadwyler. And no, it’s not a good look that the most significant names missing from the roster of nominees, Squibb excepted, were people of color. But there’s not a lot to argue with in a lineup that made a case for “Emilia Perez” after the audacious musical was bypassed by most critics’ groups, or one that gave work like “Nickel Boys” and “September 5” recognition in the top category, even if nowhere else.
Globe voters aren’t squeamish, to judge by the five nominations for “The Substance,” and they aren’t timid, to judge by the noms for both of the lead actors in “The Apprentice,” the somewhat scathing origin story of the U.S. president-elect.
They even managed to stave off what seemed to be the likely tempest caused by an all-male Best Director lineup by nominating not only Coralie Fargeat for “The Substance” but also Indian director Payal Kapadia for “All We Imagine as Light.” The move pushed out Jon M. Chu for “Wicked,” the blockbuster that was perhaps an underachiever with four nominations, and Denis Villeneuve for “Dune: Part Two,” but it threw down a gauntlet of sorts for Oscar, Critics Choice and Directors Guild Award voters who might be leaning toward some combination of Jacques, Sean, Edward, Jon, Brady, Denis and Ridley.
The Globes still have their silly second-year category Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, instituted last year to give “Barbie” something to win. And it was odd that “Gladiator II” got in there but “Dune: Part Two” didn’t despite making twice as much money and getting better reviews – but “Dune” got its revenge in the more important Motion Picture Drama category, where it got in and “Gladiator II” didn’t.
Then again, the nominations were largely respectable last year and the year before, too, and both times the Globes fell flat with a cringeworthy show. The last two hosts were 2023’s Jerrod Carmichael, who ripped the Globes so viciously in his opening monologue that you’d think he was trying to assuage his conscience for cashing the very large check they gave him to emcee the show; and 2024’s Jo Koy, who was so aggressively unfunny that he could have passed for a plant sent to sabotage the Globes by the Critics Choice Awards or by a band of publicists who were still mad over the days of freebies, junkets, no Black voters and nominations for Pia Zadora.
And yet the Globes emerged from those two years a little bloody, certainly battered but in proud possession of a TV contract with CBS, which meant that studios and networks will go back to playing along to get some low-risk exposure just before Oscar voters begin to cast their nominating ballots.
Nikki Glaser to Host 2025 Golden Globes
The remnants of the old Hollywood Foreign Press Association are still there, along with a couple hundred international critics who don’t mind being used to make the Globes more respectable. The group behind the show is no longer a nonprofit; in fact, it has its tentacles throughout Hollywood grasping at ways to make a profit, from the venue that hosts the show to the production company that puts it on to the trade outlets that write nice things about it and occasionally try to sell access to it. (For the record, TheWrap is not one of those outlets.)
But hey, the 82nd Golden Globes will no doubt be a show with lots of stars. And hey, for the second year in a row the new voters did their job, which is to make the lineup of nominations look as if they were made by reasonable people. Are we really going to complain too much about an organization that might show love to Colman Domingo, Tilda Swinton, Fernanda Torres or Yura Borisov?
The Golden Globes are banking on the fact that the answer to that question is no; after all, that’s been the answer for most of the Globes’ existence, save for a few bad years here and there. And they’re banking on the fact that this year’s host, Nikki Glaser, will in all likelihood be better than the two men who preceded her.
It’s Hollywood. It’s almost 2025. Is anybody really in the mood to get picky and turn down an opportunity to celebrate something – anything – for a night?