The 79th award of the Golden Globes is likely to be the most desolate in the history of the film award. As the organizers announced, I will “this year’s event is a private event”. The winners should be announced in writing on the website, not in a glamorous way.
The Golden Globes were once the second most important event on Hollywood’s awards calendar after the Oscars. In recent years, thanks to the triumphant advance of streaming platforms, they were even ahead of the Oscars, because the Globes not only award prizes to cinema films, but also to series and television films. The stars also liked the show because it was less stiff and formal than the Oscars. With drinks at the tables of the Beverly Hilton Hotel and legendary cheeky presentations by Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, among others.
Were the organizers bribed? Paid trips and gifts are said to have not been uncommon
After the last award in January 2021, however, the event came to an end into the worst crisis in its history. The Golden Globes have been awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) since 1944. This is a group of foreign journalists who work in Hollywood. In contrast to the Oscars, where thousands of members of the American Film Academy vote on the winners every year, the HFPA has always been a very small group of around 90 journalists. It had been rumored for a long time that the members may not have been bribed, but that they allowed themselves to be pampered vigorously. Paid press trips to film sets, small and large gifts are said to have not been uncommon. To several press reports on these practices the HFPA came under fire. She was also accused of a lack of diversity in the composition of its members and a lack of journalistic standards. Actress Scarlett Johansson said she had to be asked questions “bordering on sexual harassment” at HFPA press conferences. Stars and their PR firms announced that they would boycott the show in the future. Some even returned their Golden Globe trophies, Tom Cruise for example.
The broadcaster NBC, which has broadcast the Globes for years (and was the HFPA’s main source of money through the purchase of the broadcasting rights) then terminated the collaboration. Since then, the HFPA has been active in action, revised its code of conduct and appointed new, more diverse members.
In the short term, it was suspected that, as an exception, she would broadcast the prize online in 2022 as a live stream and use the event for a large mea culpa. As usual, an agency was hired to recruit potential prominent laudators, which was never a problem in the past. But because, according to several media reports, there were no stars who wanted to award or accept the award, the announcement now followed that the event would be held in a small group, announce the winners in writing. It is questionable whether the price will survive this zero glamor round.