After the star-free, non-televised afterthought of an awards show that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association held in January, the Golden Globes are back.
Maybe.
But in what way? And will anyone care?
As the HFPA prepares to announce the nominations for its 80th annual show this Monday morning, the answers to those questions have yet to be determined. But it’s safe to say that not everything is going smoothly with the organization and its annual revelry. It’s true that the HFPA is continuing with its plans to put on a full-scale Globes show, one that will be televised on NBC just as it was before the industry told the group to fix it or miss it. But there are still warning signs for the Globes, both from external and internal sources.
The timeline is instructive. Last July, seven months after the Globes presented awards on a private, non-televised show (bumper question: who won?), the HFPA approved a restructuring that would create a for-profit organization owned by billionaire investor Todd Boehly, and it would also add 200 new international voters who would not become members but would make the voting body larger and more diverse. (The group ended up attracting only half that number of non-member voters.)
That same month, the Critics Choice Association announced that the next Critics Choice Awards would take place on Sunday, January 15, 2023, bringing that show back to its regular time slot, which in recent years had been a week after the Golden Globes.
In August, news outlets linked to Boehly launched rumors that the Golden Globes show would return to NBC, which had canceled the 2021 ceremony over a lack of black HFPA voters and charges of various ethical lapses. But before those reports were confirmed, the American Film Institute said its awards luncheon would take place on Friday, January 13, and BAFTA Los Angeles has scheduled its tea party for Saturday, January 14.
These were significant announcements because for years AFI and BAFTA had scheduled their annual events as a prelude to the Golden Globes. The schedule was always the same: AFI on Friday, BAFTA on Saturday, and the Globes on Sunday. For those organizations to schedule their events right before the Critics Choice Awards without waiting to see if and when the Globes would take place was a slap in the face for the HFPA and a boost for the CEC, which would like nothing more than to be seen. as a less-polluted alternative to the Globes.
The following month, despite skepticism from studios and advertisers who had yet to embrace the HFPA’s new model, NBC and the HFPA signed a one-year contract to televise the 2023 show. That one-year period was another sign clear that things were not business as usual, as was the announcement that the Globes would take place on Tuesday, January 10 instead of the Sunday night spot it had held every year since 2008.
At first glance, Tuesday night’s Globes seemed like an concession that the 2023 show was still a work in progress and wouldn’t be much of a problem. At the same time, the HFPA kept its looser submission rules (which meant the group could nominate movies and TV shows that hadn’t filled out the forms and might not want to be associated with the organization) and eliminated press conferences. of the HFPA that were once required. (a long thorn in the side of talent dismayed by silly questions).
The official explanation for the move to Tuesday was that NBC was committed to “Sunday Night Football” on January 8 and that the college football championship game (broadcast on ESPN) would take place on January 9. But the effect was to decrease the Globes and boost the Critics Choice Awards, and perhaps make the Globes less of a must on the awards calendar. And it didn’t help when those 200 new proposed voters were essentially cut in half, with only 103 new international non-members recruited to cast votes and bolster the voting body.
Will those new faces have a visible impact on the nominations when they are revealed on Monday? Will the HFPA present a smart, diverse and utterly credible slate to help it return from publicist-induced exile?
It’s possible; in recent years, even the original group of voters have made mostly reasonable decisions. (Remember, they gave their top honor to “The Social Network” over “The King’s Speech” and “The Power of the Dog” over “CODA,” taking the less populist but more critically-approved route both times.) And the international critics The Fipresci group, from which the new voters/non-members were drawn, is not known for making frivolous decisions when handing out awards at international film festivals.
But a Tuesday night Globes ceremony a few days before an awards-heavy weekend culminating in the Critics Choice Awards could also make the Globes easy to ignore, particularly for those unconvinced that the privatized, money-making HFPA is a real improvement.
One clue to watch out for Monday morning: how many big stars will be making statements or doing interviews saying how excited/excited/shocked they are to be nominated for a Globe? (And how many of those interviews will include questions about the credibility of the nominating group?) Last year, the silence on nomination morning was deafening; this year, no the noise will be music to the ears of the HFPA.
By the way, the answers to that pop quiz from several paragraphs ago (what won last year?) are “The Power of the Dog” and “West Side Story,” which won the Drama and Comedy/Musical Globes respectively in January. Those were completely reasonable and completely predictable choices, but I had to look them up to answer my own question.
That’s how memorable the Golden Globes are these days.
A version of this story first appeared in the awards magazine TheWrap.
