Golden Globes No Longer Canceled, But No One Can Watch Them
The Golden Globes are still going on this year, but it doesn't look like anyone is going to be able to watch them. It's a major change.
If an awards show is held, but no one is around to see it, did it really happen? I suppose we are about to find out with the Golden Globes Award show which will be held this weekend. The one difference this time around as opposed to years past? Well, this one isn’t going to be televised or live-streamed in any way and there won’t be a red carpet event either. It looks like they are going mostly off the grid with the proceedings which might make sense considering how much flak the organization that runs it has received over the last few years.
The Hollywood Reporter has it that this year’s Golden Globes ceremony won’t be on any network feed, something we mostly already knew considering they weren’t re-upped after last year. It is a bit surprising that there won’t even be a stream through the organization itself, though there is some chance they just want to avoid the production costs altogether. Instead, it will be a smaller, more private affair with a number of awards handed out that will focus more on the giving nature of those with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that sponsors the awards show.
For what it’s worth, the Golden Globes does have nominations in film and television in its traditional categories. Notables for Best Motion Picture Drama include Dune, Power of the Dog, and King Richard with Licorice Pizza and tick, tick…BOOM! heading up Best Musical or Comedy. Mahershala Ali, Jessica Chastain, Will Smith, Lady Gaga, Benedict Cumberbatch, Denzel Washington, and Kristen Stewart are just some of the actors and actresses nominated for best acting awards. It’s unclear if all will be attending this year considering the change of venue and limited publicity around the event.
The Golden Globes, by way of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, had faced considerable scrutiny over the last year thanks to the reporting by the Los Angeles Times that the organization had very little diversity in its ranks. It was reported at the time that the organization didn’t have a single black voting member. A number of PR agencies banded together to say they and the talent they represent would no longer be associated with the group or by proxy, the Golden Globes unless significant changes were made in their ranks. Essentially they put a boycott in place. It’s unclear if they are following through with that for this year.
NBC had owned the rights to broadcast the Golden Globes for years, but the network has declined to air the awards this year because of concerns over diversity with the HFPA. The latter has said they’ve done work to cure some of these issues. With this latest move and NBC not wanting to air the broadcast, coupled with the lack of the live stream, we could be getting closer to the end of this event. With ratings already waning around live awards shows in general, this could be one of the first dominoes to fall in seeing much less of them in the future. Time will tell if that’s the case, but going away for the short term can often mean going away for good.
