The Golden Globes Are Now a Different Kind of Farce

Last Monday, we got the nominations for the 2024 Golden Globes, which typically wouldn’t be worthy of attention except these will be the first Globes without the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). The deeply corrupt HFPA was disbanded earlier this year with Dick Clark Productions and Penske Media Eldridge taking control. So a clean slate, right? Maybe this award will finally mean something?

Well, not quite.

If the name “Penske” jumps out at you, that might be because Penske Media Corporation is the publisher behind such entertainment outlets as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline Hollywood. These three publications also make massive profits from annual “For Your Consideration” (FYC) ads. There doesn’t seem to be anything addressing the big problem here, which is that the people running the award show are profiting from the studios seeking to promote the nominated films. Say what you will about the Academy, but it’s a collection of industry peers. The studios are present, but flooding the zone with FYC ads and campaigning only goes one way. The Globes are now an organization that is holding an awards show but also has a hand out asking for studios to pay for consideration. That seems like a conflict of interest.

On the one hand, it’s not worth it to get bent out of shape over the integrity of awards shows. They’re silly to begin with. But to the lay person, the Globes represent prestige. They’ve been around for over eighty years, the ceremony gets nationally televised on a broadcast network, and celebrities show up to accept the award. What’s galling here is that there was an uproar about the HFPA, but it appears all the players involved—from the studios to the talent to the publications—were just looking for a classier version of corruption. Is Penske as openly scuzzy as the HFPA? No, but they’re still selling the illusion that this is a prestigious award, which in turn lines their pockets. Everyone involved knows the award is meaningless, but millions of dollars will change hands over this empty vehicle.

The notion that Penske has restored respectability to the Globes (an impossibility since it never existed to begin with) is further undermined when you look at the new category, “The Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement,” which has eight nominees that grossed over $150 million worldwide competing for…a trophy to go with all that money. Keep in mind that the year’s highest-grossing film, Barbie, picked up the most nominations of any movie, so it’s not like it was underrepresented until this new category came along. But it is a useful category if, for instance, you nominate Taylor Swift’s concert movie because you want her to show up at your party.

I know that most major award shows are all businesses of some kind, but the Globes continues to relish its own venality. The best we can do is continue to ignore it.

Recommendations

This Don Moynihan post from his Substack, Can We Still Govern?, does a good job of highlighting that the book bans sweeping the nation aren’t coming from legitimately concerned parents, but activist weirdos who want to determine not what’s best for their kids, but what’s best for your kids regardless of whether they share a school/library or not. Of course, this is all part of a larger project to make public education as awful as possible to make room for a private sector that will instill particular values and charge a premium to taxpayers for doing so. But it’s also a way of trying to circumvent the empathy of a younger generation who might learn to embrace others rather than see them as a constant boogeyman that can be used to different political ends.

What I’m Watching

I was tempted to make the main story of this issue Wonka because I can’t get over how good it is. The film looked pretty awful, and I felt bad that Timothee Chamalet had to waste his time on it, but I shouldn’t have doubted director Paul King, the guy behind the lovely Paddington movies. Rather than grind Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory through the nostalgia mill, he makes it the year’s best musical, and he does it on his own terms. He knows how to balance the film’s sweetness with a bit of darkness, weirdness, and dryness to create a unique flavor that never plays as saccharine. Chalamet is also delightful as Wonka. He twinkles in the role, giving it a lot of theater kid energy to make the character his own rather than trying to ape what Gene Wilder did. If you’re looking for a movie to see with your family over the holidays, this is an incredibly easy recommendation.

What I’m Reading

Here are some articles I’ve read recently that stayed with me:

Born This Way? Born Which Way? by Lydia Polgreen [The New York Times] - Given the amount of anti-trans rhetoric that finds its way into the Times on a regular basis, I was glad that they gave this space to Polgreen to point out all the ways anti-trans panic is ridiculous. If the core of the argument is that “kids will experience regret” then that’s nothing because we make choices all the time that cause us some amount of regret. If the core of the argument is “we can’t let kids have surgery” then where is the outcry against rhinoplasties or any other surgery that further enforces gender roles? What I love most about Polgreen’s article is how she not only makes these strong rhetorical arguments, but that she showcases a great well of empathy that isn’t about pointing out bad-faith political arguments from people looking to persecute a minority, but speaking to people who have concerns over all the trans-panic stuff they see in the news.

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies by Spencer Ackerman [Rolling Stone] - Henry Kissinger died a couple weeks ago, and whenever I need a mood boost, I think of this news. He was an awful person who wasn’t particularly good at his supposed role of diplomacy, but was very good at getting countless people killed so he could remain in the upper echelons of power. I like Ackerman’s obituary because it’s not only a reckoning for Kissinger, but for the institutions that enabled and venerated him.

The Killer’s Anti-Climactic (and Dark as Hell) Ending, Explained by A.A. Dowd [Vulture] - Speaking of remorseless killers, I’ve been wrestling with the ending of David Fincher’s latest movie since I saw it, and I really appreciated Dowd’s breakdown of how it thematically fits with the rest of the movie. It may not be particularly satisfying in terms of what we expect from the genre, but it does cohere with everything that comes prior. Unlike Mank, The Killer feels like a Fincher movie that will reward repeat viewings.

What I’m Hearing

All the original songs in Wonka are good, but right now this one is my favorite:

What I’m Playing

I’m almost done with Super Mario RPG (five of seven stars acquired), and while I’m still enjoying it, it’s funny playing it now versus how I remember playing it when I was twelve. Back in 1996, I remember it being far more difficult, and not being able to figure out how to proceed with certain sections. It’s comforting to know I might be slightly more intelligent and better at video games than I was when I was a child.