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The 81st Golden Globe Awards

Anette Benitez

Golden Night


The annual 81st Golden Globes Awards have come back after a devastating and stressful year: the writer and actor Hollywood strike.


One of the biggest challenges that the award ceremony faced was who would host. In the past the Golden Globes has had hosts like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Ricky Gervais, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and more. Their host history left the standards extremely high, however, this year they decided to go with Jo Koy, a successful and long-lasting comedian. Nevertheless, a bit embarrassing for the association, it is publicly known that he was a late hire announced by the association just weeks before the ceremony. People following the news wondered for a second if it was the right choice but stayed optimistic either way. They were right to be worried. 


Jo opened the show with the most horrid, stereotypic and discriminatory joke about the movie Barbie. Inferring that the movie is just about a doll with “big boobies”, completely missing the overall message of Greta Gerwig's feminist and inspirational film.


The awards did pick up with Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig doing a very funny and sublime musical interruption. However there were no honorary awards given this year which is a shame because they have made several memorable moments in the Globes. Like Oprah Winfrey´s #MeeToo speech and Jodie Fosters not coming out coming out speech. What definitely filled the gap were new awards presented this year like “cinematic and box office achievement” which went to… you guessed it, Barbie. It was obvious to many that this movie would win given it generated 1.466 billion dollars this year but at least it gave Margot Robbie a chance to highlight the true meaning of the film. 


After being nominated several times, Christopher Nolan finally got a win for best director of a motion picture with Oppenheimer. When he first took the stage he took a moment to remember Heath Ledger, who starred in his 2008 film, The Dark Knight. Many would argue one of the most revolutionary films made by Nolan. In his speech Nolan stated "The only time I've ever been on this stage before was accepting one of these on behalf of our dear friend, [the late] Heath Ledger, and that was complicated and challenging for me,". 


Christopher Nolan. PHOTO: CBS


Another highlight was Lily Gladstone making history with her win for best actress in a motion picture, in Martin Scorsese´s Killers of the Flower Moon. When she accepted the award, she began speaking in the Blackfeet language! This is an Alongquian language spoken by the Niitsitapi people. The actress stated "I love everyone in this room. I don't have words," she said. "I just spoke a bit of Blackfeet language, a beautiful community nation that raised me, that encouraged me to keep going, keep doing this here with my mom, who, even though she's not Blackfeet, worked tirelessly to get our language into our classroom so I had a Blackfeet language teacher growing up."


Lily Gladstone. PHOTO: CBS


Albeit, to many, the Golden Globes seemed to be very  disappointing to viewers at home. The approach to the presenting segments was bizarre. Very dark two-shots which made the presenters look like they were in a remote environment and the framing made the screen and people in it look cramped. In recent years award shows like the Oscars have been trying to “switch it up” to make the broadcast more interesting or engaging. It's not working and has made the shows look improvised and unconfident which is an extreme contrast of the award shows in the 90's. It would be better to see the upcoming award shows return to their normal form.

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