“And the Golden Globe goes to…” These words known around the word never hit the television screen in 2021. Without any knowledge to the general public, the 79th Golden Globes remained a private non televised event.
The prestigious award recognizes excellence in both American and international film and television every January since 1944. Awards such as Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Television Series, Best Supporting Actor-Motion Picture, Best Musical/Comedy Series, Best Score Motion picture, and several other categories are bestowed.
The Golden Globes hold more significance than just the awards being handed out. Some viewers tune into their local NBC channel every year to see what unique designer gown or suit each guest is wearing, who arrived solo or with a date, or just to see their favorite actor on screen.
After the ceremony happened without the red carpet, host, or TV camera, people couldn’t help but wonder why the third most watched event on cable network never aired.
Senior Emma Lochridge assumed Covid had something to do with it not being on television.
“I mean it makes sense, Covid has caused so many other things to be canceled, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if it had something to do with it not being aired,” Lochridge said.
Just a few days before the Golden Globes were scheduled to take place, the Grammy’s announced that they would postpone the ceremony to April due to rising Covid-19 cases in America; however, Covid-19 is not the reason the Golden Globes were filmed.
According to NPR arts correspondent Mandalit del Barco, the event wasn’t aired because of some recent scandals with the HFPA.
The HFPA, short for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, was founded in the early 1940’s by a group of foreign journalists who wanted to create a more organized system for collecting and distributing news on movies and television outside of the US. To this day there is a group of journalists that run HFPA from around the world
Members of HFPA vote and rank their top five selections for each category the November before the ceremony.
Del Barco raised the question “Why does a small group have so much power in Hollywood?” and she is not wrong.
For reference, the BAFTAs has 6,000 voting members. The Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, has 9,000 voting members. The Emmys has 20,000 voting members.
The Golden Globes has 90 members.
Ninety members to vote on some of the most prestigious cinema productions of the year.
Over the past three years or so, HFPA has been under fire for how its members run the organization and their legitimacy.
In an article released by the LA Times back in February of 2021, journalists Josh Rottenberg and Stacy Perman discovered that a significant amount of its ninety members are elderly.
“According to an antitrust lawsuit filed last year against the HFPA by a Norwegian journalist, one member in their 90’s is deaf and legally blind,” Rottenberg and Perman reported.
They also discovered that people have witnessed members falling asleep during films of potential nominees and acting like children by throwing insults at each other during news conferences.
The HFPA has denied most of these accusations.
In addition to their questionable legitimacy, they lack diversity in their membership.
Rottenberg and Perman found that despite claiming to be an international organization, the HFPA had no Black members.
However, that was something the HFPA cannot deny.
When this story broke, actors and media outlets fought back.
Tom Cruise gave his 3 Golden Globe statuettes back to the organization in protest and “Studios like Netflix, Amazon and WarnerMedia said they wouldn’t participate with the Golden Globes until the HFPA made substantial changes,” Del Barco said.
The organization brought on 21 new members including six African American members.
However, the HFPA long time partner NBC who airs the show each year didn’t find that to be a considerable change, hence the award show not being aired.
Hopefully with time the HFPA will make more strides to make the organization more diverse and reflect on the evolving world.
