Globes LXXX: Back from the Dead
At first I was afraid. I was petrified. I had spent so many nights knowing they were so wrong, but then I was relieved that they were finally gone.
But now, as Gloria Gaynor might have sung, they’re back, back from outer space. I walked into the living room and had that look upon my face. I should have changed the channel, should have switched off the TV—if I knew for just one second they’d be back to bother me.
Yes, with no fair warning, I got ambushed by the Golden Globes. What the hell? Didn’t the world collectively drive a metaphorical stake through the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s heart and strangle it in its coffin more than a year ago? How did it, like an interminable series of Halloween sequels, spring back to life again?
They were dead and gone. Done and dusted. They were no longer around to trouble us last January (well, except for a press release with a list of their annual winners) as a result of the raging mob of Jacobins roaming the entertainment landscape and exterminating everything and everyone that did not measure up their utopian ideals. Didn’t we feel safe in the knowledge that we had seen the last of the HFPA?
For scores of decades the HFPA had the look of shady, dodgy con artists who were feted and publicized because they paid off all the right people. Then last year it had the look of a group whose shadiness and dodginess finally caught up with it. Now this year it has the look of a shady, dodgy group that figured out what additional people needed to be paid off.
If you watched the telecast, it’s no mystery. As with the movie Glass Onion, you can take the trouble to peel back the layers, but the solution is really just sitting there in plain sight. As the ceremony’s host Jerrod Carmichael candidly explained, they made whatever changes they needed to in order to put the Jacobins at bay and, more importantly, threw some money around. Carmichael’s monologue, in which he went through the thought process of him, a gay black man, accepting a pile of cash to host an event of an organization deemed racist, was a wonder of subtlety, insight and realpolitik. His tone, humor and delivery could not have been more different from that of erstwhile perennial host Ricky Gervais.
Except that Carmichael did exactly what Gervais did five times before. Like an exclusive, high-priced dominatrix, he verbally whipped the HFPA until, in its delicious erotic agony, it begged him for more. Those Hollywood foreign press types can’t seem to get enough of it, and the audience (yes, all of Hollywood was back as if nothing had ever happened) could not get enough of it either. And they were all crammed together at small, crowded tables, nearly sitting in each other’s laps—as if Covid had never happened either.
You know when we copped on that everyone was back and the Globes were once again, well, golden? I think it was when a humbled, world-weary Sean Penn(!) strolled onto the stage and solemnly introduced a special message from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy(!).
As became clear during the evening, food is apparently served sparingly (if at all) while the liquor flows freely like a California atmospheric river of endless rain. This results in the most entertaining night of television for at-home mainstream cinema buffs. Perhaps the weirdest moment was when presenter Regina Hall couldn’t contain her amusement when she had to announce Kevin Costner was a no-show for his award because his Montecito home was under threat from floods and mudslides.
But there were plenty of other moments—some hilarious, others actually poignant. Steven Spielberg was unusually reflective and candid about his reasons for making The Fabelmans—and seemed genuinely touched when presenter Quentin Tarantino quietly reminded him of his youthful job as John Cassavetes’ assistant. Jennifer Coolidge brought the house down twice—as presenter and winner—when she revealed that either a) she can’t make herself stop playing her White Lotus character or b) she actually is her White Lotus character.
Speaking of weird dominatrix relationships, in accepting his award for The Banshees of Inisherin Colin Farrell gave a clearly heartfelt speech, thanking Martin McDonagh for that film and for In Bruges and praising his fellow cast members, while again chastising Barry Keoghan for eating all his corn flakes. (C’mon, Colin, it’s time to let that go.) But he went overboard on lauding Brendan Gleeson, saying he could only aspire to be the older man’s acting equal, though Farrell is arguably twice the actor Gleeson is. It was almost as if he were afraid Gleeson would beat him up because Farrell got a statue and he didn’t. Actually, no, it was if Farrell was still in character and he and Gleeson were still in the twisted character dynamic they had in the film.
Anyway, thanks to the HFPA for giving so many awards to Banshees. Now I have to listen to a week’s worth of Irish state broadcaster RTÉ’s people gushing over how great Ireland did at this awards ceremony (you know, the one that really doesn’t mean anything). Hey, everybody, you know what? The Banshees of Inisherin was pretty good all right, but there was actually an even better Irish film out this year, and it was called The Quiet Girl. Maybe the Academy Awards, where the voters are actually real people and who actually work in the industry, will get that one right.
The biggest laugh-out-loud moment of the night? That had to be when Tracy Morgan and Jamie Lee Curtis presented Eddie Murphy with the turning-over-in-his-grave Cecil B. DeMille award. Funnyman Morgan poured his heart out as he unabashedly sang Murphy’s praises and gushed about how much he meant to younger comedians like him. During all this, Murphy sat in his seat strangely passive and very nearly appeared bored. His acceptance speech was relatively brief and unmemorable—nothing like the comic genius of yore who amused us endlessly. Was something wrong with him? Was he ill? Was he embarrassed by so many clips from Norbit in his tribute reel? Finally, he got to the end and summed up with three important life lessons. Then he delivered as it turned out it was all a set-up for the mother of all Will-Smith-at-an-awards-show jokes. No, I’m not going to repeat it, but if you didn’t see it, be sure to go do a web-search for it. It was definitely worth the wait.
-S.L., 12 January 2023
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