The Daily - The Rise and Fall of the Golden Globes

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

This year’s Golden Globes ceremony was muted. Instead of a celebrity-filled evening, broadcast on NBC, the results were live tweeted from a room in the Beverly Hilton. It was the culmination of years of controversy for the awards and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization behind them. Who are the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and how did one of the biggest awards shows get to this point?Guest: Kyle Buchanan, a pop culture reporter and the awards season columnist for The New York Times.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: With the Hollywood Foreign Press Association mired in controversy, the 2022 awards ceremony was devoid of stars or cameras. Winners were announced via Twitter, and social media had a field day.Last year, the association, seen as colorful, generally harmless and not necessarily journalistically productive, faced a lawsuit and questions about its voting group.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedailyTranscripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today. For the past eight decades, the Golden Globes and the organization that awards them has played an outsized role in Hollywood and what kinds of stories it tells. Until now. I spoke with my colleague, Kyle Buchanan, about the unlikely rise and abrupt fall of the Golden Globes.

It's Monday, January 10th. Carl, describe last night's Golden Globes ceremony. Well, Michael, it was the saddest award show you ever did see, or didn't see in this case, because it wasn't broadcast on NBC like it usually is. This year, instead of having all the big celebrities and getting the big ratings and throwing this fun show that everybody's talking about, it was live tweeted. It was live tweeted from a room in the Beverly Hilton. The only people who were there were the people who voted, the small group of people who vote on the Golden Globes, no stars, no broadcasts, no nothing.

And this is kind of a crazy humbling for what used to be one of the biggest award shows on television, something that millions of people would watch, the third biggest award show behind the Grammys and the Oscars, you know, that got the biggest names in Hollywood year after year to attend. Right. And here, I'm going to confess, I am a loyal Golden Globes watcher. I don't miss it. I've watched it since I was, I think, 13 or 14. And so when NBC took it off the air, effectively canceling the show for the audience, it was a surprise. So tell us the story of what led to this moment.

Yeah, I think the important thing to note here, Michael, is that the show is being canceled mostly because of the group behind the show, the very small, mysterious group called the Hollywood Foreign Press. And when you want to tell the story of the Hollywood Foreign Press, you basically have to go back

all the way to the golden age of Hollywood, the 1940s. Play it one, Sam, for old time's sake. This is when Hollywood was becoming Hollywood. Alicia, what's wrong with you? I'm so glad you came. You've got Cary Grant, you've got Humphrey Bogart. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. This is when huge stars were being made. This is when history was being written. Mary, I know what I'm going to do tomorrow and the next day and next year and the year after that. I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm going to see the world. See the world. And these foreign journalists who came to Hollywood trying to write about it were not finding a lot of success.

I mean, if you're a nobody from some Polish newspaper, how are you going to get the biggest names in Hollywood to even pay attention to you, let alone sit for an interview? So this very small group of journalists, under 100 people, all banded together, thinking strength in numbers, and created the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. And very quickly, they found out that the even better way to get Hollywood's eye is to give out awards, to throw an award show. Because that's the best way for not just to get FaceTime with these celebrities, not just to guarantee that they're going to show up and collect a shiny piece of golden hardware, but to grow your own influence.

Right, because who doesn't want an award? Yeah, I mean, if you want to spring an award on me right now, Michael, I will accept it. Just don't have the orchestra play me off. Best first-time guest so far. Oh, I'd like to thank my agents, my manager, God, etc., etc. So, these foreign journalists have banded together and started giving out awards to gain stature and access. Does it work?

It starts to. You know, at this point, the Academy Awards had been around for about 20 years. They're the big kahuna of movie awards. And the Golden Globes very cleverly positioned themselves in January, a couple months before the Oscars were traditionally held. So the Golden Globes kind of positioned themselves as the official kickoff of awards season. And if you had your eye on winning an Oscar, definitely helped to be seen winning a Golden Globe along the way. Right. So over time, with that prime position in awards season,

the Golden Globes became a really big deal. An evening of glamour and fun as the Hollywood foreign press plays host to the Hollywood stars. Bigger and bigger stars started to show up. And as those big stars started to come, you have another really major thing that happens, which is that CBS picks up the award for broadcast on television. Well, we're here to host the 39th annual Golden Globe Awards.

And of all the award shows, the Golden Globes is very special. It honors the best in both film and television. And with the help of the Hollywood foreign press, the world will be watching. And CBS picking up the show really helped get this organization a lot more influenced, not just inside Hollywood, but outside. People started paying attention. So suddenly the Golden Globes have reached the big leagues.

Yeah, but already we're getting signs of the troubles to come. What do you mean? So the scandal that people point to around that time is around 1982. So the scandal that people point to around that time is around 1982. You had this actress, Pia Zadora, who was named the new star of the year by the Golden Globes for her film Butterfly, which wasn't even out yet. And when it did come out, the New York Times film critic Vincent Camby called Pia Zadora spectacularly inept. She was not a star. It was a complete head scratcher how she'd get this sort of award until it came out that her billionaire husband had flown the HFPA to Las Vegas to his casino

and wined and dined them. And so, you know, created this very true appearance that the awards could be bought. It was a major stain on the Golden Globes name, and CBS actually dropped the broadcast as a result. But that time in the doghouse didn't last very long. Shortly after that, it was back on TV, and eventually NBC picked it up. Why would NBC do that if the Golden Globes have become a source of embarrassment? Why would anyone want to be associated with this show? I think they decided nobody would really care. That, you know, this would all blow over quickly and they could get back to business as usual. And it was a really lucrative business. There's this whole ecosystem that had sprung up around the awards season.

There's this whole ecosystem that had sprung up around the awards season. Agents, actors, studios, entertainment media, everybody saw dollar signs. Studios wanted to tout those awards in their ads. Designers wanted to get their dresses worn on the red carpet. Publicists wanted to get their clients seen on TV. And so the networks felt like as long as this machinery was still churning and celebrities were still showing up, the audiences would still tune in. And it sounds like the networks were right. Yeah, basically. I mean, when it comes down to it, audiences just want to see a fun show. They want to turn on the TV and enjoy themselves for a little while. And that's something that the Golden Globes always delivered

in spades. And if you step back for a second, Michael, and you just sort of think about the Golden Globes versus the Oscars, the Oscars are a very serious affair. It's about crafts. It's about best sound, best costume design, best production design. The Golden Globes don't care about any of that. They care about best celebrities. Anything that's going to get all those famous names there, that's what they care about and you can kind of feel that in the difference between who votes for each award show you know the oscars are voted on by thousands of people in the industry you know very serious people you've got steven spielberg casting a vote you've got martin scorsese casting a vote meryl streep denzel washington you think of prestige you you think of the Oscars.

The Hollywood Foreign Press is not like that. First of all, it's way smaller. It's less than 100 people. And, you know, even though some of these people are journalists, a lot of them, their journalistic bona fides are very questionable. And I don't want to tar every member with this brush, but I've spent time with Hollywood foreign press members. I see them sometimes when I go to a press conference, and they're usually the one enthusiastically raising their hand and asking Blake Lively something like, Blake Lively, when will you come do a movie in Brazil? And then they run up and ask her for a selfie. These are not very serious questions. And because of that, these members aren't taken all that seriously. And maybe because it's a wackier group of people, it's a looser, more freewheeling show. And that's really fun. It also

doesn't hurt that these people are sitting at banquet tables at the ceremony where the alcohol is free-flowing. And you can sense that. You can sense that in the acceptance speeches, which are way more loose, maybe sometimes even in the presenters who are showing up three sheets to the wind. And the winner is... Christine Lottie. More chaotic.

I mean, the moments that you think of when you think of the Golden Globes are things that just would not happen on any other awards show. Christine is indisposed at the moment, I believe. You had Christine Lottie in the bathroom when her victory was announced, and Robin Williams had to jump on stage

and improvise and accept it. I'm going to get a full and major, so I hear Christine Lottie Mariano. You had... Ving Rhames winning a Golden Globe and being so overcome that he gave his trophy to his fellow nominee, Jack Lemmon. I feel that being an artist is about giving,

and I'd like to give this to you, Mr. Jack Lemmon. You had Jodie Foster using the Golden Globes to kind of come out of the closet for the first time. There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging

one of the deepest loves of my life, my ex-partner in love, but righteous soul sister in life, Sydney Bernard. Thank you, Sid. Thank you very much.

You had Elizabeth Taylor on stage to announce best drama and appearing very drunk while doing it. What? I don't open this? I just read it from up there. I know it is. There was just always something that held your attention. And all of that's really fun to watch,

but it's also really good for the Hollywood ecosystem. You know, it's giving all of these stars an opportunity to make an impact, have a moment everybody's going to remember and talk about. But even while Hollywood is agreeing to play ball with the Golden Globes and the Hollywood foreign press, the scandals just kept piling up. Such as? Well, one of the more famous ones happened in 1999. It involved Sharon Stone, who had, you know, a bit of Oscar buzz coming her way for her role in this Albert Brooks comedy, The Muse.

That woman, she's a muse. You're my new client? So I've got my own muse. The Muse. And the film company behind the movie sent the Hollywood foreign press these $400 fancy coach watches. And wouldn't you know, Sharon Stone just happened to be nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy just a few days later. So this is a direct callback to that 1980s scandal where Pia Zadora's husband flew around all the Hollywood foreign press folks,

and then, lo and behold, she got a nomination. It's a lesson that they keep having to relearn and not really learning. I mean, something pretty similar happened just a few years ago. The Hollywood foreign press had to return Tom Ford fragrance gifts that were sent out right when the Globes were considering his film Nocturnal Animals. And sure enough, that supporting actor Golden Globe went to one of the stars of that movie, Aaron Taylor Johnson. It was the only major prize he won all season. So here I have to confess, as a loyal longtime watcher of the show, Kyle,

I didn't know any of this in real time. It was all lost on me. And further, I didn't really ever understand that actors at the show didn't really have all that much respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press or for the Golden Globes. And so I'm seeing this all with new eyes, and I guess a little bit embarrassed at how blind I was to all of this. Welcome to the 68th annual Golden Globe Awards. The funny thing is, the signs were kind of always there if you were looking for them. And now, your host for the evening, ladies and gentlemen, Ricky Gervais.

The show was often hosted by Ricky Gervais, this comedian. Hello. Who would take pot shots at Hollywood and major celebrities. On a serious note, just looking at all the faces here reminds me of some of the great work that's been done this year by cosmetic surgeons.

But at the same time, he was kind of aiming a lot of his jokes at the Hollywood foreign press. One thing that can't be bought is a Golden Globe. Officially. He was saying the quiet part out loud. He was saying the Golden Globe is an award that can be bought. And I'd like to quash this ridiculous rumor going around that the only reason the Taurus was nominated was so the Hollywood Foreign Press could hang out with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. That is rubbish.

That is not the only reason. They also accepted bribes. Right. In retrospect, that's not very subtle. But I didn't get it. I had always chalked it up to Ricky Gervais being Ricky Gervais. Very cheeky. Well, that's the thing about jokes, you know. They often make the truth go down easier. about jokes, you know, they often make the truth go down easier. If you do win tonight, remember that no one cares about that award as much as you do. Okay. It's a bit of metal that some nice old confused journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and have a selfie with you. And because of that, because everyone was kind of thumbing their nose at this open secret, it didn't really ever seem like anything would change until very quickly it did. We'll be right back.

Kyle, given all the problems you're describing with the Golden Globes and the reality that lots We'll be right back. things finally start to turn? How do we get to this moment where we are right now, when the Golden Globes are taken off the air? You know, it all started happening in 2020, and it happened fast. The Globes were coming off of one of their most successful, highly rated shows ever, and then in the span of a few months, everything went to hell. This journalist from Norway was rejected as a member, and now she is fighting back. A Norwegian journalist sued the Hollywood Foreign Press in August of that year for barring her entry. It's all about exchanging favors for each other. And accused the group of institutionalizing a culture of corruption. Sure, yeah, everyone kind of knew that, but when there's a lawsuit, people pay a little bit more attention.

After that, that's when... There are some very perplexing snubs, but I have to say the key one for me was in the best drama film and comedy film categories, it notably left out movies featuring black ensemble casts. The Globes failed to nominate any of the really major Black-led dramas like Judas and the Black Messiah, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, One Night in Miami, Spike Lee's Defy Bloods for Best Drama.

That's not the first time the Hollywood foreign press has shown that they have major blind spots about race. I even remember once at the Toronto Film Festival, I ran into the director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, and he told me that during that week, two Hollywood foreign press members had mistaken him for the black director, Steve McQueen, who made 12 Years a Slave. And, you know, that's the sort of thing that unfortunately you got with the Hollywood foreign press all the time. And that sort of behavior started to come in for renewed scrutiny, in particular, because the U.S. was going through this year of racial reckoning. Right. So it's in that context that the LA Times begins this major investigation of the Hollywood foreign

press. And what they publish in early 2021, right before the Golden Globe ceremony is about to happen, changes everything. What do they find? Well, some of it was kind of vaguely known, but to see it in print laid bare, like the double dealing, the unorthodox way that some of these members were compensated through their committee work,

people kind of knew those things, but to see it all laid out was very distasteful. The biggest detail that really got everybody talking was that this group of people who vote on the most important movies of the year did not have a single Black member. Not a single Black member picking who wins a Golden Globe. Yeah, nobody. And suddenly a lot of those really weird Golden Globe moments and snubs started to make a lot more sense. For example, a widely acclaimed limited series like HBO's I May Destroy You, which I loved, it's created and led by the black actress Michaela Cole, got no recognition from the Globes, totally snubbed, which baffled everybody. everybody. And for a lot of people, that snub was made even harder to swallow because that same year,

you've got a show like Emily in Paris, which is this very fluffy escapist series with a largely white cast that the Globes are showering attention on and are nominating. So when this revelation comes out that there's no black members in the Hollywood foreign press, no black people voting on these awards at all, it provided this very concrete detail that people could point to and rally around. And that's when all hell broke loose. Welcome to the 2021 Golden Globe Awards. And now your hosts for the evening, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

All these details came to light right as the actual Golden Globe show was about to happen, so... Look, we all know that award shows are stupid. Yeah. They're all a scam invented by Big Red Carpet. The hosts, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey... We know that. The point is, even with stupid things, inclusivity is important,

and there are no black members of the Hollywood foreign press kind of had to acknowledge the investigation from the HFPA president Ali Saar and vice president Helen Huna they even brought out the president of the Hollywood foreign press to come on and you know kind of address what was on everybody's minds tonight while we celebrate the work of artists from around the globe we recognize we have our own work to do. That means creating an environment where diverse membership is the norm, not the exception. Thank you. But then after that, all these really unprecedented things started to happen. Just about every Hollywood PR firm came together and said, until the HFPA fixes their diversity problems,

we're going to cut off all access to talent. We're not going to send our stars to that show anymore. And that's huge. You never see a united front like that in Hollywood or a reversal that happens so breathtakingly fast. Then after the stars are saying, no, we're not going to go to this show, they go on further. You have people like Scarlett Johansson saying, well, honestly,

I always kind of resented the Hollywood foreign press. They would say such sexist things to me at press conferences and when they interviewed me and things progressed, escalated to such a point that you had Tom Cruise, who's as apolitical as they come,

announcing that he would return his three Golden Globes. And major studios, Netflix, Warner Brothers, Amazon, all saying that they're going to boycott this show. So it looks like years of pent-up frustration and resentment and maybe even rage at the Hollywood foreign press from all the actors and actresses in Hollywood is finding an outlet.

And then the biggest thing happens, which is NBC announces it will not broadcast the show. This is cutting off oxygen to the Golden Globes. You know, it's one thing for the stars to be boycotting it, but to not even have televised influence anymore, it's just reducing them to what they ultimately are, which is this group of under 100 journalists that no one actually knows. Without the show, without those celebrities, they don't have anything.

Hmm. So what has the Hollywood Foreign Press Association said and done about all of this? Well, to be honest with you, they've really dragged their heels on doing anything. You know, a lot of the initial reforms they were proposing were deemed insufficient. Some voters even quit in frustration. They had to expel an ex-president of the HFPA for forwarding a racist email that, of course, got leaked to the press. And then even the crisis PR people that they hired to manage the situation quit. So since then, they've tried to put some Band-Aids on the wound. And they've admitted a class of 21 new members with 29% of those new

members identifying as Black. And that's definitely significant compared to how few they already had. But just for contrast, let me tell you how the Academy has responded to that question of representation when it comes to the Oscars. You might recall a couple years back, there was the Oscars. So white controversy of nominating only white actors two years in a row. to that, the Academy that votes on the Oscars admitted thousands of new members, you know, really evening out a lot of problems with representation that the Oscars had had for a long time. The Golden Globes have not really done that. And the thing about admitting these, you know, scant few new members is that a lot of the members that people always had problems with are still there. They're still voting. They're still wielding a whole lot of the members that people always had problems with are still there. They're still voting.

They're still wielding a whole lot of influence within a very small group. Well, let's say that the Golden Globes, in a way, does get killed off, doesn't really come back. And even if it does, it's just this kind of sad, low-wattage event that's not carried on TV. I wonder if that's a certain kind of justice, right? I'm thinking back to the 1940s and this group of foreign journalists

that you said wanted as much stature and power and access as they could possibly get, and they got it, but it doesn't seem like they ever really earned it or adapted their membership or their rules and process to deserve the stature that they got. Is it possible that this is exactly the scale of an award show and the influence level that this group should have always had? I think it's very possible.

You know, I think people have been asking themselves very difficult questions about who wields power and how do they wield it in this culture. And the Golden Globes and the Hollywood Foreign Press, even though this is not a very large group, wield incredibly outsized influence because on their way to Oscar, they said, we're narrowing down this field. Sorry if you get excluded. And systematically, things were getting excluded and things were getting included that really continued to reinforce outdated power dynamics in our society. Right. Or at least we should say they used to wield that power. Used to wield, and we'll see if they get any of it back. Certainly, they're going to stop at nothing to try to claw back some of it. Once you've tasted that apple, you want a few more bites. And we've seen the Golden Globes bounce back from scandals in the

past. They'll try again. The question now becomes, will Hollywood let them? And will people still watch and still imbue them with the importance, with the outsized influence that they became so comfortable wielding? Well, Kyle, thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. This is a horrific, horrific, painful moment for the city of New York. On Sunday, at least 19 people, including nine children, were killed in a fire that consumed an apartment building in the Bronx section of New York. City officials called it one of the worst fires in modern times. Mayor Eric Adams said the fire was likely caused by a malfunctioning space heater. And, and from that day, you owed me everything you could ever do for me, like I will owe my son if I

ever have another. But you don't own me. Sidney Poitier, the Oscar-winning actor whose roles in films like In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner established him as Hollywood's first black leading man, and who was an outspoken advocate for racial justice, has died at the age of 94. It's been said that Sidney Poitier does not make movies. He makes milestones. Milestones of artistic excellence. Milestones of America's progress. In 2009, President Obama awarded Poitier a Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House. Poitier once called his driving purpose to make himself a better person. He did. And he made us all a little bit better along the way. Today's episode was produced by Sidney Harper, Michael Simon Johnson, Stella Tan, and Caitlin Roberts, with help from Luke Vanderplug. It was edited by Liz O'Balin and Larissa Anderson, contains original music by Marian Lozano

and was also engineered by Marian Lozano. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Matt Stevens. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.