Legally Obligated Golden Globes Predictions

The Golden Globes cannot always be trusted, to paraphrase Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) of “Jackie Brown”, but you can always trust the Golden Globes to be the Golden Globes. Indeed, last weekend, an L.A. Times investigation exposed the Globes’ governing body, the oft-derided Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), as nothing less than a corrupt cabal. The HFPA operates, it turns out, no differently than your garden variety crooked college football bowl game, ostensibly functioning as a non-profit to redirect compensation to themselves and taking money from a TV network (NBC) that has essentially transformed its ceremony into less of an autonomous awards banquet than a made-for-television event. And though I would like nothing more than to submit the GIF of Claude Rains in “Casablanca” declaring that he is “shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on here”, The Globes, however frivolous you and I know them to be, have positioned themselves, not least through NBC’s platform, as an industry weather vane. That’s why the L.A. Times also revealing the HFPA’s membership includes zero black members was rightfully excoriated. It’s why so many people were furious when the universally trashed Netflix series “Emily in Paris” landed so many nominations and the critically acclaimed British series “I May Destroy You“ earned none. Award shows matter as much as we say they matter and so I have always wished we would treat The Golden Globes like what they are: a more glamorous version of the MTV Movie Awards or the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (RIP). And yet, through their avarice and NBC’s insistence, the Golden Globes have attained significance. 

Of course, now we know, by virtue of the L.A. Times, those “Emily in Paris” nominations were, more or less, bought and paid for, the show’s creators flying 30 HFPA members to Paris and putting them at a five-star hotel, akin to “Doctor Dolittle’s” “prime-rib-and-free-booze campaign of dinner screenings”, to quote Mark Harris’s “Pictures at a Revolution” that garnered that stink bomb nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, proving the stuffy Oscars and boozy Globes are not all that different. And just as the Oscars have sought reform, not least through diversifying their ranks, the Golden Globes only hope may be reform too. But who on Earth aside from the most craven would want to join the HFPA such as it is? (Will someone from the HFPA get up there on Sunday night and blame Awards Show Cancel Culture, the trust fund cousin of Constitutional Cancel Culture?) No, you’d have to expunge them all, and if you expunged them all, would the HFPA be the HFPA? And would The Globes be The Globes? If your awards are predominantly a farce, how can they be farcical when buffoons aren’t running the show? Granted, if they did reform, for real, the non-profit could potentially be used for altruism. And my despite my recurring proclamation about The Globes merely being Hollywood’s Office Party, so stop taking them seriously, if they took themselves seriously, set an example and did some good for the industry, rather than the bad, well, I don’t want be the one jackass over here telling people to bring back the corruption and greed. 

In that light, the only Golden Globes prediction I will make is this: “Emily in Paris” winning for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. Because not only would that be the funniest thing ever, it would be the ultimate nail in the HFPA coffin.