Leave it to Hollywood to take an important but delicate subject such as sexual harassment and totally ham it up. The 75th edition of the Gol...
Leave it to Hollywood to take an important but delicate subject such as sexual harassment and totally ham it up.
The 75th edition of the Golden Globes has come and gone, and what a colossal disaster it was. Much like the 2016 Academy Awards (Oscars), film and television were not the centrepiece of the Golden Globes.
That honour belonged to a slew of allegations of rape, harassment and discrimination that dominated headlines last year, or as Golden Globes’ host Seth Meyers called it “the huge elephant in the room”.
Let me just start with a couple of highlights, which in my opinion were too few and far in-between.
Nicole Kidman walked away with a Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture made for Television for her masterful performance in the seven-episode series “Big Little Lies”.
Together with “Get Out”, the series were two of the biggest hits in film and television last year. Sadly there was no recognition for the critically and commercially acclaimed “Get Out”, as the film lost out in the two categories it was nominated for, namely Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actor in Musical or Comedy.
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| Golden Globes - A Colossal Disappointment |
The 59-year-old Englishman walked away with Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture. Hugh Jackman is my pick for best meme moment of the entire show as his facial expression, when James Franco (Disaster Movie) walked away with the gong for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, was a thing of beauty. It was priceless.
The undisputed queen of daytime television Oprah Winfrey was the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award, which is the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. But more on her later.
Seth Meyers did a stellar job hosting the event and I will not apportion any blame for any of the weaknesses of the show on him.
Elephant in the room
Given the delicate nature of sexual harassment and discrimination in Hollywood last year, it was obvious that it would play a big part in these awards and other ceremonies to follow.But my problem with the Hollywood Press and the Golden Globes themselves was that the issue dominated the ceremony and completely overshadowed the purpose of the show itself.
Host Seth Meyers set the tone with his opening monologue, which was filled with zinger after zinger aimed at the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, who are the biggest names affected by last year’s revelations.
The worst of the lot was reserved for the former, who Meyers said was set to be the first person in history to be booed when he appears in the Golden Globes’ In Memoriam Segment, after his death.
If he was not sending zingers, he was pampering the female audience, getting them involved in some of his jokes.
Ordinarily, this would have been fine as Meyers has mastered the art of comic delivery.
But then presenter after presenter, winner after winner came on stage to put in their two cents and it became too much.
Natalie Portman
lt was clear the whole show would be about female equality and fairness from the all black dress code, Meyers monologue and “Pretty Little Lies” basically dominating the build-up.But the show totally lost the plot when Natalie Portman came on stage to present the award for Best Director during which she made it a point to highlight that the category was an all-male affair.
Now, when a category involves names like winner Guillermo del Toro, Martin McDonagh, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg – five of the most gifted directorial minds of our generation – I think we can all forgive the Hollywood Press for making it an all-male affair.
This is unless the 36-year-old American-Israeli actress wanted a female director thrown in there for gender balance. That would then defeat the calls for equality that women across the whole world are advocating for.
It is also sad that while sums of women, and men too, took turns to praise the courageous victims that spoke out against harassment last year, none of the victims got invited to the event.
Rowan McGowan and Asia Argento, the two women who first spoke out against Weinstein, confirmed this fact on Twitter a day after the event.
“I can only speak for myself but not only was I not invited to the #GoldenGlobes: nobody asked my opinion about #TIMESUP or to sign the letter,” wrote Argento.
It was Argento, together with several other women, whose speaking out led to the #TIMESUP movement which became a reoccurring theme throughout the night’s event.
Not only that, a few stars who got invited, attended the show and won awards, have since seen their names added to the list of male perpetrators with Aziz Ansari and James Franco being added to the 54 Hollywood men accused of either rape, harassment or discrimination.
Oprah Winfrey
Thanks to Donald Trump, anyone in the United States of America now fancies their chance of being elected as the president of the US. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kanye West, Chris Rock, Will Smith and Tom Hanks are some of the names linked with a possible presidential campaign.The possibility of Oprah Winfrey joining that list is arguably the worst kept secret in all of the US. During her Cecil B. DeMille acceptance speech, the queen of daytime took arguably her first steps at running.
It was masterful, elegant, well poised and almost too cheesy and transparent. She hit all the right notes, showing how in tune she is with current events as she chronicled the struggles of Recy Taylor, a woman who was attacked and raped by a gang of white men but failed to get justice.
She name-dropped Rosa Parks, who tried and failed to get justice for Taylor, Sydney Poitier who was the first black man to receive that award. Her message was one of hope, much like Barrack Obama when he was running for the same post.
If or when she decides to run, it goes without saying she will owe her term to this moment. Standing ovation aside, one need not go further than Reese Witherspoon who presented Winfrey with the award and was left shocked, star-struck and moved by Winfrey’s inspirational words.
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