HBO’s “Succession,” a corrosive look at a feuding, back-stabbing clan of media barons, was named best TV drama at the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. “Parasite,” a twisty South Korean thriller that examines issues of income inequality, nabbed a best foreign film statue.
The first portion of the broadcast was been filled with upsets, politically charged messages, and an opening monologue that gave censors agita. Ramy Youssef kicked off the ceremony with a surprise win for his work in “Ramy,” the well-reviewed, but under-seen show about first-generation American Muslim in New Jersey.
“I know you guys haven’t seen my show,” he joked. “Everyone is like is this an editor?” Youssef may not be a household name — yet — but he managed to beat out such major stars as Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”) and Bill Hader (“Barry”) to pick up his prize. In another surprise “Missing Link,” a stop-motion animated film that was a box office bomb, earned the award for best animated feature over blockbusters like “Toy Story 4” and “The Lion King.” Director and writer Chris Butler proclaimed himself “flabbergasted” while accepting the award, looking genuinely shocked instead of just engaging in false modesty.
Russell Crowe, another early winner for his work as Roger Ailes in Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice” wasn’t on hand to accept his honor in the best actor in a limited Series or motion picture made for television, because he in Australia where his home is being threatened by the devastating bushfires. In a statement, Crowe said, “make no mistake the tragedy unfolding in Australia is climate change based.”
Popular on Variety
Phoebe Waller-Bridge added a Globe to her trophy case filled with Emmys, picking up a statue in the lead comedy actress category for her performance in Amazon’s “Fleabag.” In a wry speech, she called her critically adored, comic look at a troubled woman in London, “a little scrap of a show.” Brian Cox nabbed best actor in a TV drama for his portrayal of a Machiavellian CEO in “Succession.”
This year’s telecast is expected to be a fierce contest between such critically acclaimed films as Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic, “The Irishman,” Quentin Tarantino’s ode to moviemaking, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and Noah Baumbach’s searing look at divorce, “Marriage Story.” On the television front, the likes of HBO’s “Barry,” Amazon’s “Fleabag,” and Netflix’s “The Crown” are all looking like strong contenders.
The Globes don’t command the respect that the Oscars do, but they’re a decidedly looser affair, one in which the booze flows freely and the crowd is littered with A-listers who seem to be enjoying the champagne. It’s the kind of evening where winners can miss picking up their statue because of an ill-timed bathroom break, as Christine Lahti did at the 1988 ceremony.
Host Ricky Gervais’s opening monologue was a bleep-filled one, during which he poked fun at an often stoney faced crowd of moguls and movie stars, joking about everything from Martin Scorsese’s diminutive height to Joe Pesci’s resemblance to Baby Yoda to Hollywood’s flexible moral compass (sample joke: “If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agent”). Gervais dropped at least one four-letter word and offered up a bit about Judi Dench getting into character for “Cats” by “plunking herself down on the carpet, lifting her leg, and licking her [muted]” that was heavily censored. Portions of the audience appeared to be unamused.
The Globes are voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of roughly 90 journalists, who have been criticized for being too insular and clubby. In contrast, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars, boasts more than 7,000 voting members who work in the film business, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which awards the Emmys, has more than 18,000 members.
The annual ceremony is an essential awards season stop, but it is not always an accurate bellwether for future Oscars success. In 2017, for instance, the Globes went with “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” for best picture, drama, over eventual Academy Award victor “The Shape of Water” and in 2015, “The Revenant” beat out “Spotlight” at the Globes only to lose to the newspaper drama at the Oscars. Last year’s winners did align, with “Green Book” nabbing the best drama prize en route to its Oscar night triumph.
Gervais, who skewered Hollywood pretensions in four previous hosting stints, is back as emcee, a choice that likely means that many a sacred cow will be slaughtered over the show’s three hours. NBC, the network behind the Globes, has already been hyping up the possibility of more outrage humor in promos that tease, “We have no idea what he’s going to do.” In other appearances, Gervais made wisecracks about Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson’s substance abuse issues, taken the shiv to Scientology, and accused the makers of “Sex and the City 2” of excessive airbrushing (a bit that a decidedly unamused Kim Cattrall called ageist). Gervais didn’t spare the HFPA in this broadcast, saying that their plant-based dinner was apt because the group was made up of vegetables. He also joked that they had missed out on his recent controversial jokes about the trans community on social media because “they have no idea what Twitter is.”
It’s not just Gervais who is responsible for controversy at this year’s telecast. The film directing race failed to include any female filmmakers, shutting out the likes of Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”), Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)m and Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”). The show has only nominated five female directors over the course of its nearly eight decade history and only handed the aware to a lone woman filmmaker, Barbra Streisand for “Yentl.”
The broadcast isn’t just a chance to gawk at celebrities. It’s also an opportunity to take stock of a media business in the throes of dramatic changes. This year’s crop of awards contenders don’t just hail from film studios and broadcast and cable networks. They are also the work of tech giants such as Apple (“The Morning Show”) and streaming players such as Netflix (“Marriage Story,” “The Crown,” too many to name, really). The awards are also being handed out as traditional entertainment companies are preparing to embark on a major pivot. The launch of Disney Plus in November and the upcoming debuts of streaming services from Comcast (Peacock) and WarnerMedia (HBOMax) will upend the old ways of distributing and monetizing content and usher in a new era in Hollywood. These changes mean that the Golden Globes in 2021 could unfold against a landscape that is dramatically altered from the one in which they are being handed out this year.
More to come…