Is there any circumstance on Earth that would make these people, in all their finery, sit this thing out?
The truest thing ever said about the Golden Globes was by Tina Fey when she hosted the awards in 2019 and described the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of junket hacks, as operating out of the “back booth of a French McDonalds”. The HFPA was disbanded in 2023 after allegations of racism, but 95 former members retained voting rights and on Monday, the show went on.
And what a year it was for the second Penske Media Golden Globe awards, featuring not only a commercial tie-in with the betting tool Polymarket (“integrated branding and real-time market insights designed to enhance audience engagement”) but a new category for poor-relation-to-the-screen, best podcast. Against stiff competition from Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy and The Mel Robbins Podcast, the award went to Amy Poehler’s Good Hang, a show in which she yuks it up with her friends to remind us how important Tina Fey was in their partnership.
In the TV awards, meanwhile, there was well-earned recognition for the actor and thought leader Stephen Graham, for Adolescence, his Netflix show exploring the complexities of men’s rights, and I was happy HBO’s The Pitt won best drama, even though you still need a VPN to watch it in Britain. (I was also happy Michelle Williams won for Dying for Sex, a hugely under-rated FX show that wasn’t helped by its terrible title.)
