The telecast of the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards is mostly terrible so far.
The winners? Well-played, Golden Globes voters. Well-played.
In nearly every category (most of which were loaded with worthy contenders), it was difficult to find fault with the choice of the winner, whether it was formidable duo of Ali Wong (the first person of Asian descent to win in her category) and Steven Yeun taking home Globes for “Beef” (my pick for the best new TV show of 2023), Robert Downey Jr.’s victory for his supporting work in “Oppenheimer,” Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s triumph for her supporting performance in “The Holdovers” or Jeremy Allen White taking home his second trophy in two years for “The Bear” and White’s co-lead Ayo Ideberi winning for the first time.
Upsets? The first big surprise was screenwriters Justine Triet and Arthur Harari winning for “Anatomy of a Fall,” over the writers of “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Oppenheimer,” among others. Not that it wasn’t deserving, but I don’t think many of us saw that one coming?
Examples of the Globes getting it “wrong,” aka, “Not the way I would have voted”? In the brand spanking new category of Best Stand-Up Comedian on Television (with Jim Gaffigan tossing out a Hollywood pedophile joke to the uneasy crowd before getting to the announcement), Ricky Gervais won for his intermittently funny but often smug “Armageddon,” in which Gervais seemed incredibly self-pleased with his “edginess” and willingness to “go there,” whether you like it or not. I would have gone with Chris Rock. Or Wanda Sykes. Or Trevor Noah.
As for the show itself, which is airing on CBS for the first time in some 40 years after the Globes nearly scandalized themselves into oblivion: yikes.
The Cringe Factor started with a corny, old-school narrator intoning, “The champagne is flowing, some of your favorite stars are arriving, thriving and bubbling with excitement. … We kick off the biggest live party of the year, where anything can happen! See which A-listers will win, let loose and have a good time, some of them a REALLY good time. Censors will be standing by …”
It only got worse when poor Jo Koy took the stage and almost immediately started bombing with uninspired jokes about the running time of “Oppenheimer,” Meryl Streep winning everything and oh by the way, “ ‘The Color Purple’ is what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic.” Clearly aware he was flopping, Koy exclaimed, “I got the gig 10 days ago, you want a perfect monologue? … I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at,” thus throwing the writers under the bus.
And also making us wonder: Why did the Golden Globes wait 10 days before locking in a host? Were the Golden Globes unaware of when the Golden Globes would be taking place?