00:00 After years of corruption and scandal, the Golden Globes are back.
00:03 Thanks to a billionaire's backing, the ceremony graced our TV screens once again.
00:06 But what does this new, sanitized event tell us about the future of Hollywood's award shows?
00:11 Sports mogul Todd Bolley, via his private equity firm Eldridge Industries,
00:15 has bought up the beleaguered Golden Globes in a bid to restore its integrity as an arbiter of cinematic excellence.
00:21 That's his story and he's sticking to it.
00:23 And boy, did the Globes need a white knight.
00:26 Claims of petty corruption among the judging body, the now sort of disbanded,
00:30 but kind of still part of it, Hollywood Foreign Press Association,
00:34 as well as sexual harassment and a lack of diversity among the HFPA membership,
00:38 had brought the ceremony to such a point of existential crisis that in 2022,
00:43 no television network wanted to screen it and it took place entirely on Twitter.
00:47 Bolley bought the IP with a vow to implement a robust approach to governance,
00:51 expand the diverse and international voting body,
00:53 and implement a professional, safe, and accountable environment.
00:57 He's also, crucially, transformed the business model from a non-profit membership organization
01:02 to a lots-of-profit commercial enterprise.
01:05 The problem for me is that the whole corruption debacle and Bolley's attempts to sanitize the ceremony
01:10 exposes the factuousness not just of the Globes, but of awards season in general.
01:15 Repeated scandals have by now laid waste to any wide-eyed belief in the integrity of the judging processes.
01:21 Not just the Globes, although for years they have been dogged by accusations of indirect bribery,
01:26 with critics claiming that members of the HFPA were swayed in their decision-making
01:30 thanks to lavish gifts and trips paid for by film production companies.
01:33 But I'm also thinking of claims made in the wake of the #MeToo movement
01:37 that Harvey Weinstein bullied and bribed subpar Miramax films to Oscars glory.
01:41 And while the Bolley takeover may indeed purge bad-faith actors from the Globes judging panel,
01:47 although original members of the HFPA have been invited to stay on as part of the expanded coterie of judges,
01:53 it's hard to see it as anything more than an opportunistic, money-making exercise on behalf of a private equity firm.
01:59 But, you know, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
02:03 Predictably, for an award attempting to prove its worth as a barometer for good cinema and television
02:08 rather than as a back-scratching exercise for Hollywood insiders,
02:11 this year's big winners were an inoffensive mix of Oppenheimer and Succession,
02:15 both of which are worthy of praise, if a little too on the nose.
02:18 To be fair to the HFPA, at least when it was corrupt, the Globes could be relied upon to raise some eyebrows.
02:23 The one question mark for me was over Ricky Gervais' win in the new category of stand-up comedy on television.
02:29 It's not even the fact that Armageddon, the most recent Netflix special which bagged him the award,
02:33 has been roudly decried as offensive to everyone from disabled children to homeless people.
02:38 It's just that it isn't funny.
02:40 The absence of any actual laugh-out-loud moments seems a good reason for it to be taken out back and shot.
02:45 But if rumours are to be believed, this is a nod to Bollie's master plan to woo Netflix
02:49 so that they'll partner with the Globes in 2025.
02:51 Perhaps we should just call a spade a spade.
02:54 Awards ceremonies are really little more than fashion spectacles,
02:57 a chance for us to ogle the world's elite as they drink champagne and snog at their tables.
03:01 Are the films in show actually any good?
03:03 Who cares?
03:04 It's all money in the bank for some millionaire, somewhere.
03:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]
