Sunday evening was the 81st annual Golden Globes award ceremony. The Golden Globes honors incredible television and movie talent and achievements with categories such as Best TV Series, Best TV Actor, Best TV Actress, Best Director and Best Motion Picture in their respective genres.
This year’s Golden Globes was hosted by Stand-up comedian Jo Koy and featured several actors and actresses handing out awards.
2023 was an amazing year for film and TV, which definitely led to some amazing competitions and winnings. From a bit of perspective, the Barbie movie had a total of nine nominations, along with its marketing counterpart Oppenheimer, which had eight nominations. For television, Succession had a total of nine nominations.
This Golden Globes also made history with actress Ali Wong and actor Steven Yeun both winning awards for their show Beef. Wong won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Limited Series and is the first woman of Asian descent to win this award. Yeun won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Limited Series and is the second male of Asian descent to win this award, next to Darren Criss in 2019. The show also won Best Television Limited Series.
Oppenheimer swept the awards with a total of five wins. Christopher Nolan won Best Director. It won Best Motion Picture Drama as a film, and Ludwig Göransson won Best Original Score in a Motion Picture for his work. Lead Cillian Murphey won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, and lastly, Robert Downey Jr. also won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture.
The recent Studio Ghibli movie The Boy and Heron won for Best Motion Picture Animated over some impressive movies such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Another recent film, Poor Things, starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, won Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy also against some impressive movies like Barbie and The Holdovers.
The Golden Globes also highlights international films in its category Best Motion Picture Non-English Language, where the film Anatomy of a Fall won.
The award for Best Original Song Motion Picture was bound to go to Barbie, and one of its three songs was nominated. Arguably, the biggest song of the movie “What Was I Made For” by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell took home the award that night.
Lily Gladstone won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Killers of the Flower Moon, and she also made history as the first Indigenous person to win this award. She commemorated this by starting her speech off in the Blackfoot language.
Poor Things received another award with Emma Stone winning Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Da’Vine Joy Rudolph won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture for her role in The Holdovers, which earned itself another win with Paul Giamatti winning Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role on Television went to Elizabeth Debicki and her performance as Princess Diana in the recent seasons of The Crown on Netflix.
The show The Bear also won its fair share of awards. Ayo Edebiri won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy, Jeremy Allen White won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy, and the show itself took the cake in Best Television Series Musical or Comedy.
Succession swept the Drama Television categories, resulting in four wins. Sarah Snook won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series Drama. Matthew Macfadyen won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role on Television. Kieran Culkin won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series Drama. Lastly, the show won Best Television Series Drama.
The Golden Globes also has a category for stand-up comedy, more specifically, Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television, and that award went to Ricky Gervais and his special Armageddon.
Now, Best Motion Picture Non-English Language wasn’t the only award Anatomy of a Fall won Sunday night. Justine Triet and Arthur Harari won for Best Screenplay Motion Picture.
On Sunday, arguably more notable than the awards and winnings was Jo Koy’s problematic comedy. He spent a good chunk of his time on stage diminishing women. He made a joke at the expense of Taylor Swift, saying that the only difference between an NFL game and the Golden Globes was the NFL cuts to Swift more, which is very much something she has no control over.
“He diminished Barbie down to nothing more than a sex symbol but did so while also discrediting the work and talent that went into the movie,” Jasmin Allen said.
Koy’s line about Barbie seemed to offend people, saying, “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page, Pulitzer Prize-winning book about The Manhattan Project, and Barbie is based on a plastic doll with big boobies.”
After Koy’s infamous line, the camera panned to Director Greta Gerwig looking unimpressed and other actors in the film finding the joke far from funny.
“His entire monologue, which included discrediting Barbie, insulting Margot Robbie, and making fun of Taylor Swift, could not have possibly been worse,” Allen said.
He tried to play off his jokes by saying that he only had ten days to prepare for hosting, which is far from an excuse. There were certainly better-suited options, in most people’s opinions.
This year’s Golden Globes was one for the books in a number of ways, and it was truly a unique start to the upcoming award season.
