“[The Golden Globes is] a completely meaningless awards show by a scandal-riddled organization on a network desperate for ratings. That's why I opt out of analyzing the nominations every year: because the Golden Globes have zero integrity. Studios and networks who lavishly lobby the HFPA almost always score nominations. Stars win in direct correlation to their glamour quotient. Everything about the awards is geared towards hyping the media's interest and the telecast's ratings. Even the small motley group of 85 mostly freelancers who belong to the HFPA won't grant membership to the real foreign journalists at the prestige newspapers across the world. That's because the clique don't want to dilute the financial bonanza they receive from the studios and networks who arrange exclusive interviews about the year's movies and TV shows. NBC and Dick Clark Productions could clean up the Globes but choose not to.”
-- Nikki Finke, Deadline Hollywood
“Never mind that the [Golden Globe] is considered a joke, given the dubious credentials of the 90-odd foreign journalists who pick the winners.”
-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
“Respect? Not much, especially from other journalists, who have publicly called [the Golden Globes voters] moochers, boneheads and bottom-feeders.”
-- Andy Seiler, USA Today
“[The Golden Globe voters are] freeloaders who would sell their votes for a vodka tonic and cross the Alps for a hot dog.”
-- Film historian Aljean Harmetz
“[The Golden Globe voters are] essentially just bottom-feeders around the industry, who've somehow been inflated to this point where their judgment is supposed to be very, very important.”
-- John Powers, L.A. Weekly
“[The Golden Globes represent a case of] let's sell the public a lie."
-- Producer Michael Phillips
“Many members are neither foreign nor press."
-- Roger Friedman, FoxNews
"The Globes have long been the entertainment industry’s dirty little secret. At the heart of the con is the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., the tiny, cliquish group of foreign entertainment journalists – and I use each of those terms liberally – whose votes determine the winners.The members of the association are not, generally speaking, film experts (like the people who judge the National Society of Film Critics awards) nor are they members of the creative community (like those who give out the Oscars). They’re not even representatives of prominent foreign publications, like Le Monde or the Guardian or Haaretz.
Only a handful are full-time journalists; the rest are freelancers for mostly obscure publications, and some are simply hanging on for the parties and movie stars. To maintain their status in the organization, they need only write four articles a year."
-- Sharon Waxman, The Los Angeles Times
Read the rest of Waxman's illuminating 2008 piece on the Globes here.
And read Friedman’s jaw-dropping 2005 examination of the organization here.
Just so I can be part of the problem, I will say I am much looking forward to the antics of Golden Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who were and are far funnier than Ricky Gervais (and coincidentally scored much higher GG ratings that any of Gervais’ three turns as host).
The choices of organizations far more reputable than the so-called Hollywood Foreign Press Association:
CHICAGO FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
BOSTON FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
WASHINGTON DC AREA FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
SAN FRANCISCO FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
INDIANA FILM JOURNALISTS
12 Years A Slave
FLORIDA FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
ST. LOUIS FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
PHOENIX FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
LAS VEGAS FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
ONLINE FILM CRITICS
12 Years A Slave
LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS
Gravity/Her
NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS
Inside Llewyn Davis
NEW YORK FILM CRITICS
American Hustle
If you’ve a mind to, feel free to forward anything else you think might belong on this page. My email is herculesAICN@yahoo.com.
And remember, if “12 Years A Slave” or “Her” wins Oscars this year, it’s because the bullshit Golden Globes gave it an award, and NOT because Oscar voters were clued in days and weeks ago by the real critics.
8 p.m. Sunday. NBC.
