The Golden Globes announced their nominations early in February, and the conversation around them was about as pleasant as the discussion around any major event of the last few years.
Like any list of awards nominations, the list was confusing for what was on it and wasn’t. The lack of representation for great shows like actress Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You” was hard to understand. This is especially worrisome when other shows like “Ratchet” or “Emily in Paris” — hardly worth awards consideration — are some of the nominees.
This kind of problem is not new. In fact, it is an issue that seems to be getting worse and worse. Our media is more and more fractured and saturated.
The volume of shows and movies coming out every year would cause even the most ardent cinephile to have difficulty keeping up. This means that most people have not even seen or even heard of many of these shows, movies or actors.
All that makes it hard to care about these award shows, even if some of their nominations are head-scratching decisions. That doesn’t mean it’s worthless, it just means that perhaps we should be thinking more about the point of these award shows.
After all, how many fans of the “Comey Rule” are there, or die-hard fans of “Your Honor”? I can’t imagine people are watching these shows for their hosting or the other cringy bits.
This acute problem of aimlessness seems to hit these kinds of award shows and affects the Golden Globes hardest. After all, the Oscars are for movies and Emmy’s handles shows. That all begs the question, what role does the Golden Globes, spread thin covering many different avenues, even serve?
These nominations are a great resource to turn to if you want to see what media you have missed out on over the last year. However, be sure you venture outside of the list, because lord knows that once again, the Globes has failed to nominate some of the best stuff that came out this year.
The previously mentioned “I May Destroy You” is a show worth checking out if you have not seen it yet. Other HBO shows that also helped make being stuck inside more bearable were “Industry” and “Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.” Amazon Prime Video had “Upload,” a great show with a kind of “The Good Place” feel.
Movies are harder to nail down this year due to how crazy the whole movie market has been during the pandemic. However, there were movies worth mentioning, like screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” or the surprisingly compelling yet formulaic Ben Affleck movie “The Way Back.” Another worth mentioning, which really should also be among the nominees in at least some capacity, is director Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.”
There is still plenty of good stuff on the Globes nomination list. After all, it is hard to make a list of movies and shows and not accidentally pick at least a few good ones. Director David Fincher’s “Mank” was an interesting movie, and “Palm Springs” warmed my “Groundhog Day”-loving heart. For those interested in political satire, you cannot ignore “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”.
The Globes have made some great picks for their nominations, but they have also made some choices that are a bit hard to square. However, that is the nature of these awards shows, and every year it seems we question what the point of it all. One day that question may have an answer, but at least for now we have a lot of good stuff to watch while we remain mostly stuck at home.
