If Golden Globes Are Awarded But No One Is Around to See Them, Did the Show Really Happen At All?

The Golden Globes’ transformation from the Oscars’ fun, boozy cousin into an event that’s sounding more and more like a wake continued on Tuesday as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that in addition to not being televised, the audience- and host-free ceremony won’t even have any celebrity participants. The HFPA has still booked out the usual venue, the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. But, after failing to get even a single famous face on the hook for this thing, the red carpet is canceled, and the press isn’t invited either. Instead of the usual performances and celeb guest stars, the HFPA plans to focus the ceremony on its “philanthropy work,” Entertainment Weekly reports. At this point, why bother holding an awards ceremony at all?

If it feels like the Globes have completely unraveled over the last year, that’s because they have. After years of rumored corruption within the HFPA, the secretive nonprofit group of entertainment reporters that votes for and holds the ceremony, the LA Times debuted a bombshell exposé about the organization last February. It was filled with tales of dirty dealing, but perhaps the biggest shocker of all was the fact that of the HFPA’s 87 members, not even a single one was Black. (In October, the HFPA announced that it was adding 21 new members, including six Black journalists.)

Then, in April 2021, eight-time HFPA president Philip Berk—the same guy that Brendan Fraser accused of sexually assaulting him in 2003—sent an email to his fellow members in which he declared that Black Lives Matter was a “racist hate movement” and implied that, like Charles Manson, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors wanted to start a race war. The HFPA gave Berk the boot, but it was too late—Hollywood was distancing itself from the group, and fast. First, the HFPA’s organization’s crisis communications company quit. (And the HFPA was working with the firm founded by Judy Smith, who inspired Scandal, which means that Olivia Pope herself gave up on them.) Then, Netflix, Warner Media, and Amazon studios announced they were boycotting the awards. Finally, NBC, the Golden Globes’ TV home since 1996, declared that they weren’t going to air the HFPA’s big night.

You’d think that given the fact that no one in Hollywood wants anything to do with them (and that we’re still very much in the middle of a pandemic!), the HFPA might have decided to hit pause on the 2022 awards show all together. But no! They’re soldiering on with what sounds like the most depressing entertainment ceremony in history. Why not just tweet out your winners and FedEx them their baubles if you’re so determined to get trophies in hands this year? It’d be way less depressing than whatever this is.