Less than five years ago, the Golden Globes were hanging by a thread.
In the wake of a Times investigation that exposed the group's ethical and self-purchase failures and a complete lack of Black representation among its members, NBC pulled the ceremony off the air as Netflix and Amazon Studios and more than 100 advertising agencies cut ties with the embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
It got so bad that Tom Cruise returned his three Golden Globes to the HFPA in protest, an act that didn't measure up to Sean Penn's threat in 2022 to melt down his Oscars, though it still made headlines.
But the Golden Globes have come back from the brink. The awards show, now run by Penske Media Eldridge, owned by Jay Penske and Todd Boehly, announced its latest slate of film and television nominations on Monday. And the coverage, led by Penske-owned trade publications, has contained little to no mention of the show's turbulent past, or the controversies that continue to swirl around the ceremony, which will air again in January on CBS as part of a five-year broadcast deal signed in 2024.
So, yes, for all intents and purposes, the Golden Globes are back. But when it comes to ethical practices, today's for-profit Globes may well be worse than ever, crossing the line in ways that are more egregious than the shady schemes that put the awards on life support not long ago.
As part of the program's rehabilitation, the Globes have expanded their voting pool to 300 people, including black voters. Fifty of the original HFPA members were excluded from the group and offered an annual salary of $75,000. The Globes ended that policy earlier this year, calling the move “an acknowledgment that continuing to pay members could increase the perception of bias in voting.”
It's hard not to be skeptical of such principled reasoning in light of more recent events. In May, the Globes announced a new category for podcasts. A shortlist of 25 followed in October, selected by audio analytics company Luminate, which, surprisingly, is also owned by Penske Media.
Eligible titles ranged from Dax Shepard's “Armchair Expert” and Amy Poehler's “Good Hang” to political shows like “Pod Save America.” Conservative commentators Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Theo Von and Candace Owens are on the short list. (Surprisingly, “New Heights,” the popular podcast hosted by Jason Kelce and his brother Travis, the Kansas City Chiefs pro tight end engaged to singer Taylor Swift, was omitted. If the goal in creating the new award was to find a way to convince Swift to attend the ceremony, someone forgot to reserve a seat for her.)
But the real motivation behind the podcast category became apparent soon after: money. According to Ankler, Penske-owned trade publication Variety had its sales team feature nominated podcasts with a variety of paid marketing partnerships, including a $25,000 buyout to become a supporting partner of the Podcasting FYC Fest and a $75,000 deal for the podcaster to receive the Variety Creative Impact Award in Podcasting.
At those prices, it's no surprise that Luminate seems to have made popularity (and therefore financial resources) a key eligibility criterion. Additionally, there was hope that some of the 25 shortlisted shows would buy FYC ads in Variety and Penske's other trade publications, the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, all of which rely on FYC dollars to keep the lights on.
How many bits? Shapiro is a big name, buying ads on Deadline and partnering with awards prediction website Gold Derby (yes, another Penske property) on a paid video interview with his podcast team. (In the end, the confusion didn't pay off: The last six nominees in the category were “Armchair Expert,” “Call Her Daddy,” “Good Hang With Amy Poehler,” “The Mel Robbins Podcast,” “SmartLess” and “Up First.”)
“It's just a money grab,” says one veteran awards consultant, who asked not to be identified to protect industry relationships. “Everyone used to hit the Globes, but they were just stupid… This is the next level.”
Do you want the next level? How about Penske offering three pairs of Golden Globes tickets for $70,000 each through a “concierge gift guide” in his luxury lifestyle magazine Robb Report? After the New York Post reported on these shenanigans, the offer disappeared from the publication's website.
Privately, there have been negative reactions. In public, not so much. We live in a culture at large where we have come to accept blatant corruption as the norm, and the Penske Globes are just another example, slipping through our collective numbness.
The Golden Globes have long been excused for their scandals and idiosyncratic membership and, of course, mocked for their irrelevance. Ricky Gervais called them “useless” and called the award “a little piece of metal that some nice, confused old journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and take a selfie with you.”
Membership has changed, but the trophy value remains inconsequential.
But the ceremony continues to move forward and remains, in the opinion of the filmmakers behind the type of adult film that is becoming an increasingly endangered species, an essential marketing platform. The January ceremony attracted 9.3 million viewers; These are not Sunday Night Football figures, but they are not bad at all in this fragmented media landscape.
For one night, the thinking goes, films like “Marty Supreme,” “Hamnet” and “Sentimental Value” (among this year's most awarded contenders) are celebrated and, perhaps, discovered. Studios are still planning to expand their films to more theaters the weekend after the Globes ceremony. If you grant it, the thinking goes, people will come.
We all want these movies to continue being made. No doubt, a good number of moviegoers bought a ticket to see the Brazilian political drama “I'm Still Here” after its star Fernanda Torres won a Globe earlier this year.
But adding categories for podcast and, two years ago, “film and box office achievements” only reduces the amount of time the show can highlight nominated films and their actors.
There's a saying, first coined by Maya Angelou, that has become popular in recent years: “If someone shows you who they are, believe them.” The same could be said of awards ceremonies.
The Golden Globes may be here to stay. But let's stop pretending that they are better than before the latest scandal.
