Sunday evening, from the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the yearly Hollywood ritual of awarding Golden Globes played out.
The 2013 Golden Globes, which was hosted by SNL alums Tina Fey and Amy Pohler, stuck to the formula of gathering glitterati together in the hopes of bringing in big TV ratings.
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Julianne Moore poses with her award for best actress in a miniseries for "Game Change."
(Getty Images) |
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the liberal organization behind the Globes, has scant credibility within the entertainment industry itself. However, the Globes are considered valuable by executives, studios, and other film and television related businesses, particularly in terms of its public relations effect and potential impact on Academy Awards voting members.
In an apparent attempt to limit the influence of the Globes, for the first time in its history the Academy moved up its Oscar nominations announcement so that the Golden Globes ceremony would instead trail.
The HFPA includes both film and television awards and gives separate nominations for the drama category and comedy or musical category, allowing for more celebrity nominees to be present in the audience.
The organization is comprised of only 85 members, who are mostly freelance journalists.
The Globes are almost as well known as the Oscars, having been around since 1944. However, the awards show was evicted from the broadcast airwaves in the past because of an alleged scandal that occurred in 1968, when the Federal Communications Commission claimed the show “misled the public as to how the winners were determined.”
In 1981 Pia Zadora won a Newcomer-of-the-Year Golden Globe for her performance in the film “Butterfly.” Accusations were made that HFPA members had been bought and paid for by Zadora's then-husband, multimillionaire Meshulam Riklis, who had flown voting members to a casino he owned in Las Vegas and invited voting members to his residence for a lavish luncheon and movie screening.
HFPA nominations in 2011 included the movie “The Tourist” in the Best Musical/Comedy category, despite a number of poor reviews that the spy thriller had received. Reports surfaced that Sony, the distributor of “The Tourist,” had treated Globes' voters to an all-expense paid excursion to Las Vegas, which culminated in a Cher concert.
The organization, in a lawsuit filed by its former publicist, Michael Russell, was also accused of having accepted bribes in the guise of extravagant gifts that the studios had allegedly provided.
Numerous A-list actors who were in attendance at the 2013 Globes ceremony made it a point to thank the HFPA, no doubt aware of the show’s inherent potential to provide exposure and exert influence. The NBC network not only enjoys low production costs in the airing of the show but also gets celebrity participation at minimal cost.
In addition to the tinge of scandal, the Globes also had the taint of far left-leaning politics.
HBO’s “Game Change,” a cable television movie about the 2008 presidential campaign, took the award for best miniseries or movie.
Additionally, Julianne Moore won a Globe for best actress in a miniseries or movie for her Sarah Palin-disparaging role of the 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee, and Ed Harris was honored as best supporting actor for his stereotyped portrayal of 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain.
Dubious of being deserving of accolades, in reality the “Game Change” docudrama is an adaptation of a highly partisan book, which consequently resulted in a highly factually challenged film and blatant celluloid hit piece.
Moore accepted her Globe with a gush of gratitude to Fey and Katie Couric. Implicit in the thank-you was heartfelt appreciation of the two for their respective Palin mockery and ambush interview. The audience laughed gleefully in covert understanding and partisan approval.
In perhaps the most politically draped moment of the evening, the HFPA had made arrangements for a prominent Democrat politician to introduce a film about the most famous Republican president in history.
Former president and Obama surrogate Bill Clinton took to the Golden Globes stage to introduce the movie “Lincoln.” The star-filled audience stood reflexively in ovation, and Pohler shivered with excitement at having been in the presence of the husband of 2016 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Lena Dunham won two Globes, one for acting and a second for having created the HBO series “Girls.” Other nominees, including Fey and Pohler, lost out to the cable star.
Dunham had taped a controversial video ad for Obama during the 2012 presidential campaign in which she used a sexual double entendre when speaking to young female voters about making their “first time” count, equating their first sexual encounter with a first vote for Obama.
“My first time voting was amazing,” Dunham said in the video. “It was this line in the sand. Before I was a girl, now I was a woman.”
And now she is a double Globes winner.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A., in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. Visit Newsmax.TV Hollywood. Read more reports from James Hirsen — Click Here Now.
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