The State of the Race: The Golden Globes Announce Their Winners Anyway

You have to be someone who is mildly obsessed with episodes of mass hysteria throughout history, like I am, to really understand the moment we’re living through. Now, to be clear (for my own sake, for the site’s sake), I really should have shut up a long time ago and taken my place among the silent majority, waiting for it all to be over. But the reason I don’t is, quite simply, my 23-year-old daughter. As a member of Generation X, it has fallen upon me and others like me, who remember when things weren’t so insane, to be one of the voices that push back against something that most people know is wrong, but don’t have the will or ability to stand up to it.

In life, people fall into two categories: the Chamberlains and the Churchills. The Chamberlains trust Hitler. They go to Munich. They make a deal with Hitler and they come back to London to wild applause — see, he wasn’t so bad, Chamberlain says. Meanwhile, Churchill has already embarrassed himself again and again, warning that Hitler is not to be trusted and that Germany is already re-arming and that alone means they’re going to war. People were alternatively annoyed and bemused by Churchill’s hysterics. Eventually, however, Churchill would have the greatest “I told you so” in history when Hitler tore up the agreement and tried to dominate Europe with his Nazi army.

But it was hard back then to know which was the right approach. Chamberlain’s approach seemed the more sensible — and in retrospect, the more stupid. Now, I’m not comparing the cancel culture nonsense that has overtaken Hollywood (which helped to reduce the Golden Globes last night to a shell of its former self) to a situation where people took sides for or against to World War II or Hitler or anything like that. I am simply saying there are two kinds of people. I would be someone who falls into the Churchill camp, for better or worse. If I see something I know is wrong, even if it costs me friends, job prospects, whatever it is — I will fight against it. I know this about myself now. I probably would have been hanged in Salem. But I also know that this thing about me is the only thing that really matters to me, other than those I care about, like my 23 year-old daughter.

There was no chance I was going to do what so many others did yesterday: obey the unspoken Black List that said we can’t cover the Golden Globes. Some sites did cover them, but Gold Derby didn’t run predictions and many of my friends did not even talk about it on Twitter (the horror, the horror). I know it seems small. And of course, it is small. It’s stupid and petty and dumb and punishes absolutely the wrong people. But here we are.

It’s important, always, to look at the time you’re living through from the perspective of ten years from now. No one in the Jim Crow South, or in Salem Village in the 1600s, or in Germany in the 1930s had any idea they were on the wrong side morally. They believed they were on the right side because the groups that scared them, the people they sought to purge or dehumanize, embodied the thing they had been conditioned over time to fear the most. Fear leads to dehumanization, which leads to mass hysteria, and, in the worst cases, crimes against humanity.

Thankfully, all we’re dealing with now is just Twitter hysteria and the institutions of power that bow to it. And that is insignificant by the measure of history. But it still requires deciding whether to be a Chamberlain or a Churchill. The HFPA has chosen to be Chamberlains, like so many in Hollywood who have been called out, accused, and canceled. They have apologized endlessly. They have completely overhauled their organization. They have added black members. They changed the name of “Foreign language” to “Non-English language” film. Their roster is fairly diverse now (a lot more than the Academy’s or the DGA’s or the PGA’s). But still, what they don’t understand, what Churchills like me do understand, it isn’t about any of that. It’s about being targeted as “good” or “bad.”

There is no path to redemption once you are targeted as “bad.” Even if the majority is on your side, the louder minority still has the ruling class, the ruling elite, the power institutions in Hollywood BY THE BALLS. And when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds soon follow.

Once you are accused of something, you become that thing you are accused of being. Being accused of being a Communist is an accusation about WHO YOU SECRETLY ARE. The same went for being accused of witchcraft. In the Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany, you were born that way, born “bad,” because you were generalized as a whole group that was a threat to the Germans or White America.

So here, we see in a much less serious fashion (obviously), but a similar dynamic. This isn’t about what the HFPA has DONE: it is about WHO they are and if they have been tagged as “bad” then if you associate with them you are “bad” too.

That’s the game, friends. You can Chamberlain your way through it. You appease. You try to make amends. You beg for forgiveness. You just want what you had back. You trust them that their intentions are good when they give you a list of demands to repair your image. You trust your publicity expert when they give you a truly humiliating apology to recount. Or you Churchill your way through it by understanding that their intentions aren’t really good. They are trying, every day, to rid their utopia of undesirables. Once you are tagged as one, there probably isn’t any coming back from that. It will follow you around like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But be that as it may, the Golden Globes were held last night quietly, on their website, with not a lot of fanfare. As with all things Hollywood, the journalists and bloggers who cover the beat are deathly afraid of Twitter’s accusatory finger (Chamberlains), so they will write pieces to please Twitter. Negative Globe pieces to help firm up that they are still “bad” and that nothing will make them “good.” Some of us (Churchills) covered it anyway and it was loads of fun.

And one of those is, of course, one of the few Churchills writing in Hollywood anymore, Richard Rushfield, in his Ankler column:

While founded as a promotional vehicle for Hollywood films, there’s a very good case to be made that the awards firmament these days may actually chase more viewers away than it brings in if you look at this from the audiences’ perspective (remember them?).

On that entire campaign trail there was exactly one stop that wasn’t a burden to slog through. Yes, it was thrown by people whom “The Community” didn’t take totally seriously. But maybe it wasn’t such a horrible thing for stars-participants-audience to refuse to treat an awards show with the same solemnity as say, the announcement of a new cancer treatment.

And now, congratulations, at a moment when Hollywood is shall we say, realigning its relationship with the viewing public, they got rid of the one event that stood a chance still of winning over a few fans, portraying the Hollywood weltanschauung in a slightly less weltschmertzy light. With essentially sizzle reels for TV shows and films, and stars who weren’t birthed on TikTok.

Now, lecture over, and onto the show.

Hold Your Heads High, Globes Winners

There is no reason why the winners in the acting categories last night, especially the bright new faces of Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose in West Side Story — both who gave magnificent performances — should not be proud of their wins. All who won probably have been given strict orders by their publicity teams to not celebrate their wins. But they should ignore those. It is an honor that they won and they have every right to hold their heads high and feel good about it. They should not have to pay the price so the ruling class, or Twitterati, can preserve its “good” image.

Likewise, Jane Campion became just the third woman to win Best Director at the Golden Globes, and only the second to win Best Picture along with it with The Power of the Dog, after Chloe Zhao won last year for Nomadland. Netflix has now taken its second major Best Picture prize after Roma won the BAFTA in 2019, which means they have now crossed into the zone of being a legit studio. Now, no one in Salem Village on Twitter is going to publicly acknowledge this. But it’s a big deal and it should not go unnoticed.

In the Best Actress category, most of us (with the exception of Clarence Moye) thought Kristen Stewart would win for Spencer, but Nicole Kidman took it for Being the Ricardos. She and Rachel Zegler would then, according to history, have the best shot at winning the Oscar. But we can’t say for sure until we hear from the Screen Actors Guild, who are announcing their nominations in two days (preview forthcoming).

But the Best Actress category is now, indeed, a real race. It will be interesting to see how it shakes down. Zegler has a real shot at winning the whole thing. I still think Stewart’s work is good enough to consider her a frontrunner, but she’ll need to win the SAG to be a frontrunner for the Oscars.

In the Best Actor category, Will Smith took the lead for winning in the Drama category, while Andrew Garfield has put himself in a good position as well. I have had my doubts about him for some reason, but last night’s win puts that to rest. Can Benedict Cumberbatch still best Smith? Well, both men have tectonic charisma, and had Will Smith taken the stage last night you would have no doubt whatsoever about who would win. Cumberbatch will also be great on stage, no doubt. But I expect Will Smith at the mic will bring the house down. So if he wins the SAG, it will all be over but the shouting.

Finally, Best Picture went to The Power of the Dog and West Side Story. But winning the Globe is about a 50/50 chance of winning the Oscar. The reason being is that the Academy and the Producers Guild still use the preferential ballot. If The Power of the Dog wins the PGA, then yes, it’s closer to being a done deal. But remember, such was the fate of 1917, which won both and the DGA, then lost to Parasite at the Oscars. Belfast winning Screenplay is less of a strong stat than winning Best Picture at the Globes. The only time in the era of the expanded ballot the winner in that category went on to win Best Picture was Green Book, but that also won Best Film at the Globes. In fact, since 1970 only three Globe Screenplay winners that did not also win Best Film at the Globes went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars: Gandhi, No Country for Old Men, and Birdman. But all of three of those won at least one other Globe besides Screenplay.

I’d say The Power of the Dog and West Side Story seem to be two strong Best Picture contenders heading into the race, but with its audience wins and general likability we should not count out Belfast either. I will probably shift Power to the number one spot now until further intel presents itself.

That was all she wrote, my friends. And remember, if you can’t be a Churchill you can stand behind me.  I’ll do it for you.