The Golden Globe Awards are still going ahead, but in a way we've never seen before as the ceremony will not be televised nor streamed online.
While the event was usually one of the highlights of the awards season and one of the pre-cursors to the Oscars, the Golden Globes have suffered a fall from grace in the eyes of the public and the industry. It's not known what the future has in store for the Golden Globes but in the short term, the event is going ahead without a viewing audience, a red carpet, or any stars.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the group behind the Golden Globe Awards, is pushing ahead despite the mass boycott, and will announce the winners via a press release.
Why are stars boycotting the Golden Globes?
The HFPA has been widely criticized for its lack of diversity amongst its members. In 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that the group had not accepted a new Black member since Meher Tatna, its former president in 2002.
In total, around 90 people from 55 countries made up the HFPA. In the build-up to the 2021 Golden Globes, the Times Up movement ran a campaign against the HFPA, confirming that there wasn't a single Black member out of 87 members. It prompted a number of celebrities including Amy Schumer, Judd Apatow, Ava DuVernay, Shona Rhimes, Sean Hayes and Kerry Washington to share the hashtag "#TIMESUPGlobes."
In their initial statement to the backlash, the HFPA said the majority of its members were female, more than 35% of its members were from non-European countries around the world and did contain people of color.
By May, the HFPA had announced its plans for a reform package to improve its rate of diversity, but it didn't stop celebrities and broadcasters from boycotting the next Golden Globe Awards.
On May 3, 2021, the HFPA said that over the next 18 months there would be a 50% increase in members with a particular focus on including underrepresented groups. The announcement was met with mild reactions and led to the mass boycott of the upcoming Golden Globe Awards.
Who is boycotting the Golden Globes?
The awards' usual broadcaster NBC and Dick Clark Productions announced that while they were in support of the reform, they would not be broadcasting the 2022 ceremony. In a statement, NBC said that while the changes take place, "we are hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023."
Times Up and over 100 PR firms wrote an open letter to the HFPA and criticized the reforms for a "lack of specifics" and claimed the changes wouldn't be made in time to impact the next cycle of the Golden Globes.
Netflix, Amazon and WarnerMedia all followed suit and announced they would stop working with the HFPA until the reforms were made.
Supporting the boycotts, Deadline reported that Tom Cruise was returning the three Golden Globe Awards he'd won for his work on Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia.
By October, the HFPA announced it had added 21 new members with a much more diverse outlook. Later that month they announced that the 2022 awards would continue to go ahead despite having no broadcaster.
While the nominations were live-streamed and announced by Snoop Dogg and the HFPA President Helen Hoehne in December, the ceremony will be held privately with no live stream or television broadcast. The winners will be announced via a press release afterwards.
The 79th Annual Golden Globe Awards will be held privately on Sunday, January 9 in Los Angeles.
