CNN
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In a snapshot of the present state of award reveals, the Golden Globe nominations are nonetheless fairly silly, and with the nominations for “Barbie” and Taylor Swift, the Oscars might nonetheless be taught a factor or two from them.
The Globes have undergone a makeover when it comes to possession, who contains its voting physique and even its TV residence, shifting to CBS after scandal in regards to the make-up of its membership and alleged moral lapses precipitated the 80-year-old awards to lose help from Hollywood and their broadcast deal with NBC.
But whoever’s pulling the strings, the Globes have seemingly acknowledged a little bit of logic the Academy Awards could be nicely suggested to heed: Don’t ignore your hottest films.
Whether or not a byproduct of benefit or planning (and there was clearly a few of the latter), the Globes showered essentially the most nominations on two of the 12 months’s greatest box-office hits, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” with 9 and eight bids, respectively. The awards additionally launched a class particularly for widespread films, throwing Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” which broke box-office information for a live performance movie, and the fourth “John Wick” film into that blend.
Granted, with its eclectic mixture of classes and the benefit of splitting its high movie and performing prizes into two brackets, drama and musical/comedy, Globes voters have been nonetheless in a position to incorporate small and quirky films into their decisions.
In step with custom, the group additionally maintained its longstanding desire towards nominating identifiable stars, which could clarify why Jennifer Lawrence crept in for the comedy “No Hard Feelings,” and the considerably inexplicable determination to categorize Netflix’s “May December” as a comedy whereas nominating Natalie Portman for that movie.
Nonetheless, the Globes have seemingly embraced, consciously or not, the truth that if award-show producers and broadcasters need folks to observe these occasions amid declining rankings throughout the board, extra viewers want some sort of rooting curiosity – a connection to a couple of the nominees that includes having really seen them.
The Academy Awards, notably, did flirt with its personal “popular film” category a couple of years in the past earlier than scrubbing the concept, which was portrayed as an act of pandering that will primarily dilute the Oscar’s worth and status. The hope was that some widespread films would discover a means into the awards extra organically.
The monitor document of that has been at greatest combined, and definitely a few of the entities seen as influencing Oscar voters – starting with critics teams – haven’t change into any much less esoteric in regards to the movies they have an inclination to desire, which today typically wind up being consumed at residence by way of streaming companies, not in theaters.
The push and pull of that may be seen on this 12 months’s Globes nominations as nicely, with Netflix main the pack of distributors when it comes to movie nominations and a number of nods to different streamers, like Amazon and Apple TV+, reflecting a starvation for status and business validation by these companies that goes past simply dollars-and-cents issues.
The underside line is the many individuals who flocked to “Barbenheimer” this summer time gained’t be disillusioned in the event that they tune into the Golden Globes trying to see these films represented.
That doesn’t erase the Globes previous issues, or resolve the litany of things which have depressed viewing of award reveals, together with the prepared availability of clips that spare folks from sitting by these hours-long shows.
As a sensible matter, although, award reveals dismiss the top customers of what they provide at their industrial peril. And from that slim perspective, the true trick is as a lot about who you invite to the social gathering as it’s who in the end takes residence the social gathering favors.