The true story of the canceled Golden Globes

«Unity Without Discrimination of Religion or Race“Is the motto ofHollywood Foreign Press Association: 86 immigrant members from 55 countries including India, Pakistan, Philippines, China, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Dominican Republic, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Japan and South Korea. This would be the second diversity-free group Time’s Up, the foundation that spearheaded the boycott of the group by first dragging Hollywood’s 100 most influential PRs and then sucking Netflix, Amazon e Warner Media, up to stars of the first magnitude, whose class action for the timing raises more than a few doubts.

The chain reaction eventually persuaded NBC to cancel the Golden Globes broadcast for 2022 and until the promised reforms are implemented. Engaged in the promotion and dissemination of American cinema globally and nationally since 1943, HFPA is now under the magnifying glass and must account for its internal regulations, as if it were the public body that is not.

THE DISPUTE
Aimed at so many disputes, the envy and hatred of all those who are not part of it, the HFP places as a necessary condition for the eligibility of aspiring associates to be correspondents from Los Angeles for a foreign media. While among the current members there are correspondents for Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, three countries notoriously very committed at the global level in terms of the production and diffusion of cinema abroad, the absence of dark-skinned African journalists is contested. . For its part, the association states that it is difficult to find African envoys residing in Southern California. It is plausible that the fee for a correspondent committed to Hollywood entertainment is not among the priorities for countries with unstable economies and policies and ongoing civil wars, and that the young and promising Nollywood industry is absorbing resources and attention more than ever in this period. of the African trade press.

WAR OF POWER
Time’s Up (organization for the defense of victims of sexual harassment, founded by several Hollywood celebrities) with a kind of coup d’etat demands a unilateral statute change from the HFPA which provides, among other things, the resignation of all current members with the condition of being readmitted after one year only if they comply with the new criteria dictated by the foundation. The latter also requires the incorporation of generic black film journalists and American critics without the geographical limitation of Hollywood, an action which, if undertaken, would result in the loss of the identity and mission of the award, which would no longer be the Hollywood foreign press, but of a vague group of entertainment reporters.

ENVY
So far, no group of the growing list of industry associations, critics, journalists, experts and insiders has even remotely attracted the attention of public opinion with the numbers of the Golden Globes. According to authoritative newspapers, it seems unlikely that the void that will be created by the failure to air the show 2022, announced by NBC, could be occupied by DGA (Directors Guild Awards), dai i PGA (Producers Guild Awards) or that any award with the term Critics in the header can attract the interest of the masses and therefore of advertising capital. Nonetheless, journalists in the foreign press have always been the target of vitriolic comments and rancorous criticisms, described as poorly prepared, not very productive and even a little nutty.

LEADERSHIP
They don’t have to be so stupid after all, if the prize they set up is the most watched and awaited event of the awards season after the night of the Oscars and produces millions of related companies: from publicists to actors, to the Academy itself, to the entire logistics that accompanies the Awards Season carousel, everyone in Hollywood benefits from the activity linked to the Golden Globes that anticipate and polarize the choices of the insider. Without considering how much the NBC, a network that has been broadcasting the ceremony since 1996, which certainly does not commit to paying royalties worth $ 60 million a year for charity – and in fact the last contract was renewed for another 8 years in 2018.

$ 45 MILLION IN CHARITY
All’Hollywood Foreign Press Association the code of ethics and disinterest in social issues is also challenged, when Time’s Up was thrown right from the stage of the Beverly Hilton Hotel by Oprah Winfrey during the 2018 ceremony, the year of #blacklivesmatter and #oscarsowhite, with the red carpet total black which will remain in history for many years to come. Also archived this year’s awards at Andra Day for Billy Holydays vs. United States, which Sag was totally ignored, to Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah, and the one to Chadwick Boseman, when at the Oscars the statuettes for best actor and leading actress nevertheless ended up in the hands of two whites. From the records of the HFPA it appears that over the years funded 2,224 scholarships for disadvantaged people, students of color, gay, transgender and destitute foreigners. It has donated $ 45 million to charities, with $ 4.5 million in the last year alone, as well as humanitarian contributions during the pandemic totaling nearly $ 800,000.

THE EXCLUDED
How this crisis came about is a little known story in Italy. It starts with the lawsuit filed by the Norwegian journalist, Kjersti Flaa, because the HFPA refuses her membership several times. The correspondent in question after having stolen confidential information of the association thanks to a relationship with Magnus Sundholm, a Swedish member of the HFP, takes the group to court, but twice miserably loses.

LADY VENDETTA
Having not accepted the defeat, Flaa, who in these days enjoys her quarter of an hour of fame as self-proclaimed redeemer of Hollywood, tries to take revenge by offering the material and the accusations, judged unfounded by the federal judges, to the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times. At that point, Time’s up seizes the ball and becomes a supporter of the cause, worried about the developments within his own group. At the time – mid-February, just before the Globes ceremony – inside Time’s Up a bomb had gone off. Allegations of sexual assault against an influential member of the association had been silenced, but the mutiny of 18 members of the foundation was inevitable. Time’s Up, party for the protection of women’s rights, has gradually widened its tentacles, incorporating other causes but losing sight of the initial priorities. After all, first signs of subsidence in Time’s Up they had been on the HBO documentary case about a year ago On the Records, which collected testimonies of some alleged victims of sexual attacks by influential people. The project, initially supported and then abandoned by Oprah Winfrey, had been snubbed by Time’s Up, which many activists had interpreted as a betrayal of the cause in favor of the powerful donors involved.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
What better opportunity for Time’s Up to distract public opinion and expand its power even further by engulfing the territory of the Golden Globes? While the HFPA is an independent association, not directly linked to the industry, Time’s Up is funded by the Studios, who, when accusations of sexual assaults on all sides flocked, decided to arm themselves by supporting the foundation with large donations and huge financial support.

WEINSTEIN BIS AND THE SKELETONS IN THE WARDROBE
On the other hand, this turmoil is no coincidence before Weinstein is also tried in Los Angeles: Hollywood trembles in front of the Pandora’s box that is about to uncover. In the climate of witch hunts, you never know who will fall next. Scarlett Johansson who today is indignant against theHollywood Foreign Press Association, two years ago he sat in the audience at the event with his star nomination for Marriage Story by Noah Baumbach. The thank you speech by Mark Ruffalo for the Golden Globe two months ago it sounds incongruous with that of these days. IS Tom Cruise he was just waiting for an opportunity to take revenge for Ricky Gervais’ impertinence at the 2017 Globes. Only the NYPost stands up against Hollywood and the press that has flattered and courted HFP members in the run up to the Oscars for years.

HUNTING THE WITCHES
Time’s Up he asks the HFPA to solve a problem that the whole world has not yet solved, and by asking for this he is asking for the impossible. Although the association has complied with every condition dictated by the foundation – including the publication of the detailed timeline for the introduction of the required reforms – it was not enough. The pressures of Time’s Up they seem to have turned into coercion and the boycott into a conspiracy: with the actors joining the long list of critics of the award, the curtain falls on the next edition. But there are many who realize that suspending the Golden Globes will backfire on the system, already tried by two years of pandemic and by a global ecosystem in which cinema tends to increasingly become a niche interest, outclassed by video games, social networks, interactive and latest generation forms of storytelling.

COUNTERFFENSIVE
As the association takes its time and plans the strategy to be adopted, it becomes clear that the next two weeks will be crucial in launching the counter-offensive. On the plate there are not only the interests and the survival of 86 families of cinephile immigrants, but those ofHollywood’s entire economic system. Too high a stake to be buried without appeal.