The pressure is increasing on the jury of the Golden Globes to the point of threatening the disappearance of the famous American awards ceremony for film and television. The NBC channel announced, Monday, May 10, that it would not broadcast the 2022 edition, in particular because of a reform that it considers too timid.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), a group of about 90 journalists who make up the Golden Globes jury announced last week that it had adopted a series of reforms to try to calm the controversy fueled for months by accusations of discrimination, sexism and even corruption against certain members.
But those announcements failed to convince the entertainment industry, and the blame continued to rain through the weekend, until broadcaster NBC’s decision. “We continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reform. However, a change of this magnitude takes time and work and we have a clear impression that the HFPA needs time to do this properly ”, the channel said in a statement Monday.
“Therefore, NBC will not broadcast the 2022 edition of the Golden Globes”, she adds, emphasizing having “Good hope to broadcast the show in January 2023” if the organizers implement their reform program.
Tom Cruise returned his awards
The announcement is a blow to the Golden Globes, whose funding is heavily dependent on the broadcast rights to the ceremony, and some entertainment industry observers fear they may not be able to recover from it. In the wake of NBC’s announcement, several Hollywood specialist media reported that Tom Cruise had returned his three Golden Globes to the HFPA in protest.
Most of the HFPA members are correspondents working regularly for well-known and respected media in their respective countries, such as Le Figaro or El Pais. But the reputation of this very unusual jury has suffered in the past from the presence of a handful of more surprising personalities, with episodic and confidential journalistic activity. Above all, the organization has been repeatedly criticized for the lack of attention given to artists from minorities, often under-represented in the Golden Globes charts.
On Thursday, the members of the association overwhelmingly approved a series of measures, including a 50% increase in their membership in the next eighteen months, including the recruitment of black journalists, as well as the reform of the opaque system and restrictive rules governing admissions.
However, that was not enough to convince Hollywood. Netflix and Amazon Studios have both claimed they are no longer interested in working with the HFPA as long as there are changes. “Significant” would not have been operated while Warner Bros. Studios wrote to the association on Monday complaining that the HFPA’s reform program was not going “Not far enough”.
“Sexist and racist issues”
Until further notice, Warner’s film and television subsidiaries will “Refrain from any direct interaction” with the organization, including regarding the participation of stars in events organized by the HFPA. “We are all too aware of the energy that we had to deploy in order to obtain press conferences for a number of black performers and creators who undeniably carried works of value”, deplores this letter, quoted by the specialized site Deadline. “These same works have often gone unnoticed in your nominations and awards. “
Additionally, Warner Bros. makes mention of “Press conferences where [ses] artists have been confronted with racist, sexist and homophobic questions ”. “For far too long, requests for benefits, special favors and unprofessional requests have been made to our teams and others. [du secteur]. “
These statements echo those made by Scarlett Johansson, who over the weekend explained that she had refused to take part in HFPA press conferences for years because of “Sexist questions and remarks” who “Bordering on sexual harassment”, according to the actress.
His colleague Mark Ruffalo, meanwhile, recently said he couldn’t feel “Proud or happy” of the Golden Globe obtained last February for the series I Know This Much Is True from an organization with “A culture of secrecy and exclusion”.
The HFPA reacted on Monday by publishing a detailed timetable of the announced reforms, adding that an institutional reform “Is long overdue, within [l’]organization, but also in industry [du divertissement] in general “.