Lights, Camera, Conversation… “And the award for awards show goes to…”

…the Golden Globes, for taking themselves less seriously than the Oscars, but also for rewarding talent more generously.

For a week now, I have been reading articles about how nobody knows who the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) are, and why they are qualified to hand out the Golden Globes for achievement in cinema. Well, they’re journalists who write about cinema – doesn’t that automatically qualify them? And if you’re going to question their knowledge, their taste, why not point a finger at the Oscar voter as well? How is some actor who co-starred in a clutch of movies in the nineteen-fifties (and therefore a member of the Academy) qualified to air his views, through a ballot, about the year’s bests in film? Has he gone through some sort of rigorous testing process that the Golden Globes people haven’t, where he exhibits his profound knowledge of editing and cinematography and the obscurantism of foreign cinema? At least the HFPA throw a better party, and here are five reasons the Golden Globes telecast is a marginally better watch than the Oscars.

1. There’s no pre-show red carpet special where actors, male and female, are accosted by self-anointed fashion experts and quizzed on what they are wearing. About couture, this show is not. The worst part is when, having dropped the names of their designers, the actors are left fending banal questions about how they feel about being nominated. Has there been a single star who’s answered this question with anything but fake sincerity? The only way this segment can be made watchable is if certain phrases are banned, beginning with “it’s such an honour.” Otherwise, it’s such a bore.
2. The HFPA treats television on par with cinema. Well, maybe not exactly. After all, host Ricky Gervais (who was curiously subdued) did note that there was a pecking order in the seating arrangements – the TV stars sat at the edge and movie stars in the centre of the room. But at least the ceremony honours TV and movie stars simultaneously. Why is this important? Because the shows on American television are often superior to what’s released in theatres, and they also accommodate talented actors who never quite got the right opportunities on the big screen, perhaps because they weren’t big draws, but eventually found their space in the dramas on cable and in the made-for-TV movies and miniseries.
3. The HFPA also treats comedy on par with drama, which goes at least a small way towards lifting the curse on being funny. The Oscars, on the other hand, often confuse being serious and noble with being good, rewarding In the Heat of the Night over The Graduate, Gandhi over Tootsie, Out of Africa over Prizzi’s Honor, Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction (which was certainly comedic, if not a comedy). It’s tough enough comparing two dramatic films – how do you rate a drama against a comedy? The HFPA cracks this nut by recognising both. This year, The Descendants was deemed as worthy as The Artist, even if there was something of a pecking order here too, with the evening’s final prize, the save-the-best-for-last prize, going to the drama.
4. The cast and crew of a film are seated at the same table, which is another blow by the HFPA for egalitarianism. At the Oscars, George Clooney would be seated in the first row – he is royalty after all – and the retinue, the rest of the people who contributed, in various ways, to The Descendants, would find seats allotted in the rows far behind. The HFPA may not know much about cinema, but they do know that it’s a collaborative art, and that George Clooney would be an emperor without clothes without the cast that supported him and the crew that sustained him. And we get to see all of them rejoice in his win, not just the latest model he’s dating.
5. Finally, there’s the alcohol. As Gervais said, “The Golden Globes are to the Oscars what Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton – a bit louder, a bit trashier, a bit drunker and more easily bought.” And part of the trashy appeal, the shameless entertainment, is a result of the bottles of Moët at every table. Gervais walked in with a glass of beer, and five minutes later, he’d made a joke about his private parts. Later, Tina Fey and Jane Lynch high-fived at having cracked a “penis joke.” Seth Rogen and George Clooney followed suit. They can’t do this at the Oscars, where they’d have to be more, um, stiff.

Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. An edited version of this piece can be found here.

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