78th Golden Globe Awards: ‘White’ Globes cop a roasting
The Golden Globe awards was engulfed by a diversity controversy, despite a number of African-American wins.
Hollywood’s 78th Golden Globe Awards were held virtually for the first time on Monday, and were overshadowed by a raging diversity controversy, despite producing historic gains for women and artists from minority backgrounds.
Australian singer-songwriter Sia was drawn into a separate controversy over the social media backlash to her nominated film, Music, which has been criticised for reinforcing autism stereotypes and for using a “neurotypical’’ actress to play a teenage character with autism.
The top prize, best motion picture drama, went to Nomadland, which stars Frances McDormand as a homeless woman travelling through recession-scarred America.
Chinese American-based director Chloe Zhao was named best film director for Nomadland, becoming only the second female winner of this prestigious category, after Barbra Streisand in 1983.
“I fell in love with making movies and telling stories because it gave us a chance to laugh and cry together,’’ Zhao said.
Other big winners in the high-profile suite of US film and television awards were The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit and Borat Subsequent Movie Film, starring British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who has lived in Sydney in recent months.
Cohen’s film snared the best film musical or comedy category and best actor prize in that category, and he pointedly thanked the “all-white’’ Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
This was a reference to recent media revelations that there are no black voters among the association’s 90 or so members.
The association was repeatedly criticised for this during the ceremony. Co-host Tina Fey said it was “made up of around 90 international — no black — journalists who attend movie junkets each year in search of a better life — we say ‘around’ 90 because a few may be ghosts’’.
Fey also roasted Sia over her film, Music, which was nominated for best motion picture. The co-host joked that Sia’s film was “nominated for best international flop-a-roony’’. Referring to Sia’s casting of a non-autistic actress as an autistic teenager, she added: “Twitter is saying it’s the most offensive casting since Kate Hudson was the Weight Watchers spokesperson.’’
African-American actress Andra Day was a surprise winner in the best actress in a motion picture drama category for her role in The United States Vs Billie Holiday, becoming only the second black woman to take out the award (after Whoopi Goldberg in 1986). Another African-American, Chadwick Boseman, who died last year from colon cancer, was posthumously named best actor in a film for his performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Australian actresses Cate Blanchett (Mrs America) and Nicole Kidman (The Undoing) were nominated for best actress in a limited TV series or film, but lost out to Argentine-British performer Anya Taylor-Joy, who starred in the surprise Netflix hit The Queen’s Gambit. The Netflix drama, which made chess seem sexy, also won best limited series.
Netflix’s The Crown snared the coveted prize for best TV drama series.
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