Apologies for not addressing this earlier today but of the three Golden Globe rulings that have the internet's collective tongue wagging, only one of them surprised us and only in a very mild kind of way. Perhaps this is why we didn't jump to discuss figuring that people would respond with a shrug. How wrong we were! If you're like 'what the hell are you discussing, Nathaniel?' here's a quick survey.
The three controversial rulings:
1. Minari will not be eligible for Best Picture at the Globes but instead compete for Best Foreign Language Film. Our surprise level: 0%. The Globes have never allowed pictures that weren't in the English language to compete in Best Picture and we just assumed everyone knew this but we were quite wrong. The same exact thing happened as recently as last year (The Farewell, 2019) and as recently, before that, as the year before (Roma, 2018)...
Somehow people had forgotten and now they're very angry. The triggering factor this time around and why it truly does feels like a different ruling is that Minari is set entirely in America (those other pictures weren't), and is about being an American immigrant. The Farewell had immigration elements but that wasn't the theme or story... but like Minari it was also from an American filmmaker and headlined by an American star. In other words, Minari is about as American as you can get, despite the fact that the bulk of dialogue is in Korean.
Should they change their rules? Yes. While they're at it they should also change the rule that animated pictures can't compete in Best Picture which they started as soon as they gave them their own category.
2. Borat's Maria Bakalova will be competing for Best Actress instead of Supporting Actress. Our surprise level: 5%. The Globes are extremely inconsistent about their reactions to Category Fraud but this is hardly the first time they've "promoted" someone who was campaigning as supporting and we expected this to happen in Bakalova's case. Does this help her with her Oscar campaign? We'd argue yes because anything that can make an atypical contender feel familiar (i.e. a high profile Golden Globe nomination) will lower the Academy's resistance to the fact that it's a very atypical kind of awards hopeful.
Should they reverse this ruling: No. She's a perfect candidate for this particular category: Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical
3. Promising Young Woman will not be allowed to compete in Comedy, which was its intention as we discussed last week. It will have to compete as a drama. Our surprise level: 25%. Frankly the Globes just do whatever the hell they want when it comes to Comedy or Drama classificiations. They've made very odd calls over the years and very inconsistent ones so they almost never surprise us. We were far more surprised, in point of fact, that Focus Features asked for the film to compete as a Comedy because distributors tend to want to compete as a Drama which, rather stupidly, has more "cred". Everyone, including critics, awards-givers, and studios, would do well to continually remind themselves that no genres (including dramas) are inherently better than any others. It's all in the execution. We'd have more interesting nominees at every awards show if people could stop automatically granting importance to some genres while looking down at others.
Should they reverse this ruling: Yes. Promising Young Woman is a comedy. Let's share a sterling tweet on the matter from last week that says it perfectly:
can't wait for another awards season of inane conversation where people reveal their inherent genre bias; that a drama is cinema and a comedy is trash. a comedy can be serious, intellectually rigorous and often a harder tonal tightrope to walk. https://t.co/X83J7k8AWw
— ANDREW FRASER (@andrewjtfraser) December 15, 2020