There will be no red carpet for Sunday’s planned Golden Globe Award presentation — but apparently there would have been no celebrities to walk on it, anyway.
Following a report Tuesday by Variety that “no celebs have agreed to take part” in the awards show, as the embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Association wrestles with diversity and ethics issues, the Golden Globes nonetheless announced some details for Sunday’s planned 79th annual presentation.
Winners will be revealed starting at 6 p.m. from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, though there will be no in-person audience, with organizers officially citing COVID-19 concerns.
Additionally, as of Tuesday, it was not yet decided if the event will even be live-streamed.
The Dec. 13 nominations announcement was live-streamed, with Snoop Dogg sharing the stage with HFPA President Helen Hoehne to reveal nominees in 25 categories in movies and television in a scaled-back presentation.
But as of Tuesday, specific plans for a possible live-stream of Sunday’s winners announcements were still not decided, a Golden Globes spokeswoman told City News Service.
“I don’t have an answer to that yet,” spokeswoman Haley Powers said.
“It’s not decided. There’s talk it’s happening, but nothing has been decided yet. We can’t really say there’s no live-stream, because there might be. We also can’t say that there is a live-stream, because there might not be.”
NBC announced earlier this year it was pulling the plug on televising the event — traditionally one of Hollywood’s most star-studded and glittering nights.
Powers also said she could not comment on Tuesday’s report by Variety, which quoted an email from the Globes’ talent booker that asked several publicity agencies about the possibility of their clients participating in the show. None agreed to take part, Variety reported.
All this follows months of turmoil over revelations about the HFPA’s historical lack of Black members — zero among 87 voting members last year — and continued questions about the group’s ethical standards.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s announcement by the Golden Globes continued the HFPA’s image-repair campaign — stressing the organization has taken steps to address its issues.
“Over the last eight months, the HFPA has completely overhauled its bylaws, implementing sweeping changes from top to bottom addressing ethics and code of conduct, diversity, equity and inclusion, governance, membership and more,” the announcement said.
“In October, the HFPA admitted its largest and most diverse class to date with 21 new journalists, all of whom were first-time Golden Globe voters.”
Additionally, the announcement said that during Sunday’s program, Kyle Bowser, senior vice president of the NAACP Hollywood Bureau, “will further discuss the `Reimagine Coalition,’ a joint five-year initiative to increase diversity, equity and inclusion across the global entertainment industry.”
“Each year the HFPA and the NAACP Hollywood Bureau will collaborate on, fund, and support a series of trailblazing initiatives, with the overall goals of ensuring visibility of projects from artists of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds; increasing diverse representation in the industry; and building pathways to inclusion for young artists and journalists of color,” the announcement said.
The release mirrored statements made by Hoehne during the Dec. 13 nomination announcements, at which she said, “This has been a year of change and reflection for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. For eight months we have worked tirelessly as an organization to be better.”
As for the nominees Sunday, “Belfast” and “The Power of the Dog” garnered a leading seven nods apiece in film, while HBO’s “Succession” got five noms to lead among TV shows.
By company, Netflix led the way with 17 film nominations, followed by MGM/United Artists with nine and Warner Bros. with eight.
On TV, HBO/HBO Max led with 15 nominations, followed by Hulu and Netflix with 10 each.
LOL at reading about white people having a fetish for about inclusion, diversity, and equity; thats like seeing “Roaches for Raid”, to say nothing how it trivilzes a whole group of people by telling them they are inferior without caucasian largesse.
An amazing turn of events.
In an ungodly sentence of mixed metaphors, the corporations and companies that have paid mere lip service to diversity have had their feet held to the fire.