Has that been going on long? First time I heard of it.
Seems like those were the ugly stepchildren of the statuette world, far far behind oscars and emmys and tonys and obies and fickle finger awards.
They’ve been televised for years, if not decades. They’ve been on NBC for the last decade according to Wikipedia, before that they were on TBS and before TBS existed one of the Big Three networks televised them. Wikipedia doesn’t say what year they were first broadcast.
As to why, again according to Wikipedia they are one of the most-watched awards shows in the country, behind the Oscars and the Grammys. Big viewership equals ad revenue and the show can be produced relatively cheaply as compared to an actual three or four hour block of programming.
Same reason most fluffy entertainment is broadcast: They figured out advertisers were willing to pay a lot of money to have commercials during them.
When I was a wee lad (1970s), the Golden Globes were televised in L.A. on a local station (Channel 9) and they were pretty cheap-looking. I assume that some syndicator sold them to other markets.
But in L.A., we love award shows! We’ll watch anything where celebrities are handed a statue!
AFAICT, The Golden Globes are now considered second only to the Oscars and Emmys as far as prestige value in Hollywood. As for TV coverage, the show how recently been billed as “Hollywood’s Biggest Party” due to the relaxed nature and seating arrangement.
Prestige? Not at all. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is a bad joke, a collection of suckups and starfuckers who throw a party and distribute swag so they can rub elbows with the glitterati. There’s like eighty or ninety of them, at most. Their qualifications for judging performances are zero. The studios strongarm their talent into participating because of the financial payback: getting celebrity faces attached to movie and television properties into the news, and using the so-called awards in ad campaigns for said properties. Why do you think the celebrities are often obviously drunk if this is really a prestigious honor they’re receiving?
Track down this documentary for the full scoop.
Dunno, but the Globes looks like a much better night out than the Oscars.
Pia Zadora would beg to differ with you I’m sure.
It’s not so much that the awards themselves are particularly prestigious as that they’re considered an Oscar predictor so they create huge buzz.
That Wikipedia entry is quite sanitized. Here’s what it left out, from this article:
And the Pia Zadora thing was in 1982, so I guess it started on NBC in 1996.
Hell! I would have given Pia Zadora an award, too, actual acting talent not being necessary as far as I am concerned. Whatever happened to her?
As for the Golden Globes, I enjoy that show at least as much as the Oscars. It superceded every other television offering in my house the night it was on.
Anyone who asks why they’re even televised has no interest in either movies or celebrity (not that there’s anything wrong with that) so it’s kind of pointless to answer, but I guess I will anyway.
I’m not interested in the glitzy, celebrity side of the Globes, I’m interested in the movie side, and the Golden Globes always shine a light on smaller films and perfomances that badly need the publicity. For some films this might be the only awards attention they get. I don’t always agree with the Globes. I lament about missed opportunites, but the people who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association seem to really CARE about movies. I think they’ve cleaned up their act and it’s unfair to still bring up Pia Zadora as if that was still the norm. Do they nominate stars in hopes of getting more coverage/stars to attend? Probably, but they don’t seem to nominate walk-through performances anymore. I’m sure exceptions could be found, but in the past several years when I’ve actually been on top of movies and have seen most if not all of the nominated films, they’re more often than not pretty dead on. In other words, did they nominate Eddie Murphy because he was a star? No, I don’t think so. I think they nominated him because he was great in Dreamgirls. Him being a star sure didn’t hurt.
The Globes folks often have more interesting, eclectic and varied taste than the Oscar folks. Because they separate Musical/Comedy from Drama they can spread the wealth a bit more. The Golden Globes will always have a special place in my heart for such choices as Brokeback Mountain over Crash, George Clooney for O Brother Where Art Thou? (everyone was snickering but dammit, that WAS one of the best performances of the year), Nicole Kidman for To Die For (I suspect she missed out on an Oscar nom because she was Mrs. Cruise which was very unfair) and inspired nominations that make me grin with delight. Just looking over the past few years…
Cillian Murphy for his wonderful performance in Breakfast On Pluto
A History of Violence (Best Picture, Drama)
The Squid and the Whale
Pierce Brosnan in The Matador (his best role ever)
Fernando Meirelles, Director for The Constant Gardener
Hotel Rwanda (Best Picture, Drama)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Best Picture, Musical or Comedy)
Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey for the same
Javier Bardem in The Sea Inside
Big Fish (Best Picture, Musical or Comedy)
Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa
Scarlett Johansson in Girl with a Pearl Earring
Peter Sarsgaard in Shattered Glass
Hope Davis in American Splendor
Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love (someone I always hated but loved in this)
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary
Peter Gabriel’s score for Rabbit-Proof Fence
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Best Picture, Drama)
Mulholland Drive (Best Picture, Drama)
and on and on.
I’ll cut them lots of slack for being unpredictable and interesting and fun. I haven’t seen that documentary, I don’t want to see that documentary, I don’t CARE about that documentary. All I care about are the movies the Golden Globes highlight. I’m a Globes fan for life.
They also (as I recall) gave Claire Danes a much-deserved win for Best Actress in My So Called Life, for which she was clearly never going to win an Emmy due to the show’s poor ratings.
An above post explains how Pia Zadora won an award for which she was nominated- is there an explanation for how she was nominated in the first place? Were there only four new actors in films that year?