The television portion of tonight’s Golden Globes ceremony ended with Taraji P Henson winning Best Actress in a Drama Series and running through the audience throwing cookies at celebrities. If this isn’t the perfect visual metaphor for the HFPA’s voting process then I don’t know what is. Eight different shows won at the Globes last night and the foreign press produced one of the oddest assortment of television winners in recent memory with two 90s stars, a pop-star, and a show about robots.
Let’s start with the wins that probably had the average viewer scratching their head, Mozart in the Jungle. Globes voters love to award shows no one is talking about on cool networks. The HFPA also loves shows that include musical elements and while Mozart in the Jungle is not a musical it does focus on members of a New York orchestra. The show also had a secret weapon to woo over voters, Gael García Bernal. The HFPA loves international celebrities and Bernal has starred in three foreign language Golden Globe contenders and best drama winner Babel. So, in retrospect of course, voters are going to choose Mozart in the Jungle and take its leading actor along for the ride.
The other big winner of the night was Mr. Robot. I could have made an argument for why all five of the nominees had a good shot at winning but in the end the HFPA went with the obvious choice. Mr. Robot is the critics’ darling, it is the only new show dominating the guilds, and it has the perfect combination of actors with a well-known actor like Christian Slater and a leading performance from up-and-comer Rami Malek.
2015 was a great year for limited series and TV movies. Fargo returned with even better reviews than season one, American Crime debuted with a thought provoking premise and HBO gave us two great movies with Bessie and Nightingale. So why did the HFPA decide to award the period piece that no one watched, the least beloved season of American Horror Story, and a miniseries about American politics (a subject voters have refused to reward time and time again). I could sit here and fume over the lack of love for Fargo and American Crime but instead of getting mad I’ll just put more pressure on the critics’ awards and the Emmys to right these wrongs.
Last week I wrote an article presenting five crazy scenarios that no one was talking about and three of them came true. I (and just about the entire ADTV team) predicted Rachel Bloom to win for her performance on the CW musical My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and she won. Netflix lost every single one of their television bids and went home empty handed even though they are the streaming network that changed the industry, however I incorrectly predicted they would win over on the film side (damn you Sly Stallone!). Oscar Isaac won for his performance in a miniseries barely anyone watched proving that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has catapulted him into the A-List. The downside of Oscar Isaac winning the Globe is that HBO has continued their winning streak into their 26th year.
I will admit my biggest mistake (and probably the biggest prediction mistake of the entire ADTV team) was discounting the HFPA’s tendency to resort to star f@#$ing. Like the rest of America the voters fell in love with Oscar Isaac who is quickly becoming the most charismatic man in Hollywood. The foreign press hasn’t voted for American Horror Story since Jessica Lange in the first season but they shockingly voted for Lady Gaga over critics’ darling Kirsten Dunst. Voters couldn’t resist the sex appeal of Jon Hamm even though they have ignored Mad Men for years. Even former Hollywood heartthrob and bad boy Christian Slater had a small comeback tonight as a supporting actor on the HFPA’s new favorite show. I’m kicking myself because I don’t know why I expected the HFPA to be any different this year.
If anything, tonight’s winners taught me to stick with the five golden rules of Globes predictions:
- Never underestimate the HFPA’s need to be a trendsetter
- International sensibilities dominate
- If the HFPA has the chance to get a star on their stage they will take it
- A winning show always takes an actor along for the ride
- In the words of Globes attendee and Big Brother host Julie Chen “expect the unexpected”
Hopefully I’ll stick to these five rules and be able to correctly predict more than five winners. Predictions aside, I enjoyed the winners from the Globes tonight. The foreign press gave us a reason to talk about shows that weren’t Game of Thrones, Maura Tierney finally won an award, Cookie handed out some cookies, and at the very least Lady Gaga gave a memorable acceptance speech for a win people are already comparing to Pia Zadora’s infamous win in 1982. Readers, what are your memorable moments of the night? Are there any predictions you are especially proud of?
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