Why the 2022 Golden Globes Won't Be Televised
This year's award show schedule is making a change—and it doesn't have anything to do with COVID-19.
With the start of a new year also comes the start of awards season, bringing together your favorite stars of the last year for celebrations of film, television, and music. However, the 2022 awards season will look a little different as the Golden Globes, typically the first major show of the year, will not be televised.
Just a week prior to the 2021 Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Times published two articles, both detailing bombshell revelations about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. For starters, the group, made up of 90 people, has no Black members. And this in the face of the widespread calls for racial justice not six months earlier, as well as the #OscarsSoWhite campaign that began years earlier bringing attention to racism in the film and TV industry.
In addition to claims of racial inequity, one of the most damaging allegations was that of bribes made to HFPA members by network executives. One report accused the Paramount Network, the production company behind Netflix's Emily in Paris (which was nominated for two Golden Globes in 2021), of flying 30 HFPA members out to Paris for two nights at a $1,400-a-night hotel.
In light of these allegations, the 2021 ceremony aired as scheduled, but the HFPA did not go without consequences. In March 2021, over 100 publicity agencies signed a petition to deny the organization access to their clients if they don't reform. Shortly thereafter, they pledged to add 13 new Black members.
Unfortunately, only a month later, Deadline reported that, in an email, eight-term HFPA President Philip Berk “declared Black Lives Matter is a ‘racist hate movement.'" In turn, NBC stated that they would not be airing the show, while Netflix, Amazon Studios, and several celebrities announced they would be boycotting the 2022 ceremony.
Within the last year, the HFPA inducted 21 new members, six of them being Black. Berk was expelled as president. The organization voted on new bylaws which include a ban on members receiving gifts or other enticements from studio or production executives.
NBC has said they will consider airing the 2023 Golden Globes if they make the necessary changes.
As of now, five days before the scheduled show, the HFPA has not announced how (or if) Sunday's ceremony will be available for public viewing.
