Every year, we say we’re not going to watch the Golden Globes. “They’re pay-for-play opportunists who trade awards for access,” we plea in the mirror. “Remember Pia Zadora?” And yet, just like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, they pull us back in. Maybe it’s the pandemic insisting upon things to look forward to amidst the threat of impending doom. Or, more likely, we just love TV and the people who make it too much to not want to root for them to get recognition — no matter how dubious the award.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an enigmatic collective of 93 non-American journalists who nonetheless live in LA, give out their trophies every year, and the picks are virtually impossible to guess. Sometimes, it’s recognition of the best work in film and TV that year. Other times, it’s whatever buzz-worthy show or movie or performer catches their ear (or which studio influences them with lavish trips to Paris — we’re looking at you Netflix). And yet, despite our hemming and hawing about them, we still impart upon them enough cultural influence that the Globes themselves become worthy of discussion.
It’s a weird field this year: a heady mix of deserving entries and strange categorizations, seasoned veterans and hot newcomers, and an overwhelming sense of whiteness pervading the vast majority of 2021’s nominee pool. So, in light of that, we thought it might be interesting to not just try to predict who will win the Golden Globe for almost all of the categories this Sunday, but who shouldn’t even be in the field in the first place. Naturally, we share who we’d like to see in their stead.
