Could this explain some of the blatant outrages this year?
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association – the group of people who nominate and select winners for the annual Golden Globe Awards – was criticized for lack of diversity after a report found no black members currently in the organization.
The Los Angeles Times delved deeply into the “insular and incredibly powerful group” and the mysterious identities of its 87 members, who often maintain “low profile”. The revealing account found that although the group has some colored members – there are no black members.
The HFPA confirmed to the media that there are really no black members – but said it is a problem that they are “committed to solving”. However, the group has not developed an action plan.
When the nominations were released in early February, there were notable rejections, including widely acclaimed films like Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” and Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah” for the big screen’s biggest honors. The same goes for the entire cast of HBO’s “Lovecraft Country” on the small screen: it was nominated for best TV drama – but the entire cast was overlooked by acting nods.
Similar omissions have already led to mass protests from the public, especially in 2015, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which distributes Oscars, was criticized for lack of diversity. The #OscarsSoWhite social media campaign forced the organization to make moves towards more inclusion, which it has since worked to resolve.
However, HFPA pointed the finger at group members for not naming critically acclaimed projects – and adored by fans.
“We do not control the individual votes of our members,” said the HFPA in a statement to the LA Times. “We seek to build cultural understanding through film and TV and recognize how the power of creative narrative can educate people around the world on issues of race, representation and orientation.”
As for the true identities of the elusive group, the people involved are not publicly listed on the association’s website. A “longtime publicist” told the vehicle that some are international journalists, but “many of them work with vehicles I have never heard of”.
Still, the representative said, “We give them incredible access. We are forced to do this because of who they are. “
Still, some are well known, including Lisa Lu, who played her grandmother in 2018’s “Crazy Rich Asians”. Other members include ex-beauty queen Margaret Gardiner, ex-Russian bodybuilder Alexander Nevsky, who is now an actor with roles in “low budget action films”, and Noel de Souza, a journalist from India who also played Mahatma Gandhi in a “Star Trek: Episode Voyager”.
The Golden Globe group’s lack of diversity is not the only controversy growing behind the scenes before the show, which airs on February 28.
Another explosive report stated that HFPA was presented with a five-star trip to France to visit the “Emily in Paris” set, which yielded an indication that many critics and fans considered it a shock. Even a writer on the Netflix show wrote an article stating that other great works, including “I May Destroy You”, deserved the nomination.