Change comes to the Golden Globes, 2 years after an internal overhaul

Historically regarded (and derided) as a fluffy, disjointed ceremony, the Golden Globes have spent the past few years trying to course-correct. 

A new owner arrived in 2023, and subsequently barred the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) from the annual gala's voting process, following allegations of corruption and a general perception that it was out of step. 

The intended result was a less shallow, more international Golden Globes that, in the words of pop culture reporter Kevin Fallon, don't just hand out "trophies to the most famous person in the room."

It's a vision that Sunday's show might have brought a step closer.

Fallon, who is both editor of The Daily Beast's Obsessed and co-president of the TV branch of the Critics Choice Association, says there's now "a real weight and gravitas to the award that didn't exist before."

It was the second gala since the HFPA was disbanded, but the first that seemed to show the effect of all the changes behind the scenes.

Case in point, it was a huge night for The Brutalist, the three-and-half-hour story about an immigrant architect, and Emilia Pérez, the genre-bending Spanish-language crime-story musical about a transgender woman in love. 

Rachel Ho, a Toronto film critic and Globe voter since 2022, says things have tightened up since the HFPA was disbanded. The old voting body had been sharply criticized for accepting lavish gifts — including a full European vacation from the production company behind 2020's critically ignored Emily in Paris, which got a Globe nomination.

Now, says Ho, the types of items voters are allowed to receive is strictly controlled. Only things directly related to the movies and shows in question are allowed, and then only if they relate to a category in which the production is eligible.

That meant, for example, when the production company behind Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio wanted to send coffee table books highlighting the film's imagery and visual effects to her critics' group, the offer was nixed —  they weren't voting on cinematography awards. 

The new organizers "are really strict about these types of things in terms of what gifts we're allowed to receive, what type of relationship that we as journalists have with different publicists who contact us," she said.

But there was another course correction. Before 2022, the Golden Globes didn't have a single Black member eligible to vote. Now, the field has widened, ballooning from roughly 85 total members under the HFPA to over 330 today, 11 per cent of which are Black, say organizers. According to the Globes' website, 47 per cent are female, ranging from 85 countries and 60 per cent are racially and ethnically diverse.

That change is "reflected in the films that get nominated and in the films that actually win," Ho said.

Ho herself was sought out as an international voting member after the HFPA scandal, set off largely after a 2021 L.A. Times investigation, which outlined the lack of Black-led stories in a year somewhat defined by them: Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Judas and the Black Messiah were all left off the nominations list.