Golden Globes TV Review: Taylor Swift, Kevin Costner & “White People Roles” Help Ceremony Pick Up The Pace After Stumbling Start
A lot less boozy than the Golden Globes at its traditional best, the return of the once flatlining ceremony to broadcast TV on Sunday proves what every 12-step program participant knows: You got to start somewhere, but don’t get on Taylor Swift’s bad side.
Shifting to CBS after decades on NBC and up against a Buffalo Bills-Miami Dolphins showdown on Sunday Night Football, the Globes cut to superstar Swift’s reactions for a ratings boost almost as much as the NFL does when she’s in a stadium private box. Initially, those gauche efforts by the show and host Jo Koy earned a scowl and a swig of her drink from Swift at her table early on, but they doggedly kept at it.
More from Deadline
From that perspective, the biggest star in the ballroom and the world aside, the 81st Golden Globes’ main goal tonight may have simply been to prove to networks and advertisers they could pull it all off without offending everyone.
Sidestepping parts of Koy’s opening monologue and subsequent needless interstitials, the Globes succeed for the most part in the endeavor of not offending anyone. Meghan Markle was sadly missing from the shindig’s onstage Suits reunion, but turns out a more subdued Golden Globes may be the way for the once scandal ridden ceremony to find its way back to respectability.
On the other hand, who wants the veneer of respectability when you’re willing to do almost anything to get Swift to show up at the Beverly Hilton? They literally invented a new category tailor-made for Taylor. Yet, with all the successfully moves to get Swift to show up, perhaps the only true head-turner of the night besides Poor Things’ win over Barbie in the Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category was Barbie’s win in the new Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category over Swift’s The Eras Tour concert movie.
No love for the old Globes, but one big difference between this year’s ceremony and when the HFPA shamelessly ran the show is the latter would have made sure that if they got Swift in the room, she sure would have won. The old Globes would have had Swift onstage giving an acceptance speech and thanking them for believing in her. Don’t necessarily throw out all of the old school with the toxic bathwater, if you know what I mean?
In an echo of that, no wonder the Golden Globes’ cameras made sure to capture Barry’s Bill Hader and everyone else getting selfies with Swift during commercial breaks tonight. As the great Ray Romano said during his presenting stint with Keri Russell: “The truth is stupid, we’re in Hollywood, let’s just do what we do.”
Still, even with that and all the internal changes and new bosses, and the nomination-snubbed Harrison Ford’s presence at the 1923 table with co-star Helen Mirren, tonight’s return by the Globes to primetime and a bona fide network will not erase the stains on the ceremony and the now-defunct HFPA in one fell swoop. But let’s be honest, in a town where success breeds success, and everybody loves a good comeback story (and a platform to promote their projects), everyone has too much invested in the Globes literally and figuratively to really let them fail.
Facts being facts, coming off the lead-in of a sure-to-be-well-watched Kansas City Chiefs’ razor-thin victory over the Los Angeles Chargers just down the road from the Globes at SoFi Stadium, (which Swift did not attend because boyfriend Travis Kelce wasn’t playing), the likely ratings bump will certainly bleach out some of the old muck.
Unsurprising to almost all, it was a good night for Oppenheimer, Beef and its stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, The Bear and its stars Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, and The Holdovers’ Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. It was also a big night for almost everything Succession in the show’s last season, and a very big night and a truthfully self-described “historic win” for Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone. Despite the Best Picture – Musical or Comedy loss to the Emma Stone-starring Poor Things, it was still a big night for Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie’s Barbie. Big movies, big shows, big stars — that’s the way the Globes have always rolled.
Of course, this being backstabbing central Hollywood, not everyone wanted the Globes 2.0 to pull it off or even get up off the mat. A rival awards show or two may have loved to reclaim the space, the punters and uninvited may have wanted to stir things up in the hopes of grabbing some attention. (Hell, no fan of the now-dissolved HFPA myself, there are some who felt it was long overdue to take this horse off the track after NBC dumped the Globes in 2022.)
Sometimes it’s better to admit you’re wrong.
Not that you’d have known it at the beginning of tonight’s Globes. After whipping the camera Goodfellas-style down the red carpet at the start, the Globes looked to be heading for a faceplant with Koy’s monologue.
Not for the first time, thank God for Margot Robbie’s smile, which saved Koy’s floundering and initially very uncharacteristic earnest, white-bread remarks. It was only after that that the usually fearless Koy slagged the writers, read the ballroom and took a “the room is really white” swing that showed the well-heeled crowd were actually awake and pretty sober. A quick succession of Succession and The Crown cross-references, swipes at Tinseltown’s wide-spread Ozempic usage and love to “the GOAT” Meryl Steep and her fictional role in the Black Panther movies may have been not too much for the nominees and other guests, but it at least woke them up.
Insiders smirked at the cameras being ready to go to a head-shaking Ted Sarandos when Koy mocked the lucrative deal Prince Harry and Markle have with the streamer. On the most basic level, that’s just good production. It was a tactic that we saw again and again tonight; Globes producers Dick Clark Productions (which like the Globes are owned by Deadline’s parent company PMC) know in the age of social media and declining ratings that the seemingly simultaneous and unscripted sells the sizzle the best.
In that vein, Koy, who was named to the still thankless Globes gig before Christmas, tiptoed around the big changes the Globes have had to undergo in the last two years. Holding a Globes award for his Oppenheimer supporting role, Robert Downey Jr put the spotlight on the where things once were and where they could be going as only a man comfortable with his own resurrections and putting in the work can. “And lastly, Golden Globes journalists, thanks for changing your game therefore changing your name,” the well-loved actor said to the careening elephant in the ballroom. “Salute!”
Then again, taking off the crash helmet and kneepads, who really wants to be respectable when you can make Swift laugh as hard as Jim Gaffigan did with his joke about the “talented people” finally taking over from the “good-looking people” after 80 years of the Globes?
Who wants to be respectable when Daniel Kaluuya, Hailee Steinfeld and Shameik Moore roasted studio execs and AI with their C-Suite-penned deadpan introduction of Screenplay category. Who wants to be respectable when you can have a straight-faced Kevin Costner do a snippet of a Barbie monologue standing next to America Ferrera?
BTW: love how the Yellowstone-departing Costner chose to be introduced as “Golden Globe winner and director and star of Horizons: An American Saga Kevin Costner.” Never saw Costner as much of a public pugilist, but that sure was a sharp head-butt to the Taylor Sheridan franchise just a year after the actor won a Globe for his John Dutton III role.
At least now, even if they snubbed Reservation Dogs again, the now for-profit Globes has opened up the categories, nominees and presenters. Even with Will Ferrell’s mock outrage that “the Golden Globes have not changed,” that’s a step towards acknowledging the wider range of true talent and creativity that is behind some of the best the industry has to offer.
An effort now and forever known to some degree as getting “white people roles,” as Barbie’s Simu Liu and Issa Rae wonderfully put it in the night’s sharpest writing and best delivery.
That’s why they call it show business.
Just two things: Next time, pour everyone a double, and make it a bit naughty again.
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
