Analysis: Does The Untelevised Golden Globes Have Any Impact On Movies And Television?

The 79th Annual Golden Globe Awards were presented Sunday night in a ceremony that could be described as the ultimate antithesis of a Hollywood awards show: No celebrities were in attendance to hand out or receive the trophies and the event was without media attendance.

Backstory: The bare-bones event was the result of the entertainment industry’s response to several scandals that engulfed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the sponsor of the awards, including reports on the absence of Black membership within the association and influence-peddling by would-be nominees.

NBC, the Comcast Corporation CMCSA unit that has the broadcast rights to the awards show, opted not to put the event on the air this year while all of the on-screen and behind-the-camera talent nominated for the awards chose not to attend.

Still, the HFPA took a show-must-goes-on attitude by hosting a private function for its membership and announcing the winners via press release.

The Big Screen Winners: The Golden Globes divides its awards between film and television, with the cinematic honors often providing a bellwether on what to expect from the Academy Awards later in the season.

Netflix’s NFLX “The Power of the Dog” won the Best Picture (Drama) prize, with Jane Campion winning Best Director and Kodi Smit-McPhee named Best Supporting Actor. “West Side Story” from the Walt Disney Co.’s DIS 20th Century Studios won Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) for Rachel Zegler and Best Supporting Actress for Ariana DeBose.

Will Smith won Best Actor (Drama) for “King Richard” from AT&T’s T Warner Bros. and Andrew Garfield won Best Actor (Musical or Comedy) for Amazon’s AMZN “Tick, Tick…Boom!” Another Amazon film, “Being the Ricardos,” scored a Best Actress (Drama) win for Nicole Kidman.

Disney won the Best Animated Film Award for “Encanto” while Warner Bros.’ “Dune” won the Best Original Score Award for Hans Zimmer. Kenneth Branagh won the Best Screenplay Award for “Belfast” from Comcast’s Focus Features and the theme song from the James Bond epic “No Time to Die” from MGM/United Artists Releasing won Best Original Song.

The Japanese film “Drive My Car” from Janus Films was named Best Foreign Language Film. “Drive My Car” had previous won the Best Picture Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics, but was not nominated for Best Picture by the Golden Globes.

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The Small Screen Winners: In the television categories, “Succession” from AT&T’s HBO was named Best Drama Series while HBO Max won the Best Musical or Comedy Series Award with “Hacks.” “Succession” also won a Best Actor (Drama) award for Jeremy Strong and a Best Supporting Actress Award for Sarah Snook while Jean Smart won Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) Award for “Hacks.”

“The Underground Railroad” from Amazon Prime Video was named Best Limited Series. And Netflix’s sleeper sensation “The Squid Game” won a Best Supporting Actor Award for O Yeong-su.

Analysis: On the film side, the year’s commercial blockbusters — including Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and all of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe titles — were conspicuously absent from the nominations. Indeed, box office results played no impact in choosing the award winners: “West Side Story” and “King Richard” were among the 2021’s most surprising commercial disappointments while “The Power of the Dog,” “Being the Ricardos” and “Tick, Tick…BOOM!” each had very limited theatrical releases before reaching wider audiences via streaming.

The HFPA appeared to be cognizant to earlier complaints over the lack of diversity in its nominees and winners: Smith, Zegler, DeBose, “The Underground Railroad,” O Yeong-su and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, the transgender performer who won Best Actress in a Drama for the FX series “Pose,” brought more diversity than usual to the Golden Globes winners’ circle.

“The Squid Game” was notable as the first non-English-language production nominated for any of the Golden Globes’ television awards. The Korean production took advantage of an update to the awards’ bylaws that enabled nominations of foreign television programs provided that they are co-produced — both financially and creatively — with a U.S. partner. In the case of “The Squid Game,” Netflix’s role as the series’ producer allowed for its inclusion among the nominees.

Photo: Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in "Being the Ricardos." Photo courtesy of Amazon.