Trigger warning: Some of the movies/shows addressed in this article include descriptions of sexual assault.
The 2021 Golden Globe nominations came out on February 3 on ABC’s website and were met with mixed reviews. Like any avid movie and TV fan, I have lots of thoughts and feelings about the nominations. I will start with the good, because all is not hopeless in the world.
Out of the five director nominations, three were women: Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman,” Regina King for “One Night in Miami,” and Chloe Zhao for “Nomadland.” Furthermore King and Zhao are women of color, further diversifying the category, which has of course historically been dominated by white men.
Chadwick Boseman was posthumously nominated for best actor in a drama motion picture for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which delighted audience members and longtime fans of Boseman especially after his death in August 2020. I personally was delighted to see Andy Samburg nominated for his role in “Palm Springs” on Hulu, which I highly recommend to anyone who loves a time loop movie and the beach.
“Schitt’s Creek” was nominated for best comedy TV show as well as every member of the fictional Rose family being nominated either main or supporting actor/actress and rightly so. Catherine O’Hara as Moira Rose is the best thing that has happened to comedy television and I will not accept any questions about it.
Now I need to address the casualties of the nominees. One of the biggest snubs of the season was the shut-out of the HBO drama “I May Destroy You,” as well as the main star, writer, and producer Michaela Coel. Reviews of the show are, for the most part, overwhelmingly positive, emphasizing the relatable storyline and the overall tone of the show, as well as what should be, as The New York Times described, Coel’s award-winning performance.
“I May Destroy You” follows Coel as Arabella, an aspiring writer who goes out one night and then wakes up again at her laptop with only a memory of a man looming over her in a bathroom stall. I personally have not seen the show, but I understand the significance of having a show about the aftermath of a sexual assault especially from the voice of a Black woman.
Coel is best known from her comedic Netflix show “Chewing Gum,” but after Coel was sexually assaulted herself, she wrote “I May Destroy You” and helped direct and produce it as well. Not only was Coel not nominated for best actress in a drama TV series, “I May Destroy You” was not nominated for anything at all, a true tragedy today when audiences need to lift up and elevate victims’ voices.
Another snub was Spike Lee’s Vietnam War movie “Da 5 Bloods” which follows four Black Vietnam veterans going back to Vietnam to find the gold they buried during the war. Lee used different actors as the younger versions for each main cast member for the flashback scenes, showing a degree of separation between past and present. The late Chadwick Boseman appears in another great role in this movie.
The biggest impact, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, of “Da 5 Bloods” is the light shed on Black voices during the Vietnam War. Hollywood has historically shown predominantly White voices in movies about Vietnam, so Lee using an almost fully Black cast shows an underrepresented side of the war. Lee also has been praised for his depiction of people in Vietnam after the war and their voices and feelings after the destruction and hardship they faced.
According to the Golden Globes website, a film with 51% of the dialogue in another language than English is put in the foreign film category. “Minari,” a movie following a Korean family as they move to Arkansas and try to live out the American dream, is predominantly in Korean, so it is in the foreign film category, according to Variety and Rotten Tomatoes.
However, “Minari”' is an American movie. The movie itself is about the American experience of immigrants and shows the real world aspects of immigrant life in 1980s America. Despite being publicly released on February 12, critics praise the family aspect of the movie and its depiction of American life. People are now crying out that “Minari” should have been nominated for best picture instead of foreign film for its artful topic, cinematography, and overall performances.
Now there are two actual nominees that should leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. James Corden was nominated for his role in the Netflix musical movie “The Prom,” which was overall met with mixed reviews. Corden has been criticized by outlets like the Los Angeles Times for what they see as a stereotypical and offensive portrayal of a gay character. Corden is straight and played a gay lead role in a movie that is about gay rights in America. People were originally upset at the movie release and are now further riled up at Corden’s nomination.
The other biggest joke of this award season revolves around the Netflix show “Emily in Paris,” according to just about every news source like Buzzfeed or The New York Times. If you haven’t seen it, you have not missed anything. Not only was Lily Collins nominated for best lead actress in a TV series musical or comedy, but the show itself was nominated for best comedy or musical TV series.
Collins did a fine job as Emily, but her performance, and the show as a whole, was nothing to write home about. It was not an award winning show.“Emily in Paris” is a fluff of a show with no emotional impact on any viewer, especially those who have been to Paris.
This year's Golden Globes nominations were a true mix of hope and disappointment. Let’s just hope that the winners are worthy of the award.