Actresses Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the 78th annual Golden Globe awards, a celebration of the best films, productions and performances of the past year. This year’s awards ceremony was held virtually, with nominees zooming into the show from the comfort of their own home. Some nominees still approached the awards show seriously, donning glamorous suits and dresses that highlight the latest fashion trends, while others took the whole virtual aspect into full effect by showing up in simple sweats and a hoodie. Despite the obvious setbacks a virtual ceremony would entail, the entire program was extremely well coordinated, and audiences were still able to engage and hear from their favorite movie makers.
Fey and Poehler did an excellent job hosting the show, and their on-point comedic timing provided a much more optimistic outlook on the state of Hollywood, amidst multiple movies having to be pushed back from COVID-19 restrictions. It’s difficult to host a virtual ceremony, and much more difficult when you considered that they were in completely different places during the entire program. Fey hosted from the Rainbow Room in New York, while Poehler was in Beverly Hills, but that didn’t stop them from putting together an impressive performance throughout the night.
Since theaters were closed for the majority of 2020, most awards that were being nominated were for projects released on streaming services, as winners were distributed across Netflix, Disney + and Amazon Prime Video. Not only was this an opportunity to recognize the outstanding work moviemakers have gone through over the past year, but it also allowed audiences to be introduced to a plethora of content they may not have been familiar with. There were multiple movies that weren’t mainstream or heavily marketed but still managed to win a coveted golden globe trophy.
The most prominent award of the night – best drama film – went to “Nomadland,” which documents the journey of a homeless woman (Frances McDormand) through the American West. Nomadland was a lesser known movie that wasn’t heavily marketed, didn’t have an extremely notable cast, and wasn’t backed by a war chest budget, but instead, told the humble truth on adversity and homlessness through a beautiful, yet relatable, narrative. Director of Nomadland and NYU alumni Chloe Zhao, became just the second woman to ever receive the ‘best director’ award, after Barbara Streisand’s “Yentl” in 1984. It was an emotional moment for Zhao, and really captivated all the hard work that goes on behind the scene for every movie that is made.
One name that again resurfaced to eminence on the night was actor and comedian Sacha Cohen Baron, who not only won the award for ‘best comedy actor’, but was involved in two different films that each won a golden globe trophy. Baron’s performance in “Borat’s Subsequent Movie Film,” nailed him as the best comedy actor, but the film itself also won ‘best comedy or musical.’ Additionally, Baron also starred in Netflix’s historical drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which won an award for best screenplay, presented to director and writer Aaron Sorkin.
On the television side of the night, awards were dominated by three different shows: “The Queen’s Gambit,” “Schitt’s Creek,” and “The Crown.” Multiple awards were won for each of those series, and for the individual actors and actresses that starred in them as well.
Ultimately, the program was extremely successful and captivated how COVID-19 restrictions and delays in production schedule didn’t hinder the resilience and hard-working nature of Hollywood and filmmaking. With that being said, many shows and movies were postponed to 2021 for release, so expect a slew of exciting films, shows, and performances to come for next year’s Golden Globe awards.
