Globes blaze a path to greater diversity
Nominee selection highlights a reaction to last year’s OscarsSoWhite controversy
LOS ANGELES— With really good marketing and sheer force of will, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has, over the last decade, turned the Golden Globes from a scandal-riven booze fest into a highly rated, influential awards ceremony, a metamorphosis that has never been clearer than this year.
The diverse slate of film acting nominees it announced on Monday sent a clear, early message to Oscar voters dogged by the #OscarsSoWhite label: there can be no excuses this year.
Last year, when faced with criticism for yet another all-white slate of acting nominees, some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences argued that there simply had been too few non-white choices.
This year, the 85 voting members of the HFPA identified an array of possibilities that included nominating six black actors: Denzel Washington and Viola Davis for Fences, Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris for Moonlight, Ruth Negga for Loving and Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures. Also nominated: Lion’s Dev Patel, British-born to Indian parents.
Beyond that, Globes voters also took the opportunity to recognize a wide range of stories, saluting movies driven by women, such as Florence Foster Jenkins, which tells the true story of a New York socialite whose inability to sing didn’t stop her from trying, and 20th Century Women, a poignant look at a freethinking, independent mother raising her son beyond the bounds of convention.
Hidden Figures, a drama about the black women mathematicians who helped launch John Glenn into space, scored two nominations, including a nod for supporting actress Spencer.
“It is nice to have more inclusion — and inclusion across the board,” said Moonlight writer-director Barry Jenkins, whose coming-of-age drama received six nominations. “Looking at the types of movies nominated in the Best Picture categories, especially in this post-election world, it’s really this beautiful snapshot of what America is right now. And it’s not just a monolith. I think that’s the biggest statement.”
By casting its net wide, the Globes continued a trend. In the wake of January’s Oscars So White controversy, the SAG Awards and Emmy Awards ceremonies practically flaunted their inclusive sets of winners and nominees.
“Here in Hollywood, the only thing that we value more than diversity is congratulating ourselves on how much we value diversity,” Emmys host Jimmy Kimmel joked in his opening monologue at the September show. “I’ll tell you, the Emmys are so diverse this year, the Oscars are now telling people we’re one of their closest friends.”
Now the question is: Will film academy members follow suit?
“It’s not like voters are going to have to go out of their way to look for worthy names,” said veteran awards consultant Tony Angelotti. “There are a lot of bona fide candidates, not just fringe people who, if you vote for them, it might look like you’re just responding to the controversy. Every one of these people are great actors delivering strong performances.”
The Jan. 24 Oscar nominations will also be the first since the academy invited its largest and most diverse set of new members ever: 683 industry professionals, 46 per cent of them female and 41 per cent people of colour. What effect those newcomers might have on this year’s nominees remains to be seen, though many new members think that a shift in sensibility is inevitable.
“There’s a real art-house sensibility to this new class,” says German director Maren Ade, who joined this year. “They invited a lot of European filmmakers, as well as Asians too, people who see things and value things a bit differently, simply because they come from a different life experience.”
Sharing — and illuminating — that distinct life experience was the impetus for such films as Moonlight, the drama depicting three periods in the life of a young black man as he struggles with, and ultimately learns to accept, his gay identity. “I do think it’s one of these movies that has the ability to change the way people look at life and each other,” said Moonlight actress Harris, Golden Globe-nominated for playing the film’s drug addict mother.
Whether this year’s inclusiveness, which has yet to appreciably extend to Latino, Asian and other minority filmmakers, becomes the new normal or is a one-and-done aberration is open to debate. The 2017 release schedule is full of traditional, older-white-male-friendly titles, such as Christopher Nolan’s Second World War epic Dunkirk and Joe Wright’s Winston Churchill drama Darkest Hour.
But there’s also a drama about the 1967 Detroit riot directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who won the Oscar for The Hurt Locker. And there are likely a handful of smaller movies, such as Moonlight and The Birth of a Nation — the high-profile Sundance sensation about Nat Turner’s slave revolt that flamed out early — that are currently hidden in plain sight.
Having spoken to his indie filmmaker friends since the release of Moonlight and its subsequent success, Jenkins said he has heard whispers that studios and financiers might be increasingly open to distinct, diverse stories.
“I think that there’s an informal mandate that everyone is feeling right now,” Jenkins said.
“And I think great work — work that is needed — is going to come out of it.”