In (partial) defence of Jo Koy’s comedic disaster: hosting the Golden Globes is far harder than it looks
When are we going to get over the idea that hosting a huge awards ceremony is a great gig for a comedian and – an even crazier notion – an easy one? The response to Golden Globes host Jo Koy is both surprising and not surprising. “Maybe the Golden Globes … don’t need a host, actually?” Rude. “Jo Koy bombs.” Mean. And the real kicker: “Taylor Swift unimpressed.”
Why surprising? Because surely no one seriously imagines that a phalanx of Hollywood superstars in Spanx and borrowed Cartier jewellery makes for a relaxed and up-for-it crowd. It should be more of a story when awards hosts make a room rock with belly laughs, especially when the room in question is full of celebrities who are notoriously humourless and would probably never go to a standup gig in real life.
But the reaction is also not remotely surprising. Because everyone lovesit when a comedian bombs. It activates some kind of primordial schadenfreude gene. As a comedian, your job on stage can go one of two ways: you make people forget how awful life is by making them laugh, or you make them remember how greattheir life is because they are not living yours and they are not you, dying on stage. Either way, it’s an important public service.
After the event, it’s pointless trying to contend that the material was actually not that bad (which it wasn’t), or that Koy’s delivery had its moments of charm and professionalism (which it did). Because comedy eludes analysis, justification or explanation: it’s either funny in the moment or it’s not. And there’s no arguing with tumbleweed, or its deadly celeb equivalent: Taylor Swift on camera, taking the tiniest of dainty sips of her drink.
A lot of comedy is about context and establishing who you are in relation to the audience. So in some ways Koy’s stint is more impressive than recent Golden Globes bookings, because his work would not have been especially familiar to a lot of the audience in the room or at home. This is why highstatus performers like Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Kimmel or Chris Rock have a natural “buy-in” when they walk on stage: there’s a ready-made expectation of where they will take things.
You can work with that and you can subvert it. Gervais has often played these hosting gigs almost with the express intention of explicitly eliciting gasps of horror or intakes of breath rather than cosy laughs – and it works because you know he intended it.
In Koy’s defence, while the hunt for a host was on, a celebrity publicist told