SETH MEYERS
How’d he do in his first stint hosting the Golden Globes?
It was always going to be a different kind of awards show.
How could the 2018 Golden Globes — the first major awards since Hollywood was rocked by a series of sexual harassment, assault and misconduct allegations — be business as usual? It was different starting with the red carpet, where nominees and others wore black as a symbol of protest and solidarity with harassment victims. So how do you follow that up with a monologue?
Host Seth Meyers, at least, had it mostly figured out.
NBC’s Late Night host took the stage for the first time, kicking off an awards season in the middle of a cultural upheaval. It’s not exactly a task that comes with a playbook, as he noted in a shoutout to the “hosts of other upcoming award shows who are watching me like the first dog shot into outer space.”
If the other hosts were nervous for Meyers, they shouldn’t have been. The comedian managed to find just the right tone for his quick opening monologue, which moved easily between smart (and appropriate) jokes about the harassment allegations to the usual jests about the year’s crop of nominees to a frequent recipient of his barbs, President Trump.
After kicking off with a pointed “Good evening ladies and remaining gentlemen,” Meyers addressed the allegations head on, rather than skirting around the topic. Some of the jokes didn’t land entirely, including one criticizing Kevin Spacey, who has been accused of sexual misconduct and assault, for his House of Cards Southern accent, but Meyers was able to recover. “Was that too mean? To Kevin Spacey?”
The host also wisely brought a segment from Late Night, “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” to the ceremony, aptly suited for a night when women were making a big statement on the red carpet. Instead of handing off to two women writers from his show as usual, Meyers handed the mike to a variety of women in the audience, including Insecure’s Issa Rae and former Globes host Amy Poehler, who took the opportunity to rib her former Saturday Night Live cast mate.
If Meyers found a good balance, the rest of the show seemed a little shakier. Some winners, including Big Little Lies stars Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern, ref- erenced the #MeToo movement in their acceptance speeches. For others, it was business as usual, thanking fellow nominees, family and handlers. And some on stage were just odd, as when James Franco — after winning for The Disaster Artist — brought the quirky director of the infamously bad film The Room, Tommy Wiseau, onstage with him. ( Disaster is about the making of that film).
In a cultural moment as fraught as this one, an awards show can’t be everything to everyone. But as a host, Meyers did his best to make it work, with some help from the winners. His performance wasn’t perfect, but it set a high bar for the rest of awards season, and repeat Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel.
Meyers promoted the Globes by saying Hollywood had a lot to talk about, and he definitely got the conversation started.