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Hollywood Foreign Press Cares About Foreigners, Black People
posted 01/16/2007
You watch the Golden Globes because everyone – well, everyone other than every year’s Best Supporting Actress winner – involved with the ceremony knows that it doesn’t matter.It’s a great opportunity to see star power at work: Actors shed their handlers and their Am-I-on-Access? demeanor, toss back a few, and start to exude the sort of charisma that reminds us why (before their careers turned into endless press junkets) these folks can be so watchable.
Unless they wind up in the uncomfortable I’m-not-going-to-win-so-make-that-another-double way Forest Whitaker was, tonight. Which is watchable for different reasons.
I’m not going to do a play-by-play like last year, but did want to offer a couple obvious observations as to how the creepy cabal known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association distributes its hardware. Here’s a complete list of winners:
Television:
ACTOR, MINISERIES/MOVIE – Bill Nighy, Gideon’s Daughter (Brit)
ACTRESS, MINISERIES/MOVIE – Helen Mirren, Elizabeth I (Brit)
SUPPORTING ACTOR – Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth I (Brit)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Emily Blunt, Gideon’s Daughter (Brit)
MINISERIES/MOVIE – Elizabeth I (HBO movie co-produced by U.K. Channel Four, about the British monarch, filmed in Lithuania)
ACTOR, COMEDY – Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock (Baldwin-American)
ACTRESS, COMEDY – America Ferrera, Ugly Betty (Hispanic-American)
SERIES, COMEDY – Ugly Betty (based on a Columbian telenovela, produced by Mexican actress Selma Hayek and Cuban-American Silvio Horta)
ACTOR, DRAMA – Hugh Laurie, House (Brit)
ACTRESS, DRAMA – Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer (Bacon-American)
SERIES, DRAMA – Grey’s Anatomy (really?)
Film
ORIGINAL SCORE – Alexandre Desplat, The Painted Veil (French)
ORIGINAL SONG – “Song of the Heart,” Happy Feet (by Prince – African-American, Minnesotan)
ANIMATED FILM – Cars (Pixar-American)
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM – Letters From Iwo Jima (USA/Japan, directed by Clint Eastwood)
SCREENPLAY – Peter Morgan, The Queen (Brit)
DIRECTOR – Martin Scorsese, The Departed (New Yorker)
SUPPORTING ACTOR – Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls (African-American, sometime animated donkey)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls (African-American, former American Idol contestant)
ACTOR, COMEDY/MUSICAL – Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Brit playing a Kazakh; bonus: Jew)
ACTRESS, COMEDY/MUSICAL – Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada (plays a character based on Anna Wintour, who is British)
ACTOR, DRAMA – Forest Whitaker, Last King of Scotland (African-American playing an Ugandan dictator; also, Scotland is in the title)
ACTRESS, DRAMA – Helen Mirren, The Queen (Brit)
MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY/MUSICAL – Dreamgirls (singing, dancing African-Americans)
MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA – Babel
CECIL B. DeMILLE AWARD – Warren Beatty (Communist)
Babel, from the Mexican writer/director team of Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro Iñárritu, was filmed (according to its IMDB page) in Mexico, Morocco, Japan, and Sáñ Dìégo; it features scenes in Arabic, Berber, English, French, Japanese, Japanese sign language and Spanish. Its award was handed out by Austrian-born California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The first time he said the film’s name, he pronounced it “Barbell.”
I think the deaf Japanese contingent within the HFPA put that one over the top.
My point is: The whitest, male-est American to win was the director of the Best Foreign Language Film. Either the HFPA (and therefore, the world!) hates us, or society’s making a very conscious effort to make up for the 1940s. When every winner in every category was a white American male. And/or Rosalind Russell.
Come on! Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts are every bit as lovely as America Ferrara’s! And Ghost Whisperer is almost twice as funny as Ugly Betty.
A few other things:
Watching Martin Scorsese win a Golden Globe? Depressing.
Jack: It’s starting to get a little sad. But you’re in good company. That entire generation of actors is starved for dignity. Nicholson, DeNiro, Hoffman, Pacino? Yikes. What happened? Mark Wahlberg has more dignity in his little...
Hugh Laurie, underutilized on Black Adder.
Dane Cook? Did I accidentally sit on the remote?
Does Tom Hanks even know Warren Beatty? Hanks is such a great actor I could almost see the receipt for the sledgehammer that was used to write his speech.
Helen Mirren, enough. An award for playing each Elizabeth? You’re confusing high school students everywhere. No more regal roles for you, missy, unless it’s a remake of Kind Hearts and Coronets. Or The Cook, The Thief, Queen Elizabeth, and the Other Queen Elizabeth.
YES? YOU THERE IN THE BACK? (4)
1. d left...
01/16/2007 2:18 pm :: http://www.softcommunication.blogspot.co
Favorite moment: Streep pronouncing the title of Almodovar's new film
"Vulva."
2. mjrc left...
01/18/2007 5:01 pm :: http://lostinyourinbox.blog-city.com
how come your pictures are loading and mine aren't? i mean, i don't
begrudge you your pictures' loading, it's just that i'm a little envious.
3. J____ left...
01/18/2007 5:15 pm :: http://heartonastick.blog-city.com/
MJ, do you store your pictures in your Blog-City file space? If that's the
case, check your blog's inbox; there's a server down over there. I use
Photobucket and Flckr for photos...
4. mjrc left...
01/18/2007 9:53 pm
i knew about the problem with the server. now they're blaming the weather
and the london traffic for the delay in fixing it! that makes sense about
your pictures, i forgot you use flicker, etc. i do use b-c.