I’ll be honest. The news that the striking Writers’ Guild is officially going to picket the Golden Globes, thereby scaring away all the nominees and presenters, is really bumming me out.
Obviously it makes sense within the context of the strike (although WGA members are allowed to work on Letterman and the SAG Awards? Huh?), but it still seems like yet another example of this strike’s tendency toward Audience Punishment. I say this as someone who would race to his computer for a “2 Girls, 1 Cup” marathon before watching 5 seconds of NBC’s American Gladiators revival. (Speaking of which, I love that they’re marketing that show as a 300 ripoff, rather than the sorry excavation of early ’90s dross that it is.)
The Globes are stupid and trashy and, by all accounts, easily purchased. But we need them, especially in January, when a nation of loudmouthed heterosexuals are frothing over the NFL postseason. Isn’t this year’s entire awards season kind of like a Julie Christie postseason? Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan, Ellen Page and others all had really awesome and justly celebrated career breakthroughs this year, and I want to see how they look on the red carpet, dammit. Javier Bardem got a lot of attention for that terrible haircut he had in No Country for Old Men, and he deserves the opportunity to remind people that he looks really, really good in a tux.
So, even in the spirit of complete solidarity with the writers, I have to say that this sucks.
UPDATE, 1/7/08: NBC and the HFPA have somehow MacGuyvered a way to broadcast the awards show without actually broadcasting the awards show. Is it worth me staying home and getting ‘faced on champagne? Probably. But I’ll probably be flipping back and forth to the Desperate Housewives rerun on ABC.
Golden Globes, WGA at odds again [Variety]
Are you kidding? All awards shows are bullshit, barely better than the most fake of reality shows.