Before the Golden Globes nominations announcement officially kicked off a few minutes past the totally-not-ungodly hour of 5 a.m. Pacific, Dick Clark Productions executive vp television Barry Adelman was heard reviewing Globes president Helen Hoehne’s teleprompter copy, murmuring the phrase “most culturally diverse major awards body” over and over again.
Diversity — or the lack thereof among its voting body — was what led to the awards show losing its 2022 telecast and to the dissolution of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association this summer. The Globes’ new owners — DCP and Eldridge (DCP is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that also owns The Hollywood Reporter) — want to emphasize that the awards organization has turned over a new leaf. “This has been a year of exciting change for the Golden Globes,” Hoehne said in her opening remarks, invoking the language Adelman reviewed earlier. “Not only are we starting a new partnership with CBS network, but our voting body has grown to 300 members from 75 countries, making the Golden Globes the most culturally diverse major awards body.”
But when it comes to nominations, the Globes have never been more or less glaringly lacking in diversity than any of the other televised Hollywood prizes. In terms of the 81st annual Golden Globes, 72 of the 90 performance nomination slots went to non-Hispanic white people, including four full categories (female actor in a TV drama, male actor in a TV musical or comedy and both TV supporting actor categories).
Killers of the Flower Moon leading lady Lily Gladstone received a nomination, following in the footsteps of 1995 best actress in a miniseries/TV movie nominee Irene Bedard (Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee); the Globes proudly claims it was the only awards body to recognize an Indigenous performer for playing an Indigenous role.
Beef’s co-headliners Steven Yeun and Ali Wong are the first two performers of Asian descent to be nominated in the limited series categories; this year’s other Asian nominees are Past Lives lead actress Greta Lee and May December supporting actor Charles Melton, as well as Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song (a double nominee for directing and screenplay) and The Boy and the Heron composer Joe Hisaishi.
Eight Black actors and three comedians received Golden Globe nominations: Rustin leading man Colman Domingo, American Fiction star Jeffrey Wright, The Color Purple headliner Fantasia Barrino, supporting actresses Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers), TV comedy lead actresses Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary) and Ayo Edebiri (The Bear), Lawmen: Bass Reeves star David Oyelowo; and stand-up comics Trevor Noah, Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes.
Domingo is also one of the few Latino performers to score a Globes nomination, after a relative boom in Globes nominees of Latin American descent last year. He joins The Last of Us leading man Pedro Pascal and Only Murders in the Building co-headliner Selena Gomez, as well as potentially Wright, who has said that he shares some Dominican ancestry.
The most diverse category in this year’s Golden Globes is its newest: stand-up comedy performance on television. The six-person race features only one white man — frequent past Globes host Ricky Gervais — alongside two white Jewish women (Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman), two Black men (Noah and Rock) and one Black woman (Sykes). But they all share the most classic characteristic of a Globes nomination: They are all big celebrities.
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