78th Golden Globe Awards Nominations

By Tharishi Hewavithanagamage

The awards season has arrived once again. The Globes mark the beginning of Hollywood’s awards season, which ends with the Oscars. Despite being delayed nearly two months due to the pandemic, and the organizers having to hold a virtual event, the nominations for the 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards were announced last week. This year’s nominees highlight and celebrate the shows everyone has been enjoying while in quarantine. Popular streaming service Netflix leads the list with 22 nominations, followed by Amazon. David Fincher’s ‘Mank’ topped the list with six nods, followed by ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ with five nominations. ‘The Crown’ topped the television category with six nominations followed by ‘Ozark’ with four. The late Chadwick Boseman received a posthumous nomination for his role in the Netflix film ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.’

This year the list of nominations had some of the biggest surprises and snubs.

Heading into the list of nominations, Black ensemble movies like ‘Da 5 Bloods,’ ‘One Night in Miami,’ ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ and even ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ didn’t garner many nominations as expected. Michael Coel’s critically acclaimed show ‘I May Destroy You’ was also left out of all the categories. Another egregious omission is ‘Minari’ which did not qualify for best picture despite being an American production. Although the film landed a nod in the best foreign language category, Steven Yeun and Youn Yuh-Jung, who had critically acclaimed performances in the film were left out in the cold. Alongside the Minari stars, ‘Lovecraft Country’ stars Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett and ‘The Mandalorian’ star Pedro Pascal were left on the sidelines.

Surprisingly Ryan Murphy’s ‘The Prom’ was nominated for best motion picture in the musical or comedy category and James Corden secured a nomination for best actor as well, despite the fact that the film received backlash for the ‘stereotypical’ portrayal of Barry Glickman, a gay man and Broadway star. Another surprise came as ‘Emily in Paris’ secured two nominations, although it too garnered backlash over the stereotypical portrayal of French people.

Perhaps the more interesting and noteworthy situation is that the Hollywood Foreign Press nominated more female filmmakers this time, than it had before.

The 78th Golden Globes will take place on February 28th virtually with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler returning to host the event for the fourth time.