I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the GOLDEN GLOBES ever since I was fortunate enough to attend a couple in person and to be part of history at once particularly game-changing one where Michael Chiklis stunned the experts and even us colleagues by copping a Best Actor upset and giving me the one chance I’ve had to date to hold one of those statuettes myself. But that win was to many beyond our little fiefdom tainted as the verdict came from an arguably insular and elitist small group of judges that our team strategically set out to cajole and curry favor with with militaristic precision. Only when the Emmys honored the show later that year were we seen by our competitors as a truly legitimate champion.
Now that the show has fallen into the hands of the aspiring oligarchy known as Penske Media, which includes the Dick Clark Productions entity that produces it as well as a compendium of trade publications that cover it intensely, it has become a far more transactional ceremony than ever. The domestic studios and platforms that have the most immediate need for validation flood the publications with ads in an emotional attempt to sway a voting constituency that despite all attempts to broaden it still nevertheless winds up as aberrative, a point THE WRAP’s Steve Pond was able to make on his unaffiliated website last night:
After losing their NBC deal to scandal and boycott, the Globes spent a couple of years coming up with a new model and a new crop of voters: In place of 90-odd full- and part-time journalists based in Los Angeles but writing for international publications, the new Golden Globes are made up of 399 critics, almost 90% of them based outside the U.S.
There’s more transparency around this group of voters, all of whom have their names, credits and bios available on the Globes website. But they’re international movie critics and journalists who don’t depend on L.A. junkets for their livelihood, so their votes often go to critics’ favorites instead of movies that will draw the biggest stars to the Beverly Hilton.
So in the Best Motion Picture – Drama category, an unprecedented three of the six nominees were non-English-language films, with “It Was Just an Accident” (Iranian) “Sentimental Value” (Norwegian) and “The Secret Agent” (Brazilian) all making the cut; in Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, the South Korean “No Other Choice” and the French-language “Nouvelle Vague” took two of the six slots.
It was perhaps that international skew–not to mention opportunistic corporate greed–that led to the omnipresence of Polymarket leading up and during the broadcast. As Jack Nicastro reported in the latest issue of REASON, much like the GLOBES itself, a disgraced establishment that had pivoted to international obscurity just happened to have an agenda timetable–and a pretty huge marketing budget–that aligned with the GLOBES’:
Nearly four years after being shut down by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the online betting company that allows you to stake money on future events has become CFTC-compliant and relaunched for U.S. residents at the end of 2025. Not everybody is thrilled about Polymarket’s return. Commentators across the political spectrum have warned that betting, on sports or on anything, can cause financial and psychological harm, especially for those with a history of addiction.
Shayne Coplan, an early ethereum investor and self-described cypherpunk, founded Polymarket in June 2020, when he was just 22 years old. The platform uses blockchain-backed smart contracts to operate “event markets”—futures-style markets where users bet on whether something will or will not happen. As Coplan has said, Polymarket “harness[es] the power of free markets to demystify the real world events that matter most to you” by using market prices to aggregate and transmit widely distributed knowledge—turning individual hunches into public information about the suspected likelihood of future events.
So what we got was a barrage of real-time super-imposing that ostensibly reflected public sentiment and alleged insights into vox populi, when the harsh truth is that it was more akin to the ambigious moving needles of game outcomes that dominate the secondary feeds of ESPN, Apple and Prime Video sports events that reflect little more than a bunch of addicts trying to score a few bucks by gaming an event–in this case, given the catching up that Polymarket has to do to gain footing with Kalshi, more likely they were looking to score a few Euros. I avoid those prompts when I’m watching sports, but I couldn’t get out the way of this onslaught. And I’d be REALLY suspect if someone tried to pass this sample off as representative.
We also had additional distractions in the form of ill-fated attempts to inject humor and snark from he otherwise humdrum role of the announcers, which DECIDER’s Meghan O’Keefe mirrored my reaction to:
Nikki Glaser might have brought the house down with her hilarious 2026 Golden Globes monologue, but the show’s two announcers are getting less than stellar early reviews on social media. Kevin Frazier, who held down CBS’s official Golden Globes red carpet show with fellow ET co-host Nischelle Turner, and Variety‘s Marc Malkin are playing the “Voice of God” at the 83rd Golden Globes.
If you’re noticing extra venom being directed Marc Malkin’s way, that’s probably because Variety’s Senior Culture & Events Editor went viral last week for asking Abbott Elementary star Janelle James a weird and awkward question about Heated Rivalry‘s Connor Storrie when he was interviewing both the morning they announced the Actor Awards nominations (aka formerly the SAG awards). Malkin learned that James had watched the steamy Heated Rivalry and asked her,”So when you look at Connor now, and you think about those scenes in Heated Rivalry —” “That’s not what I’m thinking about,” James said. “I’m thinking about his excellent Russian accent that he does. I’m thinking about his characterization. I’m thinking that he is adorable and he looks like a leading man. I’m excited to see where he goes next.”
So why is Marc Malkin there? Well, as Brian Ortega sagely pointed out on X, Malkin is a big wig at Penske-owned Variety and Penske also owns the Golden Globes. Frazier is there as part of synergy with CBS.
And, bluntly, Malkin’s over-the-top ‘tude that combined the worst qualities the deliveries of Ross Mathews and Will Arnett ruined many of the otherwise inspiring and sweet moments that some of the more surprising and inspiring wins of the night delivered. NBC NEWS rattled off a few of the show’s more sentimental moments:
- Netflix’s “Adolescence” dominated the TV categories, taking home four awards, including best TV limited series, anthology series or motion picture made for television. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which was nominated across nine film categories, also racked up four awards, including best motion picture (musical or comedy).
- Four-time nominee Timothée Chalamet won his first Golden Globe for “Marty Supreme,” the A24 film in which he depicts a fictionalized version of the career of mid-century table tennis champ Marty Reisman. In his acceptance speech, he thanked “partner” and his date tonight Kylie Jenner. On the TV side, “Pluribus” star Rhea Seehorn appeared overwhelmed when accepting her first Globe, thanking showrunner Vince Gilligan for creating the role for her.
Yet many others chose yet again to needlessly seize the moment to make political stands. Pond’s colleague Loree Seitz, given similar freedom of expression that a Penske-phile was denied, covered that angle:
Mark Ruffalo, Jean Smart, Natasha Lyonne and Wanda Sykes were among the A-lister nominees and attendees taking a stand against ICE at Sunday’s Golden Globes. In many cases, the actors walking the carpet at Sunday’s awards ceremony in Los Angeles wore black and white pins that read “ICE Out” and “Be Good” in honor Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week, as well as Keith Porter, who was killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve.