Before the sun rose on the morning of Dec. 9, 2019, Hollywood was abuzz with the official start of 2020’s awards season! Susan Kelechi Watson, Tim Allen and Dakota Fanning gathered at the Beverly Hilton and announced the nominees for the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards.
Let’s get right to this shit.
Nominees
Cynthia Erivo landed a big one, scoring a Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture - Drama nomination for Harriet. Erivo also nabbed a Best Original Song - Motion Picture nom for her song, “Stand Up.”
Eddie Murphy thankfully got his flowers, claiming a Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy nomination for Dolemite Is My Name.
Ramy Youssef (who is of Egyptian descent) scored a Best Performance By An Actor In A Television Series - Musical or Comedy for Ramy. Also representing for Egyptians is Rami Malek, who nabbed a Best Performance By An Actor In A Television Series - Drama for Mr. Robot.
You can call Beyoncé Knowles Carter a 2020 Golden Globe nominee, as one of the two noms for The Lion King includes Best Original Song - Motion Picture for “Spirit” (the other nom for the film is Best Motion Picture - Animated).
In television, Billy Porter is continuing his triumphant awards season with his Best Performance By An Actor In A Television Series - Drama nomination for Pose.
Netflix topped both the film and television categories for distributors/networks, earning a total of 17 nominations. For a non-legacy streaming platform to be dominating in this way is pretty damn impressive.
Snubs
Whew chillay, were there snubs.
Before I begin, there is one important fact to note: Unlike other voting academies (such as the Primetime Emmys), who cut off the eligibility period within a calendar year, the rules designated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) state the motion picture (which, includes motion pictures made for theatrical and televised viewings) must be screened “for the active membership in the greater Los Angeles Area during the qualifying year (January 1 through December 31).”
The most obvious and glaring snub has to be the complete shut-out of When They See Us. The keyword in the HFPA is “press” and there was no better marketing campaign tool than the press for this highly acclaimed limited series. You couldn’t surf the internet without seeing that the series broke records on Netflix and introduced the story of The Exonerated Five to mass audiences. So, to see not one nomination (not even Jharrel Jerome?!) is preposterous. But, then again, DuVernay already spoke on how the press failed those five men in the first place.
Also, where is awards season darling Lupita Nyong’o for her masterful performance in Us?
Keeping those calendar year eligibility rules in mind, where the fuck is the love for Watchmen and Euphoria?!
These are huge snubs and the one aspect each of these things have in common is glaringly obvious. When do they see us? When it’s trendy or when they’re feeling charitable enough to toss all of the blackity black awards into one awards season so that that can go back to regularly scheduled white programming (save for some sprinkles of color in big categories such as Ana de Armas, Awkwafina, Antonio Banderas, Jennifer Lopez and Bong Joon Ho)? This is never surprising as it happens all the time, but each time it happens is like throwing salt in the wound.
Anyway.
Congrats to the nominees!
To check out the complete list of Golden Globe nominees, head to goldenglobes.com. Ricky Gervais will host the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards which will air live on NBC Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 at 8:00 p.m. EST/5:00 p.m. PST.