Hollywood is known as the place where the streets are paved with gold. However, the Golden Globe has been quite tarnished in the past several weeks. It definitely doesn’t shine the way it did back in the day—or perhaps its shine was always an illusion.
The HFPA came under fire right before it was to broadcast its 78th Golden Globes ceremony after it was reported that it didn’t have any Black members, and things got worse once it was later reported that its former president sent a racist email to organization members and that HFPA journalists would reject Black-led projects during press conferences.
On late Monday afternoon—after Netflix, Amazon Studios and WarnerMedia decided to cut relational ties with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA)—NBC announced that it would not be broadcasting the 2022 Golden Globes, with a “hopeful” outlook in airing the ceremony in January 2023. Shortly after that, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Tom Cruise, returned all three of his statuettes—Best Actor, Drama for Born on the Fourth of July, Best Actor, Comedy or Musical for Jerry Maguire and Best Supporting Actor for Magnolia—in protest of the HFPA. Whew...“Risky Business,” indeed.
“Regardless of the next air date of the Golden Globes, implementing transformational changes as quickly—and as thoughtfully—as possible remains the top priority for our organization,” HFPA board members released in an official statement sent to The Root on Monday evening. “We invite our partners in the industry to the table to work with us on the systemic reform that is long overdue, both in our organization as well as within the industry at large.”
In an attempt to reiterate that they were serious about reform in a timely manner, the non-profit organization laid out a specific timeline for their overhaul plan to be implemented between May 3 through August 2, with the ultimate goal of new HFPA members being onboarded by August.
Some of the plans enacted between this timeline include, but are not limited to “revise and approve new Code of conduct in consultation with Publicists and studios,” “publish Code of Conduct and establish Hotline for reporting of violations,” “Grants Officer and subcommittee of members continue work to increase support of internship, mentorship, and scholarship programs for students from underrepresented backgrounds interested in international journalism,” “new CEO/CFO and other Executive Team approved and engaged to manage HFPA” and “existing Board and Officers resign upon election of New Board and hiring of Executive Team.”
Following Cruise and NBC’s major announcements, there is a possibility of a domino effect occurring in Hollywood with more major celebrities, studios or networks speaking out...or perhaps, a larger domino effect that places a further spotlight on the entire institution of Hollywood. I guess we’ll see.
The full timeline outline of the HFPA upcoming reform plan is available to review at goldenglobes.com.