Land of the Golden Global Misfit Toys

Land of the Golden Global Misfit Toys

Geez, why didn’t they just defecate on the American flag while they were at it?

Thanks to the wonders of Tivo, I skipped a piece of somewhat useful television (“24”) for the mindless fashion show and massive suck ‘n’ blow fest known as the Golden Globe Awards last weekend. If there is one thing I can watch the Golden Globes for, it is the occasional on-stage silliness which you just don’t see at the Oscars – think Jim Carrey talking out of his ass or Jack Nicholson just, well, talking. I guess I could find two moments in the 63rd edition (albeit about the 8th that anyone actually bothers to pay attention to for reasons that still prove elusive) that were worth 30 seconds of my time – Steve Carell’s “wife-penned” acceptance speech (although the joke got rather tired pretty quick) and Harrison Ford’s presenter appearance in a solid state of inebriation (alas, my hopes that he’d come out with a Moet sticker on his forehead – as a mockery of all the oversized bottles prominently placed on every table for maximum TV exposure – were dashed.)

The rest was really sick – even for the band of morons that put this thing together. I mean, seriously, if the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the rag-tag group of celebrities that fawn for them in exchange for generous gift bags, plentiful booze, a gourmet meal and we don’t want to know what else have it in for George Bush’s America – he of the two majority Presidencies and the party that control all three branches of Government supported by record numbers of voters – why can’t they all just move to some nice tolerable place like Venezuela? Okay, so the venue would be a tent instead of the Beverly Hilton, the pricey chairs would be replaced by the finest bamboo, and everybody would be spending more time watching out for rebel bullet fire instead of stroking assorted limbs on Steven Spielberg for a part in his next movie (which could be an autobiography featuring David Strathairn playing middle-age Steven based on what I saw on the show). But, hey, no politics to whine about, right?

Right at the start, we got treated to Queen Latifah prattling on with some crap about the awards being on Martin Luther King Day and how her just-released movie “Lost Holiday” (note how most of the non-TV actors were introduced as shills for what they will be in as opposed to any good work they have done?) personifies the African-American dream? Really? Hey Queenie (?), I don’t know about you but I don’t know any African-American that dreams of being told that they’ll be dead in three weeks so they might as well blow every nickel they have on crap like 5-star ski trips instead of contributing to society (including their own families). Mike Tyson might come close but nobody gave him weeks to live before he blew his millions and ended up in bankruptcy court – he just needed Don King and a posse of hundreds leaching off him to do that. Then we get the first award, best supporting actor (just the Golden Globes duplicating the order of awards from the Oscars, folks) George Clooney opening with a Jack Abramoff joke which, because George has been too busy dribbling basketballs in Italy to notice, I’ll kindly remind him that i) nobody outside of the Beltway politicians and TV commentators in Washington D.C. know who the hell Jack Abramoff is or was nor cares, and ii) he'll be accused of paying off about as many Democrats as Republicans. Then he continues on with some crap about “Syriana” writer Stephen Gaghan deserving praise for tackling a subject so few are willing to talk about. After all, big oil conspiracies have been tossed in dozens of Hollywood pablum going back at least 20 years so it’s so rare. Heck, George, you were in one yourself seven years ago (“Three Kings”).

George, you know why you won? Because the Southern California-resided “international” members of the HFPA decided from their beach houses that America is all rotten (except when their home nations need money, weapons, or other forms of protection in which case they line up and do their best Monica Lewinsky-under-Bill-Clinton’s-desk imitations) and all that is good about the world and should be emulated comes from France (home of the rioting Arabs, non-stop national strikes that need the riot police, and a national defence plan which calls for the whole nation to come out with surrender flags and appease the enemy the minute they do an aircraft “sortie”, even if by accident.) So, at a time when Americans are embracing trade liberalization (except for the backwoods tree company executives and the odd auto union loony – although the latter is keeping their mouths more shut now that the Big 3 can’t afford to give them all $100K-a-year jobs to screw lug nuts into car doors anymore), and moral and ethical values (excluding, in the latter case, Wall Street where the baron robbers of manufacturing have finally realized that more pockets can be picked, with fewer consequences, in finance), look what the HFPA dishes the awards to – movies that crap on free enterprise (“Syriana” and “The Constant Gardener” which blames the ills of the world on “big oil” and “big pharmacy” respectively) or embrace immoral fringe behavior such as trans-sexuality (“Transamerica”) or the you-gotta-be-kidding-me gay cowboy scenario (“Brokeback Mountain” which is kind of offensive in itself. Why are Hollywood and the mainstream press so infatuated with the “gay cowboy” tag instead of what it really is – a heck of a good romance?) Oh, and in an attempt to be “trendy”, they give the foreign film prize to an entry from Palestine which gave us all a speech from the filmmakers about hoping the award would help to give Palestinians their “liberty” (I’d like to assume this would be in Jordan which, despite being about 80 percent of the population affords them a treatment that makes the policies of Apartheid in Old Africa look like paradise by comparison but I’ll bet I’m wrong.) Mind you, that speech brought the most neutered applause of the night, probably because an ungodly slew of Hollywood studio heads were looking for which celebs could kiss their careers goodbye if they showed more than passive enthusiasm to this (the point where you’d probably find Ed Harris under his table pretending to look for a dropped fork or something.) Oh yes, and they a love-in for “Walk the Line”. How divine. The far better “Ray” nails one award but since they don’t know too much about soul across the pond, they get their yah-yah’s out for rockin’ country. How racially tolerant…

Even so, the winners were stunningly predictable. Once the tone was set early on, I got so good at it that the missus was barking “would you stop already?” (I’ll attribute it to either PMS or “Dancing With The D-List Stars” Withdrawal Syndrome)

Oh yes, but what about television? Obviously the HFPA membership is too busy with their studio-paid press junkets and fawning the big screen stars to give a rat’s ass about television so they covered that up by making sure their bread and excessive butter is well paid for a few more years by pandering to the host broadcaster, NBC. Remember – this is the network that nobody really watches anymore according to the Nielsens (unless you consider “ER” or “Las Vegas” occasionally squeaking into the Top 20 a notable achievement.) Yet, somehow, the network could run an ad for “Scrubs” which uses the previously-mentioned Corell’s award as a joke target no more than 30 minutes after he won it (for “The Office”. Note – pedigree here. The original British series took the best TV series award one year prior so voters could use the “hey, I heard of it” rationale.) How about that big to-do introducing the cast of “Will & Grace” as a presenting team on the pretense of their farewell season? Here’s a show that didn’t exactly set the ratings world on fire (despite some very generous time-slotting during 7 of it’s 8 seasons) and which nobody except Debra Messing’s family now watches as it winds down. Nor did it ever win a Golden Globe to begin with. Oh, and toss a bone to a supporting cast member of “Law & Order” to rationize the 16 commercials about this Wednesday’s episode. Yeah, that’ll make ‘em happy! On the other hand, they didn’t want to make the sucking up two obvious so in two categories where, if they put an NBC show in it would look painfully obvious, they tossed one bone to “Desperate Housewives” and another to “Lost”. If the CSI people spent more time sucking up to the tabloid interview shows, I’m sure the HFPA would have found a way to give them something too.

Then again, HFPA members and celebrities deserve each other at times. Take the absolutely shameless attempts by celebrity spouses or “significant others” to get TV screen time. Can somebody explain to Ryan Phillippe (Mr. Reese Witherspoon), Barbara Hershey, and Michael FRICKIN’ Bolton(!!!!) that their 15-minutes have long expired? Or did they want to out-Desperate the Housewives who probably would have started mud-wrestling matches with each other if producers offered the winner 15 minutes of extra exposure? (Notes to all: Teri – get your nose re-fixed. Nicolette and Eva – boring. Marcia – aren’t you supposed to be engaged? Felicity – move on. You have too much talent, and brains, to stick around.)

By the way, for those of you who really are hoodwinked into believing the HFPA cowtow fest counts for something, did you catch the fine-print at the end? The 90-odd members basically submit a “top five” list for each category with the most listed getting the nominations. Then the 90+ pick the winners by majority vote. I’d bet in the same room.

If there were any justice, Jack Bauer and one of those shoot-em-up units he comes across would arrive and blast the whole show to smithereens. This year, it didn’t happen. Next year I should be so lucky….

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