Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Golden Globes: Dressed Up for Inclusivity

Bicoastal for the first time in its history, the Golden Globes ceremony was a seamless coup, with Amy Poehler hosting at the Beverly Hilton and Tina Fey at the Rainbow Room. In this pandemic year, it managed to pull off the red carpet glitz and glamor and general attenuated awards nights malaise, unfolding before a live audience of elegantly dressed essential workers and first responders. What a happy moment to glimpse the tropes of Globes past celebrating a time when entertainment was more distraction than main event! And still, so many good movies, good series, amazing talent! While the health of the nation might have served as a theme, inclusivity ruled: the usual wink wink wit of this award night, the weight of controversies about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s lack of diversity goes to questions of who’s in and who’s not?

At least one speaker addressed the evening’s hosts as members of the all-white HFPA, and leaders of the group tried to speak to the subject head on, promising to do better to include more varied world press, without really saying how they would open up their list. Jane Fonda, recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Achievement award, for me was show’s highest point. Dressed in a white pantsuit, she kept it real and open: “Let’s all of us, including the groups who decide who gets hired, what gets made and who wins awards make an effort to expand that tent so that everyone rises and everyone’s story has a chance to be seen and heard.” If this had been a movie, this speech alone would have clinched her the Oscar.

The Globes stayed close to what they excel at: The pre-show on E! focused on the dresses: presenter Angela Bassett in purple Dolce & Gabbana, Unorthodox star Shira Haas in Chanel. Unexpected winners like Jodie Foster, dressed down in Prada silk p.j.’s and Rosamund Pike, in flaming red tulle with lipstick to match landed acting awards in categories where they were not favored among awards season aficionados. Pike’s movie, I Care a Lot, said it all with a nod to co-nominee Maria Bakalova: “I would never want to be in a room with Rudy Guiliani.”

The love was spread around: Daniel Kaluuya for his portrayal of Fred Hampton, Sacha Baron Cohen for his Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, still managing to quip about the astonishing, scene-stealing Guiliani and his comedic genius, his zipper, and how Trump was challenging Baron Cohen’s win. Cheers for Minari and Nomadland, clearly two of the year’s best features. Director Chloe Zhao, the first Asian woman to win, and the first woman since Streisand won for Yentl in 1984, ended the night saying what her characters, many of them real nomads, say instead of goodbye: “See you down the road.”