The Golden Globes' newest category isn’t rewarding anything new

The Golden Globes desperately needed to reinvent itself after being plagued by scandal and declining ratings. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association transformed into a for-profit organization, supposedly diversified its membership, and will now pay members a salary. The ceremony itself found a new home (eventually) at CBS. And in a play for relevance, the Globes announced two new categories, ​​“Cinematic and Box Office Achievement in Motion Pictures” and “Best Stand-Up Comedian on Television.” These are transparent ploys to get more eyes on the show, so if the Globes wanted to attract a fresh audience, why only nominate comedy’s old guard?

Specifically, the 2023 Golden Globe nominees for “Best Stand-Up Comedian on Television” are Ricky Gervais (Ricky Gervais: Armageddon), Chris Rock (Selective Outrage), Amy Schumer (Amy Schumer: Emergency Contact), Sarah Silverman (Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love), Wanda Sykes (Wanda Sykes: I’m An Entertainer), and Trevor Noah (Trevor Noah: Where Was I). These are all extremely well-established comedians, for whom winning a Golden Globe award wouldn’t really boost their careers. This writer is on record describing the category as a who’s-who of “please host our awards show!” talent, but apparently none of them even wanted that job—Rock, at least, reportedly turned down an offer to helm the ceremony. (The honor will instead go to comic Jo Koy, much less of a household name.)

It’s not necessarily surprising that this is the talent the Golden Globes has chosen to acknowledge. Though none of these specials mark the peak of any of these comics’ careers, their names are at least recognizable. In conjunction with the “Box Office” category, it’s clear that the Globes rebrand isn’t aiming for cool but rather for well-known in its attempt to get the general public invested in awards shows again.

The problem is these kinds of cheap tricks don’t generally improve an awards show rating performance. The general public may be aware of who Sarah Silverman is, but that doesn’t mean they want to tune in to see if she gets to accept an award. (Especially when the award show is competing with football and basketball season.) Meanwhile, the kind of people who do like award shows tend to be turned off by this kind of shameless pandering, and more interested in what actually qualifies as the best talent of the year. And do any of these specials truly count among the year’s best?

What’s disappointing is that the Golden Globes, for all its faults, is uniquely positioned to recognize a wider pool of talent. With its breadth of categories (casting a wider net for drama and comedy/musical films, for example), the Globes can welcome deserving nominees that may go overlooked at the other major awards shows. Even at the Emmys, comedy specials get lumped in the “Variety Specials” category (competing against things like “Carol Burnett: 90 Years Of Laughter And Love” and “Lizzo Live In Concert”). Unlike the new Box Office category, which is an obvious attempt at populism that awards shows keep reinventing, adding a Stand-Up category is a novel chance to fill a glaring gap in industry recognition.

It’s the lackluster nominees, not the category itself, that is the problem. 2023 saw a wealth of exciting comedy specials. Some of them were comics that could be considered peers of the Globes nominees, like John Mulaney, Marc Maron, Maria Bamford, and Mike Birbiglia, while some could be considered more up-and-coming, like John Early, Sasheer Zamata, Joe Pera, and Mae Martin, among many, many others. Without detracting from the actual nominees’ talent, those names were clearly pulled from the top of the screener pile. Despite creating an entire new category for the genre, it doesn’t seem like the Globes voters actually dug into what the genre has to offer. It’s a missed opportunity to spotlight comedic talent for those who could actually use the career boost, a missed opportunity to turn the audience onto something new, and a missed opportunity for the Golden Globes to actually be interesting.