It keeps happening. Over and over again. It’s not just this year, but at this point, we’re way past ridiculous and somewhere near insulting. Especially considering the 2024 Golden Globe Nominations.
Seeing shows like The Bear and Barry in the Comedy category on TV and Movies like May December in the Comedy or Musical category on Movies feels both utterly baffling and past the point of disrespect. Do award shows think viewers are so undiscerning that they do not understand the difference? Do studios submitting these shows and movies think we cannot understand they’re trying to game the system?
Do they think that because they don’t care, we shouldn’t?
Let’s make a couple of things clear, Barry is, at best, a very dark comedy. It at least has some dark humor, so a case could be made for it belonging to the comedy category. There’s probably more drama in it, and the show deals with darker themes than most of the shows in the comedy category, but at least there’s an argument there.
But The Bear? I’m pretty sure I did not laugh once in two seasons. And I enjoyed the show. There’s a lot to be said about how the show deconstructs grief, and family and workplace dynamics, but a comedy it is not. Not even close.
Then there’s May December. To say it’s not a comedy is an understatement. The movie isn’t even close to one. It’s not trying. It’s a straight-up drama about a woman who takes advantage of a young kid. The rest — the fact that the young kid grows up to marry that woman, that they have kids, and that someone else comes to shine a light on their messed up relationship — is all presented as what it is, drama. Comedy is not a tool in this movie’s arsenal.
Everyone knows it. Except, apparently, the Hollywood Foreign Press.
But they’re not the only culprits. Every award show does this. Every studio is complicit. Award shows are about submitting actors in the category that gives them the best chance to win, not the one they belong in. The same goes for shows and movies. They’re all trying to game the system. They have always been trying. It’s just gotten to a point where it’s hard to play along.