The Golden Globes 2013: An Exercise In Pointlessness

Really, all award shows are pointless. Grammys, Tonys, Oscars, Emmys, all of that are all pointless. Winning any of those isn't a guarantee of quality. For fuck's sake, Crash won an Oscar, and the Grammys have nominated Nickleback six times. But even with that caveat, the Golden Globe awards are a special kind of meaningless.

Quickly, without looking on Google, tell me what movie won the Best Drama Golden Globe 10 years ago. How about five years ago? How about last year? Chances are your mind is blanking out. That's because absolutely nobody cares about the Golden Globes. With the Oscars you can at least say that people will remember them, or that a nominated movie will get more attention from John Q. Public. I'm betting a lot of people are going to be seeing Beasts of the Southern Wild now that the Oscars have given it a nod (and that's a great thing, because it's a movie well worth seeing). But nobody is going to be rushing out to watch Salmon Fishing In The Yemen because it got a Golden Globe nomination.

So why do we humor this show? Why is it broadcast nationally and then picked apart and dissected by the media for a day or two before it goes back to being forgotten? I don't know the exact reason, but I'm guessing it's because it's been around for long enough people consider it a tradition and because the awards it gives out only focus on the big stuff. No technical awards here. It's the product of our obsession with celebrities, where we are content just watching them get awards from the least essential arbiters of quality ever. Oh well, at least Tina Fey and Amy Pohler are fun to watch. Can they just host every award show ever?
 Couple other thoughts. If you didn't watch the ceremony last night, you can probably skip this.

• So Jodie Foster sort of kind of came out last night in a speech that was borderline incomprehensible. Honestly, good for her and all that, but did anybody really care about Jodie Foster's sexuality? Ah well, at least another LGBT voice is out there in Hollywood I guess. Sorry John Hinckley Jr., looks like you don't have a chance anymore.
• I would totally watch Dog President. 
• Spielberg finally leveled up to lvl 64 wizard, casting SUMMON FORMER PRESIDENT to get Bill Clinton to introduce Lincoln. Amy Pohler on this development: "Oh my god you guys, that's Hilary Clinton's husband!!!"
• Lena Dunham went home with two statuettes for Girls, Best Actress and and Best Television Program (Comedy or Musical). I was really happy about this because Girls is a really good show and maybe this would get more people to check it out, but then I remembered it was the Golden Globes and my enthusiasm went down considerably.
• Anybody miss Ricky Gervais? Yeah, me neither.
• The best moment of the night was Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig's improvised speech on movies they clearly didn't see, not because it was particularly funny (it went on about 2 minutes too long) but because my mom didn't get the joke until the very end. "Wait a minute, Meryl Streep didn't ride a horse in that movie!"
• It's nice to see Argo take the top prize here because it was a well made movie and it doesn't have a chance in hell at that Oscar.
• The screwball comedy Les Miserables both won Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical), showing why musicals and comedies really shouldn't be lumped together.
• Tommy Lee Jones wasn't amused.

Not. Amused.