Monday, January 14, 2013

The 2013 Golden Globes: Times are Changing

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

In four years, this site has never talked about the Golden Globe Awards. They've been around since 1944 and annually award excellence in film (14 categories) and television (11 categories). They're not one of the "big four" awards, which is probably why I've always dismissed them as "not counting" like the big boys do. Others discount them because the members who determine the winners are foreign journalists. Really. The 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association all live in Southern California and are accredited by the Motion Picture Association of America but write for newspapers and magazines elsewhere.

Regardless of who is picking the winners, some people embrace the Golden Globe Awards as part of the "Award Season," which ends with the Oscars each year. For those who aren't cinephiles, the Academy Awards (Oscas) don't mean a whole lot, aside from possibly giving you a film or two to put on your bucket list. The Golden Globes, on the other hand, tend to appeal to a broader audience because of its mix of television and movie awards. Sure, Argo and Les Miserables took the big awards home in the silver screen division, but many expected that sort of thing. The bigger surprised were from the small screen categories.
Golden Globe Awards © HFPA facebook.com/GoldenGlobes
You may already be aware of the winners from last night's ceremony, but did you realize that they are almost exclusively from premium cable channels? Broadcast networks and the main cable networks had many nominees to boast, but when the hammer fell, so did they. Take a look: 

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA
Homeland (Showtime) *winner
Breaking Bad (AMC)
Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
Downton Abbey Season 2  (PBS)
The Newsroom (HBO)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA
Claire Danes, Homeland (Showtime) *winner
Connie Britton, Nashville (ABC)
Glenn Close, Damages (Audience Network)
Michelle Dockery, Downton Abbey Season 2 (PBS)
Julianna Magulies, The Good Wife (CBS)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA
Damian Lewis, Homeland (Showtime) *winner
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad (AMC)
Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom (HBO)
Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Girls (HBO) *winner
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Episodes (Showtime)
Modern Family (ABC)
Smash (NBC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Lena Dunham, Girls (HBO) *winner
Zooey Deschanel, New Girl (FOX)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep (HBO)
Tiny Fey, 30 Rock (NBC)
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Don Cheadle, House of Lies (Showtime) *winner
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock (NBC)
Louis C. K., Louie (FX)
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes (Showtime)
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

BEST MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Game Change (HBO) *winner
The Girl (HBO)
Hatfields & McCoys (History)
The Hour (BBCAmerica)
Political Animals (USA)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Julianne Moore, Game Change (HBO) *winner
Nicole Kidman, Hemingway & Gellhorn (HBO)
Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Asylum (FX)
Sienna Miller, The Girl (HBO)
Sigourney Weaver, Political Animals (USA)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys (History) *winner
Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock (BBCAmerica)
Woody Harrelson, Game Change (HBO)
Toby Jones, The Girl (HBO)
Clive Owen, Hemingway & Gellhorn (HBO)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES, OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey Season 2 (PBS) *winner
Hayden Panettiere, Nashville (ABC)
Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife (CBS)
Sarah Paulson, Game Change (HBO)
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family (ABC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES, OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Ed Harris, Game Change (HBO) *winner
Max Greenfield, New Girl (FOX)
Danny Huston, Magic City (Starz)
Mandy Patinkin, Homeland (Showtime)
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family (ABC)

FOX didn't have a single winner. Neither did ABC, CBS, NBC, or the CW. PBS took one award. ONE. So, of the broadcast networks, only one out of eleven awards went to a show that the general public had a fair chance at seeing. History, a cable network, picked up a single win as well. I don't know how much every provider charges for History, but U-Verse includes it in all packages at and above $57/month. The remaining nine categories were all swept by HBO (with five) and Showtime (with four), networks which are additional costs for cable subscribers. Some quick internet research shows that HBO is about $13 extra per month, and Showtime is about $14 more per month. So, illegal downloading aside, what percentage of the population was familiar with the vast majority of the winners? How upset were the people around your office water cooler today when they couldn't talk about House of Lies, Girls, or Homeland? I know that it definitely limited some of the conversation that I witnessed today, and it made me think...

I mean, there's a reason that Game of Thrones was the show most pirated in 2012! People don't have access. The way that the premium channels took the Golden Globes really forces some perspective on the futures for those networks... was this a strange coincidence or is it a trend? During a time when so many people have been discussing the disparity in our nation's socioeconomic classes, will the elite be the only ones talking about awards shows? Last fall's Emmys gave us 12 broadcast winners, 8 cable winners, and 10 premium network winners in the non-creative categories. Premium did better than cable, but only got one-third of the total awards, allowing more of the general public to be aware of "what's best" and take part in conversations about the ceremony.

No, I don't think that the premium networks should be excluded from these awards. But the playing field isn't exactly level, either. What you can say and show at 8pm on ABC is not the same as what you can say and show at 10pm on HBO. The goals for the networks aren't the same. So many things work differently, from censorship to funding to audience demographics. If this is a taste of where "good" television is going, what is going to happen next?
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