If the Golden Globes are going the boring route, what’s the point of them?
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At last night’s Globes, arthouse cinema reigned supreme and ‘Wicked’ went home (practically) empty-handed – fine for the Oscars, but this ceremony is meant to be a panoply of chaos and nonsense, writes Adam White. For two whole minutes, the 2025 Golden Globes were glamorous and surprising. Demi Moore wafted on stage to collect her Best Actress award for the gonzo horror movie The Substance, and spoke eloquently and emotionally about her fears, her self-doubt, and the occasional sadness of her Nineties fame. Then the Globes went back to being straitlaced, unexciting, and basically the Oscars.
![[Demi Moore, one of the night’s few traditional Globes wins]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/06/09/newFile-9.jpg)
Wicked, the populist fave, won a single award. The tedious, maddening musical Emilia Pérez swept the biggest categories. Relatively obscure arthouse films beat out Moana 2 and Nicole Kidman. Wins felt considered and often surprising. If this were the Oscars, there’d be little to complain about (well, apart from the eternally confusing Emilia love). But this was the Globes, long established as a Eurotrash panoply of chaos and nonsense. Without either, they hardly need to exist.
The necessity of televised awards shows is debated annually, with conversation typically going in circles. The audience invested in these things will show up through thick and thin; those who don’t care to watch movie stars take home trinkets will never be convinced otherwise. But the Globes have historically catered to both groups at once, jeering at the very industry it’s celebrating (there’s a reason one-time host Ricky Gervais is still so associated with it), while getting the winners right just enough to satisfy the people earnestly tuning in.
