As the hours tick down to the 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards—hosted on two coasts by Amy Poehler in Los Angeles and Tina Fey in New York—an awareness campaign continues to brew online. #TimesUpGlobes, as the hashtag is called, points out a blunt and flabbergasting fact: there is not one Black member out of 87 in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the voting body for the Golden Globes. Moreover, there has not been one in 20 years.
Director-writer-producer Ava DuVernay spearheaded the initial push on Friday, tweeting a digital placard of a decrepit Golden Globe statuette with the added commentary “Old news. New energy.”
J.J. Abrams, Courtney Kemp, Ellen Pompeo, Patton Oswalt, Judd Apatow, Jurnee Smollett, Olivia Wilde, Damon Lindelof, Shonda Rhimes, Kerry Washington, Amber Tamblyn, and others were part of the initial wave calling attention to the organization’s lack of diversity. A repeated phrase used by many was “A cosmetic fix isn’t enough.”
Sterling K. Brown went into a little more detail with his message, expressing how he still intended to take part in the telecast, but noted that “any governing body of a current Hollywood award show to have such a lack of voting representation illustrates a level of irresponsibility that should not be ignored.”
The HFPA released a statement hours later acknowledging the problem, and promising to address it in some way during the telecast.
But by Sunday morning the ball was rolling, and it seemed like everyone in Hollywood was ready to represent for the cause. (And also possibly get some held-back aggression out against the HFPA, too?) Among the many who hit their social media accounts were Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Rashida Jones, Simon Pegg, America Ferrera, Lupita Nyong’o, Lena Dunham, and, importantly, a great many members of the film and television audience recognizing the absurdity of the situation.
As is frequently the case, Viola Davis was abundantly eloquent with her message, writing that “the journey of a Black artist is littered with obstacles in creating, developing and being acknowledged for our work. If we continue to keep silent, the younger generation of artists will have the exact same load to carry. No more excuses.”
As a final twist, Ava DuVernay was named as one of the final batch of presenters for the telecast on Sunday morning.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Agency has, as of this August, a new president in Ali Sar, who took over after the unexpected death of Lorenzo Soria. Sar, an Istanbul native who covers Hollywood news for a number of publications around the world, has been an HFPA member for more than 35 years.
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