More than a fortnight before the ceremony, the big winner at this year’s Golden Globe awards may have already have been decided – although their identity remains a mystery.
All 100 eligible recipients, including Timothée Chalamet, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, can claim nine of the 25 items on offer in this year’s official gift bag – including Scottish gin, five nights on a yacht in Indonesia and a “cutting edge” LED face mask session. But the majority of top-drawer freebies are, it turns out, being distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
Such small print may come as a shock to those nominees and presenters cheered by the widely reported $1m price tag on this year’s bag, not realising that it is a non-weighted, grand total.
The only items each person will definitely receive are, in fact, a suede holdall with “double handle and removable shoulder strap” and, within, a shopping list detailing the items, their monetary value – and the quantity available. The application process thereafter remains shrouded in secrecy.
Just one person will bagsy a $48,000 holiday to Finland to see the northern lights in a helicopter, while three can have a mini-break in the Bali jungle and five will head to Tasmania for a two-night whisky experience.
A wine and dinner jolly to Bordeaux is also only available for one, likewise a “sustainably minded” Mexican tequila trip, as well as a non-surgical stemcell facelift worth $40,000.
Meanwhile three people can be measured for an Italian suit, 25 sign up for a “personalised, dance-focused workout and wellness experience” and 20 relax in the knowledge their cigars are not getting damp on holiday with a new travel humidor. There are also four treadmills to give away.
Sources confirmed that all limited-availability items are being distributed on this bunfight basis. But further details remain hazy. It is unclear if a quota is in place to prevent one fast-fingered star – knife whiz Jeremy Allen White, perhaps, or handy-with-a-racket Zendaya – grabbing all the big-ticket items, therefore pocketing almost $1m in handouts. Accommodations are unlikely to be made for delayed deliveries of the catalogue.
The three stars whose names appear twice on the nominations lists – Kate Winslet (for The Regime and Lee), Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice and A Different Man) and Selena Gomez (Emilia Pérez and Only Murders in the Building) – are not thought to be getting a double shot at the big prizes, nor two sets of the sheets available to everyone.
Regardless of these details, the Globes’ proud trumpeting of such luxury swag appears to be their latest move to position themselves as credible rivals to the Academy Awards. The non-official goodie bag given out to key Oscar nominees has long been a fixture of the run-up to the show, with last year’s hamper for acting and directing nominees priced at $178,000 and including skiing, hypnosis and dog food.
When the Globes announced their nominees earlier this month, they also revealed two innovations which closely mirror Academy activities. On Thursday, first-time Globe nominees including Pamela Anderson and Ariana Grande were celebrated to a special daytime soiree, at which a commemorative crystal was placed on each plate by the event’s sponsor, Swarovski, while a centrepiece featured figurines including a small owl and a squirrel clutching a nut.
The Oscar nominees’ luncheon, meanwhile, is a much-loved date in the awards calendar, with reporters ecstatically tracking the reaction of A-listers to their peers and competitors, as well as studying the annual class photo.
Rather than doling out their lifetime achievement awards during the Globes ceremony as in previous years, this year’s recipients (Ted Danson and Viola Davis) will instead pick up their prizes at a separate event. Footage will be spliced into the main ceremony; in previous years the Cecil B DeMille award has made for a rather bathetic climax to the telecast.
By comparison, the lifetime achievement Oscar winners are always honoured at the Governors Awards in November, while the main March broadcast includes a highlights reel.
Hollywood’s energetic embrace of the Globes this year marks a remarkable turnaround. As recently as 2022, the awards body was so discredited it became the subject of an industry-wide boycott.
Concerns over lax membership criteria for the mysterious cohort of international showbiz reporters who make up the voters have rumbled for decades. Likewise fears of bribery, as studios sought to butter up the relatively small number of decision-makers with privileged access to stars, champagne-fuelled private screenings and VIP concert trips to Vegas.
An investigation by the Los Angeles Times in 2021 exposed a lack of financial transparency in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which then ran the Globes, as well as assorted protocol anomalies. It also revealed there had not been a single Black voter on the books for 20 years.
The HFPA then announced a raft of changes to promote inclusivity, but their rollout timetable was criticised as overambitious by about 100 PR firms and the nonprofit Time’s Up. Bad press was further fuelled by the HFPA’s former president, Philip Berk – whom the actor Brendan Fraser had accused of groping him in 2003 – describing Black Lives Matter as a “racist hate group”.
Studios, publicists and stars pulled out of participation in the awards until structural change had been enacted, NBC said it would no longer broadcast the event – and Tom Cruise returned the two gongs he had previously won.
The HFPA then disbanded and rebranded as the Golden Globe Foundation, recruiting 128 new voters, including representatives of 76 countries – a rapid restructuring that appears to have satisfied all sceptics.
The muted awards season of 2022, when Coda ultimately won best picture at the Oscars was credited in part to the absence of the Globes. Their presence as a curtain-raiser, helping build momentum with a loose-limbed warmup, is now newly appreciated in the industry.
Others, however, felt that Hollywood’s congregation on the high moral ground was opportunistic. Suspicions of corruption within the HFPA were such an open secret they had been even been the subject of jokes at the ceremony itself, by hosts such as Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Ricky Gervais.
