The 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards Nominations

Yesterday, 3 February 2021, the nominations for the 78th Annual Gold Globe Awards were released. There were some big surprises in the film categories.

The happiest surprise is the Best Director category. This is the first time in the history of the Golden Globes that more women then men are nominated for Best Director. Chloé Zhao is the closest contender we have to a lock for Best Director at the Oscars for her work on Nomadland, a contemporary drama largely performed by non-actors. Regina King’s One Night in Miami, a historical drama about the night Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke met in 1964, is close to a lock for Best Picture, so seeing her recognized here is rather encouraging. The biggest surprise is Emerald Fennell being nominated for Promising Young Woman, a revenge with a Hard R film that we spent most of 2020 waiting for the release of. The category is rounded out with likely contender David Fincher for Mank, a bio drama about writing the screenplay to Citizen Kane, and Aaron Sorkin for The Trial of the Chicago 7, a historical drama about the seven protestors put on trial for conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite riots for protesting the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Promising Young Woman did very well. Fennell’s debut film received nominations in Best Picture Drama, Best Actress (Carey Mulligan), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. The film is a likely Oscar contender in Lead Actress and Original Screenplay, though the recent surge in awards recognition for the film overall and Emerald Fennell could spell some major and unanticipated goodwill for a phenomenal horror/revenge film.

One of the big things to remember about the Golden Globe Awards is films not in English are only allowed to compete in Foreign Language Film. Minari, a dramedy film about a Korean American family from writer/director Lee Isaac Chung, was only eligible for Foreign Language Film despite being anticipated as a heavy contender in many categories at the Academy Awards. These rules open up the door for unexpected nominees, as nominators might have to choose films further down on their lists since they are not allowed to vote for any film not in English.

Case in point, Sia’s directorial debut Music received nominations in Best Picture Musical or Comedy and Best Actress for Kate Hudson. This film is highly controversial for its casual ableism and dangerous rhetoric regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder. Sia wrote the film for Maddie Siegler to star in, the phenomenal dancer from her music videos. Siegler is not autistic and Sia controversially said, among other things, that autistic actors were incapable of starring in her film and if they complained, the must not be very good actors.

It also features incredibly dangerous physical restraints that have even fallen out of favor in the restraint-happy ABA therapy. Sia claims to have researched her film for years, but her film is largely filled with talking points and ideas from Autism Speaks, a controversial charity that aims to cure autism, refuses to actually work with autistic advocates to set more realistic goals, and positions autism as a horrendous burden on the poor families of children with autism. The film is a mess for other reasons, but it’s a huge black mark on the Golden Globe Awards to see ablest nonsense like this be recognized.

About to best thing to come out of the nomination is that Sia has added a warning label to Music regarding the restraints and is working to recut the film to remove them entirely. It only took months of criticism for Sia to finally admit that maybe she was a tiny bit wrong in her approach to representing Autism Spectrum Disorder on film. As of this writing, Sia’s Twitter account no longer exists.

On the Television side, both The Mandalorian and Lovecraft Country made the cut for Best Television Series Drama. It’s rare to see sci-fi and horror series so easily embraced by major awards bodies early in their runs. They are joined by perennial favorite The Crown, the Jason Bateman-starring crime drama Ozark (previously nominated for his performance), and Ryan Murphy’s Ratched, inspired by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

The 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards are scheduled to air on 28 February 2021.

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