Aside from when it finds an opportunity for J.Lo to play a lesbian hit woman, or a reason for Jude Law to drop trou during the Civil War, I don’t think I ever love Hollywood more than when it’s passing out trophies at obscene awards galas. I can’t imagine living in a country that lacks the chance for Phil Collins to perform a song from Brother Bear. How boring Tinseltown must have been back in the early days of film, when Charlie Chaplin had to create his masterpieces without the knowledge that, if he was lucky, he just might nudge out Rin Tin Tin for the People’s Choice Award. Woody Allen pretty much nailed it in Annie Hall when he kvetched that the town was jonesing to give “Best Fascist Dictator” to Adolf Hitler, although he only got half the joke: Hollywood would give the award to Hitler, while all the rest of us would be sitting complacently in front of our television sets, washing down our Cheetos with another Mountain Dew and watching Mussolini try to maintain his it’s-an-honor-just-to-be-nominated face.
The whole deliciously decadent train of Hollywood hooplas goes full steam ahead this Sunday when the Golden Globes hand out their meaningless doorstops. Even though they’ve somehow managed to convince everyone that they’re the legitimate relations of the Academy Awards, I much prefer the Golden Globes when they’re drunk and behaving like the bastard kin they really are. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association will give a statuette to your Aunt Fanny if you smile at them pretty: Jesus, Michael Douglas is getting their Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement this year. (Here’s a man who, if anything, owes the American public an apology for flashing that flat ass of his in Basic Instinct, but the HFPA is ready to toss back another Stoli and sing him “Auld Lang Syne.”)
The Oscars have notoriously shitty tasteBraveheart, anyone?but they don’t have half the fun flaunting it that the Golden Globes do. The Golden Globes are at their best when they’re honoring people who have as much a chance of winning an Academy Award as Dubya does of defining the word “democracy.” The Oscars have done such a successful job of deifying themselves that when someone undeserving wins an Academy Award, you feel like you should write your congressman; when Madonna beats Frances McDormand to a Golden Globe, you just reach for another chicken wing and think, “Well, good for hershe worked so hard.”
Everyone, I think, should eventually win a Golden Globe, and, apparently, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association agrees with me: Pia Zadora, Sharon Stone, Charlie Sheenall winners. The show welcomes more wretched refuse than the Statue of Liberty; it’s getting so you can’t watch the broadcast without waiting for someone like Brooke Shields or Carrot Top to stumble up to the mike and make some tearful acceptance speech. I dream that one fine day in this proud nation of ours, every citizen will be able to call a significant other on the cell phone from the SUV and say, “Honey, I’m on I-5, and I’ll be home just as soon as I pick up my Golden Globe.”
