An award show host speech is often not without slight celebrity ribbing, which can be executed gracefully when writers carefully consider the impact of their words. Jo Koy’s Golden Globes monologue this year, however, was anything but graceful — and deemed a “near-total disaster” by Vanity Fair. Koy’s most disheartening comments were made about Barbie, the highest-grossing film in Warner Brothers history which thus inspired the Golden Globes to create an entirely new category for film nomination titled Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. Barbie’s nomination alongside Oppenheimer in this category prompted Koy to make a comparison between the two films and their major impacts, in which he says: “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.” He goes on to add that “the key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet, or what casting directors call a character actor.” Such comments elicited disappointed reactions from audience members such as Selena Gomez and, one of the stars of the film, Ryan Gosling.
Had the joke not posited the male-directed film as brilliant and the female-directed film as unimportant, perhaps it would have been better received. The joke’s comparison between the two perpetuates gender stereotypes of men as scholarly and women as materialistic, warranting negative reactions from both audience members and viewers at home. Koy’s reductive treatment of Barbie serves as a prime example of what so many women experience on a daily basis. The monologue’s overall impression of male discomfort with the increasing presence of succeeding women became more palpable following Koy’s remark about Taylor Swift — “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL: On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.” I daresay we need MORE camera shots of Taylor Swift at both the Golden Globes and NFL games.
After noticing his jokes were falling flat with the audience, Koy attempted to deflect the blame onto other writers as well as time constraints during the writing process: “Some I wrote, some other people wrote. I got the gig ten days ago. You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.” The lack of accountability roused an even deeper sigh of disappointment from viewers.
In light of everything that occurred during the night of the Golden Globes, all I have to say is — congratulations to Barbie for winning the esteemed award for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, and to all the remaining female Golden Globe winners and nominees for their masterful creations and performances. Keep inspiring, keep going, and keep taking up space. We need you.