In the wake of the many controversies surrounding Hollywood, the beginning of the Awards Season can bring some new air and unite everyone to celebrate the excellence in film and television during the year 2017.
This Sunday, January 7th, 2018 officially marks the beginning of Awards Season with the 75th Golden Globe Awards, and they will be hosted by Seth Meyers. The nominees were announced back in December, so let’s refresh our minds and see what those are.
There were some surprising snubs and some nominations that made us all scratch our heads. The main reason: Get Out was nominated in the “Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy” category.
Yes, Get Out, the horror/suspense film that deals with the topic of the oppression of African American people in a very creative and eye-opening way. It was classified as a comedy, as in the light-hearted films that are made to make you happy. I can guarantee that Get Out will not make you feel the way a comedy makes you feel. The film’s protagonist, Daniel Kaluuya, was nominated in the Lead Actor category in, you guessed it, Comedy. Maybe I saw the wrong director’s cut of this film. Another detail is the fact that the film’s director Jordan Peele, was not nominated in the “Best Director, Motion Picture” category. It was his directorial debut, one of the highest grossing films of the year, excellent reviews, and he was completely overlooked. Frankly, I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that the film did not get the recognition it deserved or that I didn’t laugh at all when I saw it months ago. Maybe I don’t have a sense of humor after all.
I think what happened was that the Hollywood Foreign Press saw the title of the film and the director and quickly assumed that it was a comedy due to Peele’s previous works as a comedian. However, apparently the film’s distributor submitted it as a comedy, but this was done without Peele’s knowledge, so who knows how it all went down. Another factor that makes Get Out seems like a comedy is the fact that most of the films that have an entirely African American cast are comedies.
Accompanying Get Out in the “Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical” category are Lady Bird, I, Tonya, The Greatest Showman, and my personal favorite, The Disaster Artist.
In the “Best Motion Picture, Drama” category we have: The Shape of the Water, The Post, Dunkirk, Call Me By Your Name, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. If you don’t recognize most of these films, you are not alone. In this category, I am rooting for The Shape of the Water, Guillermo del Toro’s amazing comeback. However, if we take into account the topics they like to give the awards to, it will probably go to Call Me By Your Name. Maybe they will follow the 2016 Oscars theme and give it to Steven Spielberg’s The Post. Who knows by this point.
Meryl Streep received her 31rst nomination, making her the most nominated actor in the Golden Globes history. Tom Hanks is also nominated once more, Helen Mirren, Gary Oldman, and Denzel Washington. Seriously, they should consider new actors for these categories I’m getting tired of seeing their names every year. Do they even get surprised anymore?
In the “Best Motion Picture, Animated” category, Coco obviously received a nomination and, I am so excited about this, Loving Vincent! It’s obvious that Coco will take home the award, but I would love to see Loving Vincent win.
In the Television categories, This Is Us, The Crown, Stranger Things, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Game of Thrones all received nominations. Some other new, and surprising faces in the television category are 13 Reasons Why, The Good Doctor, Ozark, Feud and Big Little Lies. Overall, the television category is not that bad.
I don’t know if it’s because of Hurricane Maria, but 2017 has not brought as many strong contenders like previous years, at least in my opinion. However, we did get some fantastic original films like The Big Sick, A Ghost Story, and The Beguiled and they were completely overlooked and forgotten about. So far, awards season has not started off that great for me.
However, this is only the beginning and hopefully, the upcoming SAG Awards, BAFTA, and Academy Awards will fix that.
Before Sunday’s show, refresh your memory by checking out the full list of the nominations here