Americans Didn't Just Tune Out 'Woke' Golden Globes, Another Award Show Was Victim to Tanking Viewership
Who would have thunk it: Americans are tired of watching lectures from celebrities receiving awards.
In the latest example of diminishing awards show returns, the Critics Choice Awards wasn’t America’s choice of viewership on Sunday night, drawing just 900,000 viewers, according to Hollywood publication Deadline.
“That’s a slight dip from last year when the ceremony, which was simulcast across The CW and TBS, took home an audience of 1.1M,” Deadline reported.
“TBS didn’t simulcast the ceremony this year, so technically this year’s viewership is larger than the CW’s portion a year ago, however the overall audience declined to a low for an in-person ceremony. (The virtual 2021 edition of Critics Choice Awards drew just 365,000 total viewers.)”
However, this isn’t just a matter of TBS not simulcasting the 28th annual edition of the awards ceremony. The Golden Globes — broadcast on just one network and considerably more prestigious — drew its lowest numbers in 27 years when it was broadcast last Tuesday.
The 6.3 million viewers for the Globes was far below the last pre-pandemic show in 2020, which saw 18 million viewers.
That show began with a monologue by black host Jerrod Carmichael telling those who tuned in he’d been asked to be the “black face of an embattled white organization” and that he agreed to “take the white people money.”
“This show, the Golden Globe Awards, did not air last year because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which I won’t say they were a racist organization, but they didn’t have a single black member until George Floyd died. So do with that information what you will,” Carmichael said.
“What you will,” apparently, involved changing the channel.
And moments of wokeness also pervaded the Critics Choice Awards, as well.
Take the speech for best supporting actress for Angela Bassett of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
“I’m proud of the work that we did with ‘Black Panther’ and now with ‘Wakanda Forever,'” Bassett said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We show the world that we could create and lead a billion-dollar box-office success. And my prayer is that that door remains open, and the sky’s the limit for other black creators and storytellers around the world to join us.”
She didn’t even mention “creators of color,” mind you! But don’t worry, Daniel Kwan, who directed big winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” thanked his mother, calling her “maybe the first Asian-American immigrant mother to ever tell their son to go to film school.”
Perhaps more woke than the speeches themselves were the list of winners.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a typical Hollywood tale of an Asian-American immigrant mother and her nearly-omnipotent daughter from a separate reality who has created a bagel that can destroy all known universes. (I mean, you’ve seen one of these foodstuff-armageddon movies, you’ve seen ’em all.)
To be fair, the movie gets points for creativity — but, Emily St. James noted at liberal publication Vox, the film “falls into a suddenly popular subgenre of film I call the ‘millennial parental apology fantasy,’ alongside a host of other movies.” St. James meant it as a bit of a compliment; I would be disinclined to concur, although we might see eye-to-eye were she to call it the “whiny millennial parental apology fantasy,” instead.
Best actress went to Cate Blanchett for “Tár,” where she played a classical music legend whose personal behavior — and refusal to go woke — gets her canceled.
I’ll admit to not having watched it, and I’ve seen takes that alternately argue the film is both for and against cancel culture. However, it’s worth noting that host Chelsea Handler (another very woke reason to avoid the Critics Choice Awards) put it thusly: “In the movie, Cate [Blanchett] portrayed an iconic lesbian whose career is upended by her toxic behavior — and she didn’t even have to host her own daytime talk show.”
Ah, an Ellen DeGeneres joke in 2023. Keepin’ it relevant, these Hollywood types.
Now, is wokeness the only reason awards shows are losing viewership? Of course not, but it hardly helps.
Since the 1980s, really, the entertainment industry’s awards season has been a boon for artists whose work screams their opinions and values at us to win awards for that work and use their time on stage to again scream their opinions and values at us.
And we still don’t agree with them, goshdarnit — so they’d better start screaming louder.
Thankfully, we aren’t forced to watch these things — which is why, to paraphrase early Hollywood studio head Samuel Goldwyn, the public has stayed away in droves in recent years. If we were forced to, I fear, more than a few of us would be reaching for that armageddon-bagel from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
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