These Globes Aren't Even REAL Gold
Did the Golden Globes always air the first weekend in January...? Do people even care anymore?
Yesterday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) presented the 81st Golden Globes. Probably for the last time ever. Six months ago, two private companies purchased all assets related to the Golden Globes, and the once-almighty, albeit very clandestine, HFPA disbanded. Hollywood is on its last legs, and it’s been a long time coming. The combination of COVID-19 shutting down studios, the double-whammy of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes shutting them down again, and Marvel (if you ask Martin Scorsese, anyway) only hastened the inevitable.
I’m a millennial, so I feel like I can accurately pinpoint the exact moment Hollywood started losing its hold on the American public. No, it wasn’t 2009, contrary to popular belief, it was 2010. That year, the first Urban Decay NAKED Palette hit the market, signifying the beginning of the rise of influencers and mobile entertainment dominance. One could even argue that the moment was actually way back in 2000, when the first episode of CBS’ long-running reality series, Survivor, started airing. But one isn’t writing this; I am, so I say it’s 2010. Social media gave the public something Hollywood couldn’t—a semblance of a connection to the person on the other side of the screen. Suddenly, we weren’t just fans, we were family. Vine and Twitter kept us entertained; Youtubers were a much more diverse, younger and livelier bunch than traditional celebrity “elites,” and live streamers opened their hearts and lives to us. And all at a fraction of the cost of a major studio production, on demand, and with infinite room for growth.
Hollywood couldn’t keep up. And it still can’t. We’re watching a once-mighty force of American propaganda take its last dying breaths. And Hollywood can’t blame anybody but themselves.
Hollywood is in Her Flop Era, I Fear.
2023 was the year of the flop—for both me and Hollywood, it seems. Not everything was a box office bomb, mind you. Barbenheimer (that time last year when we were all super obsessed with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer simultaneous July 21st release) ranked among the highest-grossing films of the year, and are both on track to sweep awards season (Oppenheimer already nabbed five wins last night). However, most major studio releases failed to replicate their unique success. Disney’s Haunted Mansion fell shy of its $150M budget, as did the fifth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, which lost the mouse an estimated $100M. And while Hollywood’s elite was busy praising Tom Cruise as the seminal savior of the major motion picture industry (which was odd, but ok), it appears that Mission: Impossible 7 just did ok.
Action movies cost a lot of money to make, and while we were enthralled by the interwoven, green screen-enhanced storytelling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the previous decade, that time has passed, and the juice may not be worth the squeeze anymore. Major studios also continued their scorched earth campaign to remake every show and movie they could get their hands on: HBO Max’s Velma, Paramount Plus+ iCarly, and Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
Hollywood is stuck in a vicious cycle of nostalgia-fueled IP; their fear of taking on new ideas to avoid flopping makes them flop even harder. We don’t need 98-year-old Harrison Ford swinging from a rope or another live-action version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Let’s try something new. Please.
People don’t even care about “A-list celebrities” anymore—they want to be overwhelmed and enthralled (and just a little pissed off), not just entertained. And thanks to social media, there is a veritable smorgasbord of individuals willing to do that right at their fingertips.
Mobile Phones Killed the Movie Star
On average, we spend over six hours looking at our phones daily. How can movies and television shows hope to compete with our own on-demand, hyper-customized entertainment system? And with our waning attention spans, suffering through a lackluster 30-minute primetime show or shelling out $15 for a two-hour movie just doesn’t make sense anymore, especially for anyone under 30.
That same age demographic wasn’t around when traditional celebrities ruled the world—the Brad Pitts, the George Clooneys, the Denzel Washingtons, the Julia Roberts’. Back in my day (shakes cane and pulls up control-top hosiery), just having a huge star attached to your movie could almost guarantee a box office hit. Though, that could also be nostalgia talking since some of our favorite A-listers made several forgettable box office bombs in the ‘90s and early 2000s. Our idea of what, and who, celebrities are has shifted dramatically in the past decade. Blame it on social media, blame it on the Kardashians, blame it on whomever you want, but today’s celebrities are more likely to be suggestively lipsyncing to a thirteen-second clip of forgettable pop music than they are to be auditioning for a role at one of the major studios.
Influencers are the new celebrities. They’re walking the same red carpets and getting the same advertising deals as traditional celebrities. And their popularity rivals some of the biggest names of the past at the height of their careers—that became very apparent this past year when Kai Cenat’s popularity caused an actual riot.
Cenat, a popular Twitch streamer and Influencer, announced to his more than 11.1M followers that he would be giving away Playstation 5 gaming consoles, headphones, web cameras and other pricey gifts on August 4, 2023, in New York’s Union Square. While I’m sure the streamer expected a sizeable crowd, a mob ensued—an estimated 2-5,000 people showed up at 14th street, some carrying makeshift weapons from a nearby construction site. Local news reported that the area was so packed that MTA had to suspend service to the 14th Street station temporarily, and over 1,000 NYPD officers were mobilized. By day’s end, nine people were injured, and at least 65 others were arrested, including Cenat, who had not previously secured a permit for the event.
Hollywood would kill for that kind of buzz.
Think about it. When was the last time you saw anybody line up outside of a movie theater? Let alone 2,000 teens? Try as they might, Hollywood can’t intercept influencers' hold over the general public. The Kai Cenat’s of the world appear genuine, unscripted, unedited, raw and relatable. But also wealthier, more attractive, and more likable at the same time. It’s a sort of attainable, unattainable-ility that’s hard to explain and not easily replicable by studio-sponsored thespians. Stars, they’re just like us! Right?
Wrong. But influencers arguably are. You, yes YOU, can (probably) be the next Kai Cenat. It seems much more attainable than, say, the next Chris Evans. And people like that. Not to mention that a YouTube video is optimized for your mobile screen, whereas a big-budget flick like Harry Potter is not. You miss a lot of flying wizards on a six-inch screen.
But all is not lost. One area Hollywood can compete in is production and distribution. No influencer walking this earth (save for Mr. Beast, maybe) can produce and distribute a professional TV show or movie like Hollywood.
But they can’t even do that right.
The Curious Case of the Disappearing Content
Orange is the New Black was the pinnacle of original streaming content. IDC IDC, argue with your mother. Back in 2013, when Netflix released the women’s prison dramedy, streaming entertainment was a brave new world. Everyone was all “cut the cord!” and it looked like the little guys (us) were finally going to get affordable, good entertainment from the big guys (Hollywood) right from the comfort of our own homes. These shows started winning Emmys, thousands of people tuned in, and we were live-tweeting (RIP Twitter) together through each scene.
Hollywood saw its next goldmine, and every Tom, Dick & Harry launched their own unique streaming service. HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount +, Discovery+, Showtime, Lifetime, Cinemax, Starz, hell, and even Roku have their streaming network. Every network that ever existed figured they needed a piece of the streaming pie, and two things happened:
The cost of streaming increased, whereas you used to be able to watch several networks’ worth of shows on one aggregate streaming service like Netflix. Once each network channel launched its app, it pulled programming from the other streaming services
Then they started producing their own original content, driving prices up even further
On the first point, there’s not much to be said. Why pay Hulu a cut to stream an NBC show when NBC’s app can stream it themselves (though I’m pretty sure NBC Universal partially owns/owned Hulu)?
But the second point is one of extreme contention and frustration for viewers. Streaming shows have a short shelf life; while many tend to get greenlit for production and release, very few make it past the first one or two seasons. To add insult to injury, canceled shows can be deleted from existence, which is exactly what’s happening. In a bid to cut down on costs by cutting residuals, streaming execs have decided to just…yeet the series’ from the internet. Two of my personal faves were part of a 2022 streaming rapture, HBO’s Westworld and Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall. Very few television shows are available to watch on demand forever. Still, when the only place you can watch a show is the streaming network, and no physical media exists, it sucks to log in one day and find your favorite program is just…gone. Streaming networks, and by extension, Hollywood, are cannibalizing themselves.
What should have been the future of entertainment is now a graveyard of Friends re-runs and really good, just ok and mediocre original content netting two seasons each, max. Hollywood had a chance to really create something that would extend its life another 100+ years but chose to go in a different direction.
So, what now? Is Hollywood Really Dead? Wasn’t This About the Golden Globes?
I don’t know. No, it’s not really dead. And, yeah, you’re right, this was about the Golden Globes. The Globes is merely one indicator of Hollywood’s gloomy future; besides, they had their own internal issues with diversity, lack of transparency, and favoritism. It was so bad for the embattled HFPA that long-time hosting network NBC flat-out refused to air the ceremony after 2021. Based on feedback of 2024’s host, Jo Koy, they made the right decision. But it’s not just the Golden Globes; all major award ceremonies are quickly losing their relevance. They don’t make an Oscar for who can do the best Renegade dance, so kids just don’t care anymore. Of course, Hollywood won’t burn to the ground tomorrow, but I don’t think we’ll ever see the level of interest in the major studios as we did in the past.
And I’m not sure how I feel about that. I just want to watch Infinity Train, tbh.
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i really enjoyed this, thank you!! it’s also sad to see that its purely becoming a money game, if audiences don’t find the shows quick enough they are out. and that’s just not fair.