The Golden Globes, American film awards at the heart of a lively controversy in recent months as to their representativeness, announced on Wednesday June 30 that they would change their rules to allow foreign language films to compete in the generalist and film categories animation.
These reviews pushed the broadcaster NBC to cancel the ceremony scheduled for next year, to give the Golden Globes time to improve its ethnic and cultural diversity as well as its transparency.
Many had particularly criticized this year the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA in English) which awards these trophies for having relegated Threatening, an American film featuring South Korean immigrants settling in Arkansas and filmed mainly in Korean, in the category of best foreign language film.
Charges of discrimination, sexism and corruption
While he was featured in many Oscar flagship categories, Threatening failed to appear at the Golden Globes for Best Comedy or Best Drama. Parasite, the Oscar-winning film the year before, had suffered the same fate for the same reasons.
“As we review our rules this year” to accommodate criticism from the entertainment industry, “We decided to take new approaches for the upcoming ceremonies and make sure these films get the attention they deserve”HFPA President Ali Sar said in a statement to AFP. “The language will no longer be a barrier to be recognized as the best”, he assures.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of about 90 journalists working for various media, has been facing charges of discrimination, sexism and corruption for several years.
Series of reforms
Last month, the organization passed a series of reforms to improve its representativeness and try to appease critics, but those assurances failed to convince the entertainment industry and criticism continued to rain.
Stars like Scarlett Johansson and Tom Cruise have deemed these reforms far too slow and vague while two members of the HFPA have resigned from the group they have called “Toxic”.
Heavyweights like Netflix and Warner Bros have made it known that they will no longer work with the association until significant changes are implemented.
On Wednesday, the HFPA said the majority of its members have completed diversity and inclusion awareness sessions.
New rules prohibiting, for example, the acceptance of gifts and providing for the hiring of diversity advisers are also planned.
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