The 2024 Golden Globes were attended by numerous A-list actors, with winners like Emma Stone for Best Female Performance in a Comedy and Cillian Murphy for Best Male Performance in a Drama, as well as nominees including Meryl Streep, Nick Cage, Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio. “Barbie” won Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Best Original Song, and “Oppenheimer” won Best Motion Picture and Best Original Score, along with other supporting awards and nominations.
Stand-up comedian Jo Koy was the host of the award show and performed a ten-minute, incredibly disastrous monologue that was ill-received by both the live audience and the entire internet. It was difficult to find any humor in most of his jokes, not only because they were bad in taste, but because they simply were not funny. One of his quips was on the newly released movie “The Color Purple,” the second movie adaption of a book and Broadway play, on the immense abuse and struggle of African American women. Koy chose to use it as an Ozempic joke, saying “‘The Color Purple’ is what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic,” which did not queue much laughter.
Every single one of his jokes in the performance was introduced through the announcement of particular actors and actresses that were seated in the crowd, which is not abnormal for a Golden Globes host; however, the act got stale very fast after it became clear that Koy was simply talking about the careers of those actors and not having anything else to say.
When compared with past Golden Globe performances, Koy’s was the least entertaining I’ve seen. Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg hosted the awards in 2019, and the whole show was quite well received. It was full of relatively awkward jokes, yet it fit their personalities and stayed entertaining. Similarly, Ricky Gervais was the host in 2020 — his fifth year hosting — and his set consisted of numerous jokes about the imbalance of power within Hollywood. While controversial, it was entertaining to most of the virtual and in-person audience.
Contrary to other hosts, Koy’s monologue was the catalyst for national outrage. The combination of shock and disapproval that was sparked from Koy’s monologue was his tasteless joke comparing “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in their subjects. Although they are unrelated to each other, both films were released on the same day, creating the phenomenon of ‘Barbenheimer,’ which kickstarted the competition and comparison of the features. “‘Oppenheimer’ is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and ‘Barbie’ is about a plastic doll with big boobies.” The sexist remark essentially proved the entire point of why the “Barbie” movie was created. The entire audience was quiet after this particular joke, especially the cast of both films.
As outrageous as the joke itself was, it’s the meaning behind the remark that infuriated audiences. The entire point of the “Barbie” movie was to shine light on the fact that women are often outshined by men for the sole point that they are women. It was extremely evident that although Koy said he’d seen the movie, he had completely missed the point of the film and had only developed a surface-level interpretation, which again, highlighted the glaringly obvious theme of the movie.
The whole performance was extremely hard to watch, as it was accompanied by awkward laughter with almost no one but Koy laughing. However, he did create a great foundation for potential “Jo Koy at the Golden Globes” jokes in the near future.
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