The Golden Globes’ Monologue Disaster

On January 7th, the 81st Golden Globe Awards were broadcast by CBS. First held in 1944, the annual award ceremony aims to honor excellence in film and television. A different host introduces the broadcast each year, aside from a few exceptions within the past decade. This year, they were hosted by Jo Koy, a Filipino-American comedian. However, after he presented his monologue, the criticism began.

My main takeaway from Koy’s monologue is that many of his jokes just felt unoriginal. He mentions multiple times that he had only ten days to prepare a monologue, and while that could make his job harder, it should not have been impossible. Jo Koy is a comedian; He makes a living off of being funny. Even if his performance was rushed, I find it disappointing that he could not craft better jokes nor distinguish good from bad in a week and a half. And of course, hindsight is 20/20, so reflecting on a challenge is much easier than facing it in the moment. However, after the ceremony, regular, non-comedians began to post more successful jokes that they claimed to have written in less than ten minutes, further proving that Koy’s quality did have an opportunity to be much better.

One of the points that Koy was given the most criticism for was his jokes about the Barbie movie, especially when comparing it to Oppenheimer. While poking fun at current events and nominated pieces is a common route taken when writing jokes for the hosts, some jokes are just shallow and uncreative. At one point during the monologue, Koy confidently announces that “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize winning book about the Manhattan Project. And Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.” The statement is especially distasteful when taking into account how one of the main themes in Barbie is the contradicting societal expectations of women. Koy’s objectification of female bodies is not only not funny, but inappropriate considering how Barbie aims to combat said objectification, in addition to other issues. On top of all that, he does not even speak to what the film is really about at all, so the joke is left feeling uncreative and boring.

All this is not to say that Koy’s performance was absolutely awful. There were jokes that were funny, but after witnessing the rest, they were hard to enjoy. Overall, Koy will most likely recover from this experience. Still, hosts in the future, as well as viewers, should learn that attention to detail and understanding can make all the difference, even outside of comedy.

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Citation

“Golden Globes History.” Golden Globes, 8 Nov. 2023, goldenglobes.com/history-golden-globes/.