The Golden Globes awards show is truly the crack cocaine of television programming — a show so utterly devoid of meaning when it comes to merit that one feels sullied even watching it at all. But I did have to see how far Ricky Gervais would go in his attempts to insult the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and was actually a little disappointed that he got so little screen-time to do so!
Gervais did manage to get in a few choice zingers, describing Boardwalk Empire as being "about a load of immigrants who came to America about 100 years ago, got involved in bribery and corruption and worked their way up into high society — but enough about the Hollywood Foreign Press."
That's a good joke because it has more than a grain of truth to it. While everyone in the industry knows that award shows in general are subject to much politicking, influence-peddling and even out and out bribery (including the Oscars and the Grammys!), the Golden Globes are particularly specious because of the small amount of voters and the fealty they owe to the studios for access, favors and gift-bag swag.
How else to explain the award given to Madonna last night for best song? As if she didn't make it plain enough in her self-congratulatory acceptance speech, the song Masterpiece is from the film she recently directed, W.E., which has been ripped to shreds by critics. As if anybody cared, she went into a longwinded story about how her manager harangued her into writing the insipid tune. "And I said, please Guy, I'm trying to focus on being a director and I want people to be able to pay attention to the film."
Wow. Does she really think her lousy song would make people jump out of their theater seats and start a sing-and-dance-along, and risk missing three minutes of her precious film? "So then I finished the film," she continued as the audience of celebs squirmed uncomfortably, "and somehow magically and miraculously the song emerged."
I will let you judge for yourselves how trophy-worthy her miraculous ditty panned out. For my money, it is one of the most sophomoric lyrics ever written, and the music actually sounds like it owes a debt to Lady Gaga, whom Madonna recently accused of being a pale imitation of herself! For the record, let's remember that Madonna is a passable singer and dancer with admirably consummate marketing skills, not a skilled musician and songwriter like Ms. Gaga. As for her award, she can thank Harvey Weinstein for being in her corner — the song itself is a real stinker.