Best: Jokes About the Trial of the Chicago 7
For whatever reason, some of the best jokes of the night came at the expense of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago Seven. Amy Poehler: “I think it’s the best of all the Trial of Chicago movies, but still not as good as Police Academy 7: Mission in Moscow.” Fey: “The thing I love about Aaron Sorkin’s writing is he can have seven men talking, but it feels like 100 men talking.” Rudolph and Thompson: “The seven of us, making friends, we’re different, but we all talk the same.” Sorkin, shown sitting in his home which unsurprisingly included an old-timey gramophone, seemed to take them in stride.
Best: Taylor Simone Ledward Accepts Chadwick Boseman’s Posthumous Golden Globe
The trauma of this year has underscored the fundamental ridiculousness and superfluousness of awards shows. Over the past year, awards ceremonies have tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to provide escapism while simultaneously confronting the pandemic’s devastating impacts. Many solemn, canned statements about loss and perseverance have been delivered by celebrities in their lavish homes—and those have mostly rung hollow. But there was nothing contrived about Taylor Simone Ledward’s speech as she accepted the award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for her late husband, Chadwick Boseman. Earlier in the show, the Black Panther star had received a touching micro-tribute from a group of enthusiastic and adoring school children. And Ledward, through tears, delivered a beautiful speech that served both to honor him individually and to speak to the unimaginable collective grief hanging over many. “I don’t have his words,” she said. “But we have to take all the moments to celebrate those we love…Hon, you keep ’em coming.”
Best: Jane Fonda
Fonda, accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award, delivered a speech that would have brought the house down, had there been a house to bring down. Her speech centered on diversity and representation in storytelling, and was especially pointed in the midst of a ceremony whose awards are decided upon by a voting body (the HFPA) with no Black members. She also went out of her way to pay tribute to I May Destroy You, the Michaela Coel show which was shut out of the ceremonies despite universal acclaim. “There’s a story we’ve been afraid to see and hear about ourselves in this industry; a story about which voices we respect and elevate and which we tune out. A story about who’s offered a seat at the table and who is kept out of the rooms where decisions are made,” she said. “Let’s all of us make an effort to expand that tent so that everyone rises and everyone’s story has a chance to be seen and heard… Let’s be leaders.”