This year’s Golden Globes was hosted by comedian and actor Joseph Glenn Herbert, known as Jo Koy. Koy’s presentation at the Golden Globes has gained mixed reviews from celebrities and civilians alike.
According to the Golden Globes website, The Golden Globes is an annual award ceremony that has been around since 1944 and marks the start of awards season. The Globes honors the best of film and television from the prior year. This year’s Globes has gained as much traction as last year’s Will Smith slap, with the jokes made by host Jo Koy.
While some of Koy’s jokes went well with the audience, the bad ones are what are going viral on the internet. The ones that gained the most traction were directed at “Barbie,” starring Margo Robbie and Ryan Gosling, and at Taylor Swift and the National Football League, NFL.
“Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies,” said Koy in reference to the boxoffice competition between “Barbie” and “Openheimer.”
This joke was especially angering to fans because the whole premise of the movie is to empower women and to show the struggles they face to men like Koy. Yet, he still made fun of the movie and the great acting of Robbie like it was not an excellent adaptation of women struggles and women empowerment.
“It entirely showed what the Barbie movie was talking about how women are always put down for their achievements,” said senior Haley Huffman. “I think it was just very unnecessary for him to do it, like it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t needed, and it just was horrendous.”
Koy also missed the target with his joke about Taylor Swift when he said that the only difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL is that there are less camera shots of Swift at the Golden Globes.
While some say Swift was overreacting to Koy’s joke, her fans and supporters rallied around her saying she was simply sipping her drink while keeping a straight face at a joke that was not funny.
Swift’s reaction brings back last year’s Golden Globes when Will Smith got up and smacked Chris Rock across the face for talking about his wife. Fans responded by saying he was just protecting his wife, and not overreacting like how Swift apparently did.
When watching Koy open the Golden Globes, notable moments in the background included the lack of celebrities laughing or even smiling. At one point, you can even see actor and singer, Selena Gomez putting her head on her hands with a look of complete disappointment about Koy’s joke about “Barbie.”
Koy has put the blame on everyone but himself for the poor tasting jokes. During the Golden Globes he kept bringing up the fact that he only had the gig for ten days, blaming the lack of time for the absence of laughter to his intro, even though he tells jokes for a living.
He even said, after no one laughed at his jokes about Margot Robbie’s acting, that “Some [jokes] I wrote, some other people wrote,” and then said in a later interview that “That’s a tough room, and it was a hard job.”
Since the wake of the Golden Globes fiasco, many celebrity hosts of other award shows have subtly taken swings at Koy’s monologue. Including Chelsea Handler at the Critics Choice Awards on Jan. 14, and Joel McHale and Ken Jeong at the Emmys on Jan. 15.
“Thank you for laughing at that. My writer’s wrote it,” said Handler while taking a jab at Koy.
“Besides, I only had the gig for 10 days at that point, so give me a break,” said Jeong when making a joke about being a doctor, but while also subtly making fun of Koy.
Despite the terrible jokes pointed at women and the traction that it gained, the Golden Globes truly painted a picture of women power. Throughout the entire three hour broadcast, the camera continuously pans to famous female celebrities, like Taylor Swift, Greta Gerwin, Selena Gomez, and Meryl Streep, showing them standing, clapping, and cheering for fellow females winning awards or being nominated.
Even if what is going viral are the jokes, this year’s Globes saw some very historic diverse moments, from Lily Gladstone becoming the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe, to the women-led film “Barbie” winning for cinematic and box office achievement. This year’s Globes was a win for everyone.