Explained: How Golden Globe Awards winners are chosen

Every year, the Golden Globe Awards are given out to honour the best in film and television. This year, Martin McDonagh's 'The Banshees of Inisherin', a dark comedy about the breaking of a friendship, leads with eight nominations. This is the most nods by any film since 2004's 'Cold Mountain'. Multiversal adventure 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is the runner-up with six nods. 'Babylon' and 'The Fablemans' follow with five nominations. On the television side, 'Abbott Elementary' is leading with 5 nominations. 'The Crown', 'Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story', 'Only Murders in the Building', 'Pam & Tommy', and 'The White Lotus', each have 4 nods. India's 'RRR' has also scored two nods in the Best Original Song andBest Non-English Language Film categories.

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These awards, unlike the more sober Academy Awards or Oscars, are considered less serious, but not necessarily less prestigious. Instead, the Golden Globe Awards are deemed less serious and more relaxed. While the lists of nominees and winners are released publicly every year. How those films, TV shows, actors, actresses, writers, and so on are chosen is more obscure. That is in stark contrast to the Oscars, which nearly everybody knows, are chosen by an elected jury.

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Here is a brief explainer on everything that goes behind the scenes of the Golden Globe Awards and how nominees and winners are decided.

HFPA explained — the shady organisation behind the Golden Globes

HFPA or Hollywood Foreign Press Association is the organisation behind the awards. HFPA is a nonprofit outfit made up of journalists and photographers on the entertainment beat in different media like newspapers, magazines, books, radio, and TV broadcasting in the United States. As the word 'foreign' implies, most of the members of HFPA arenon-US citizens. At the time of writing this, HFPA consists of 105 members from 55 countries.

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You would think with journalists from so many countries, HFPA is likely a pretty diverse organisation. But for a long time, accusations of racism, coteries blocking the entry of journos outside the 'circle', bribery from studios in exchange for awards, and lack of transparency have stalked HFPA. It all came to a boil after a Los Angeles Times expose from February 2021, a week before the Golden Globes of that year was broadcast, detailed these accusations, focussing on a lack of transparency and diversity. The organisation then had 87 members, the report noted, and there were people of colour, but not a single black person.

The LA Times report also quoted former HFPA president Philip Berk. ”Territorial protectionism” in the organisation was “carried to the extreme”, Berk had admitted in the book.

Berk, incidentally, was accused by actor Brendan Fraser, currently enjoying a lease of life for his career, of groping him in 2003. HFPA had reportedly conducted an internal investigation, finding out that Berk meant no harm. Er...

So HFPA chooses nominations and winners?

Essentially, yes. Each member of the organisation is sent a ballot and a list of films sent by the studios that are eligible. The eligibility requires movies being released in the US during the duration the awards will be handed out. The members rank the film from 1 to 5. Accounting firm Ernst & Young tallies the ballots similar to the Oscars (in which PricewaterhouseCoopers does the same job). Both Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) are one of the big 4 accounting firms. This is how the nominees are decided.

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How does HFPA decide winners?

Once the nominations are in, the process becomes simpler. HFPA members are shown films in screenings throughout the year. Members vote for their favourite films privately.

How do Golden Globes differ from the Oscars?

The Oscars are given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (often shortened to just the Academy). The ever-changing membership of the Academy hovers around 8000-9000 (which is way more than the Globes). Also, unlike the Globes, which are essentially bestowed by journalists of HFPA, the Academy consists of people actively involved in the film industry: directors, writers, actors, editors, production designers, cinematographers, and so on.

Where to watch Golden Globe Awards 2022?

In the US, the Golden Globes will be telecast live on NBC at 8:00 PM ET on Tuesday. The network will also stream the awards live on the streaming service Peacock. In India, the awards will be streamed live on Lionsgate Play from 6:30 am on Wednesday.