The Golden Globes nominations are out, which means it is time yet again for everyone to wonder what exactly the Golden Globes are doing. It’s fun. We do it every year. We wake up early and wait for the nominations and then we look at them and we all release a collective “WHAT?!” when various deserving things get passed over in favor of various less-deserving things that have prestigious names and/or previous winners attached to them. My favorite thing to do is know all of this and then get all mad about it anyway. I really recommend it. Great for the heart. Makes you feel alive on a random Wednesday morning.
I mean, look at some of these whiffs. I May Destroy You, a smart take on trauma that was at times devastating and charming: not nominated; Rhea Seehorn, who delivers maybe the best performance on Better Call Saul, a very good show loaded with very good performances: not nominated. Delroy Lindo, who absolutely rules in Da 5 Bloods, a movie directed by Spike Lee, who was also not nominated: not nominated. Al Pacino and Hugh Grant, who were both fine in Hunters and The Undoing, respectively, but who probably would not have been nominated for the roles of their names were not Al Pacino and Hugh Grant: nominated. Emily in Paris, lord have mercy: nominated. I could go on. I won’t, but I could, especially about the Rhea Seehorn thing. Someone needs to give her an award at some point. I don’t care what award it is. Any trophy will do.
So, yes, there’s all of that. And it’s also worth noting somewhere in here that none of this, like, really matters in the grand scheme of things. My position on awards shows remains the same: The whole thing is very silly but if we insist on doing them — and seeing as this is the 78th Golden Globes ceremony, it appears we do — we might as well try to do them right. And so, with that in mind, and with all the various snubs still banging around the chunks of our brains that control righteous fury, let’s also consider this: At least the Golden Globes nominated Ted Lasso for some awards.
Remember Ted Lasso? What a good show that was. And still is. Just heartwarming and fun and good. Remember crying during the darts scene? Remember Dani Rojas? Remember Coach Beard, that freaking icon? Remember Roy, that cranky sweetheart? Remember the time the show twisted itself into a pretzel just to give me — yes, I assume this was done for me, personally, which I do appreciate — a comedic riff on the Allen Iverson practice speech? Why, yes, I will post those screencaps again, great idea.
It’s good that Ted Lasso got nominated, both the show (Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy) and Ted himself (Jason Sudeikis, Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy), and it feels like a very Ted Lasso thing to focus on that. We could talk about Ted Lasso non-stop for the next six months — and I might — and I still don’t think we’d fully cover how wild it was that the show was as good as it ended up being. It was a full-length season of television based on a commercial character who was, at first, drawn more thinly than a stick figure (American football coach with a funny and extremely American name gets hired to coach an English football team despite not understanding soccer), and it aired on a streaming service created by a company that makes telephones. In any sensible universe, it should have been bad. Instead, it was a sweet and enjoyable look at teamwork and family and, kind of, what masculinity looks like without machismo. It was great. I might watch it again.
And if I’m going to go all Ted Lasso today, let’s note that there were other good nominations in there, too. The Flight Attendant picked up a handful. That show was such a blast. Jodie Comer and Anya Taylor-Joy got nominated for playing different kinds of ruthless killers. Regina King picked up a Best Director nod, which is great because Regina King deserves a lot of awards, too. Olivia Colman got nominated, which is also great because it means there’s a chance she’ll give a slightly tipsy acceptance speech from her living room via Zoom. And Palm Springs got nominated for Best Comedy and Best Actor (Andy Samberg), which gives me a reasonable excuse to post this GIF.
The Golden Globes are always weird and are best viewed, in normal years, as an excuse for attractive people to dress up and drink champagne together. You and I can rant and rave about the snubs every year, and again, I do not see us stopping, in part because that’s what we do and in part because mentioning Palm Springs again just made me angry that Cristin Milioti did not get recognized.
But even with that, even with the righteous fury and dismissively shrugged shoulders of it all… at least the Golden Globes nominated Ted Lasso for a couple of awards. It’s not perfect, but it’s not nothing.
