Hollywood is no longer playing with Barbies. If this year’s Golden Globes are anything to go by, the Margot Robbie comedy that practically everyone saw last summer could end up the redheaded stepchild of awards season – gaining lots of nominations but few wins, and upending the predictions of those who assumed it would at least sweep the comedy categories. On Sunday night it went home with just two awards: one for Billie Eilish’s original song, and a second that was entirely made up.
What does it mean that Barbie won the inaugural, incredibly silly “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement” Globe? Described as an opportunity to recognise films that both “garnered extensive global audience support and attained cinematic excellence”, the award is the inevitable endpoint of a genre in crisis: televised awards ceremonies run by people who don’t particularly like televised awards ceremonies, who get skittish about the recurring absence in the winners’ lists of enormous blockbusters.
