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Golden Globes 2018: how to watch and what to expect

The #MeToo movement will undoubtedly influence the ceremony.

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Golden Globes award statues.
Where did you come from, Golden Globes?!
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Aja Romano writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they’re considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars.

The 75th annual Golden Globes will air live on NBC on Sunday, January 7, at 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific. Seth Meyers will host the show, which will be held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.

The annual event, organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HPFA), hands out trophies for achievement in both film and television. On the TV side, the HBO series Big Little Lies leads the nominations with six, followed by FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan with four. Despite the dominance of these titles, the TV categories could also see a few predicted upsets, like Hulu’s freshman series The Handmaid’s Tale perhaps besting more established heavy hitters in the TV drama category, like Netflix’s Stranger Things and HBO’s Game of Thrones.

But the Globes have usually drawn more attention for their film honors, particularly since they can help identify awards season’s biggest films in the buildup to the Oscars. (With that said, the Globes are also prone to buying into hype.) This year, Guillermo del Toro’s “sex fish movie” The Shape of Water swam to the head of the school, garnering seven nominations. Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-bait drama The Post and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri followed close behind, with six nominations each.

Genre films on the whole have typically fared better at the Golden Globes than at the more traditional-skewing Oscars, so del Toro’s vintage romance-fantasy has a strong chance of winning in its categories. However, the Globes are significantly different from many other awards ceremonies for film, including the Oscars, because all the major film categories are split by genre into Drama versus Comedy/Musical.

That usually leads to a lot of controversy around genre classifications. For example, Jordan Peele, director of Get Out, was none too happy about his riveting horror film, a strong Oscar contender for Best Picture, being classified by the HPFA as a “comedy.”

Meanwhile, the overall list of nominees has raised plenty of eyebrows due to lackluster selections like The Boss Baby for animated film or Will & Grace for Best Television comedy — which, as Vox critics Todd VanDerWerff and Alissa Wilkinson point out, is a fine enough choice until you consider how many vastly superior but less well-known series could have been nominated in its place. But that’s about par for the course with the Globes, which are known for their unpredictability.

Conversations around the #MeToo movement and politics could dominate the ceremony

The 2018 Golden Globes have already come under scrutiny for not nominating any women directors despite a year full of acclaimed films directed by women — a snub that’s especially visible in a cultural moment defined by the #MeToo movement and geared toward recognizing women. Ironically, however, the HFPA seems to be leaning into the ongoing controversy surrounding Hollywood’s wave of sexual harassment allegations, noting pointedly in promos for the ceremony that “we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

You’ll have to tune in to see how this conversation actually plays out on awards night; it’s already impacted the way some media outlets plan to cover the Golden Globes’ red carpet, and Meyers has said that as host, he won’t shy away from confronting the subject. “It’s an opportunity to be able to say some things that you wouldn’t be able to say in previous years,” he told the Hollywood Reporter, adding that anyone playing along at home should “Drink any time someone references a man in Hollywood without saying their name but everyone knows who they’re talking about.”

The #MeToo movement, as well as politics in general, will likely also influence the ceremony in terms of politically charged acceptance speeches and award winners.

One nominee to watch will be Christopher Plummer, who is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for All the Money in the World. In November, Plummer was hastily cast to replace Kevin Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty — just weeks before the movie’s scheduled release — in a remarkable last-minute reshoot conducted after director Ridley Scott decided to erase Spacey, accused of multiple sexual assaults, from the film.

In brighter news, this year’s Golden Globes ceremony will feature the typical star-studded list of presenters, including Penelope Cruz, Darren Criss, Neil Patrick Harris, and more. And given that the awards tend to be among the more fun and laid-back ceremonies of awards season, you’ll want to keep your eye out for whimsical speeches and meme-ready moments in the audience.

How to watch the 75th Golden Globe Awards:

Golden Globes ceremony: The Golden Globes, which will be held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, will air live on NBC on Sunday, January 7, at 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific.

Live stream: Get excited, because we actually have good news for once: According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBC has reached a new deal with the HFPA that will allow it to live-stream the Golden Globes this year, via its app (iOS/Android) or website.

(This is a brand new development; if you tried to stream the Golden Globes in 2017, you may have been one of the many viewers who learned the hard way, when they tried to tune in, that the ceremony wasn’t available on NBC Live or any subscription streaming services that carry the network. As Recode notes, that’s because NBC’s contract with the HFPA didn’t include live-streaming rights, which didn’t become clear until the night of the show.)

There’s just one catch: To stream the 2018 Globes via NBC, you will need a subscription to a service like Optimum, Comcast, or other cable or satellite provider — or, at the very least, a borrowed login from someone who does.

Alternatively, you can use an over-the-top device or subscription streaming service that carries NBC — including Fubo, Sling TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, and Hulu’s live TV service to stream the awards. And keep in mind that many subscription streaming services will allow you to sign up for a free trial period, provided you’re a new customer — so if you don’t already have a subscription to a service that carries NBC, signing up for a trial is your best bet to live-stream the awards for free.

Host: Seth Meyers will host — and he’s already got strong ideas about what will make this year’s ceremony stand out.

Red carpet coverage: NBC has partnered with Facebook Live to offer a live stream of the network’s red-carpet preshow exclusively on the Golden Globes Facebook page. The preshow begins at 6 pm Eastern/3 pm Pacific, with hosts including A.J. Gibson, Jeannie Mai, Scott Mantz, and Laura Marano. E! Live will also be dishing out some preshow highlights from its Red Carpet channel on YouTube, and offering 360-degree views of the event on its news app.

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