Letter: Tarnished Globes
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: The Independent is to be congratulated on Andrew Gumbel's report on the Golden Globes (26 January). The truth behind the Golden Globes is potentially as big a scandal as the current Olympic inquest, and when it is finally embraced by the media there are going to be a lot of red faces among those, including the US media, studios and agents, who have chosen to misrepresent to the public exactly what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Golden Globes are all about.
The vast majority of journalists in Los Angeles who cover the film and television industries for the media outside the US are not members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, nor are they welcome to be members. Sadly, many of the artists receiving their awards honestly believe - as do the majority of the global television audience and the American public - that their work is being honoured by all the foreign journalists based in Los Angeles.
The studios know the truth but are happy with the status quo, as the Globes is a cheap marketing tool for films in release and the run-up to the Academy Awards nominations on 9 February. The timing of the Globes is no coincidence and can affect how the 5,000-plus members of the Academy vote on the Oscars and what the public pay to see at their local cinemas in the coming weeks.
Given the money involved with all aspects of the Golden Globes the odds are that most of the Hollywood crowd will stick their heads firmly in the ground and ignore the obvious. It is going to be up to the media outside the US to expose the Golden Globes as the exercise in smoke and mirrors it truly is.
If changes are not made very soon, the Golden Globes could damage the Hollywood myth and even the Academy Awards themselves, both innocent bystanders in this unnecessary deception.
CHRISTOPHER PICKARD
Editor
"Moving Pictures"
Los Angeles
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