Golden Globes to Change Comedy Award Rules After ‘The Martian’ Controversy

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Last year, in a move that was both confusing and hilarious, Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic The Martian was nominated for and eventually (in January) awarded the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical. This would seem to some like a slight towards the film, a drama about an astronaut who must be rescued from the surface of Mars, until it’s revealed that the makers of the film entered it into the category on purpose. Many fans and industry-folk alike were outraged by the maneuver, saying it was an attempt to avoid stiff competition in the drama category (which was won by Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant and featured films such as Room, Mad Max, Spotlight, and Carol.) The issue was compounded when The Martian star Matt Damon won the award for best actor in a comedy or musical.

One person in particular who took issue with the results was Trainwreck and Knocked Up director Judd Apatow. Trainwreck was up for the best comedy award, so Apatow was none too pleased to learn that a drama with only slight comedic overtones was nominated to the comedy category. Last October, months before the official Golden Globe nominees were announced, Apatow took to Twitter to voice his disapproval.

If you think he was pissed then, just imagine his reaction when The Martian and Damon took both categories. Actually, that’s unnecessary: just check out his reaction below, in a speech during the Critic’s Choice Awards the following week (spoiler alert: he was pissed.)

Apatow, from the stage, looked right at Damon and said “I got Matt Damon staring at me right now, after that whole ‘Golden Globe comedy’ thing. We only have one award Matt, that’s all we get. I’m like a nerd on the schoolyard and you stole my milk money.” While he was ostensibly joking, Apatow was clearly irritated by the results, adding “Can we just pick whatever category we want to be in? We have an Asian man in our film, can we go ‘foreign film’ now?”

The ‘best comedy’ results ruffled the feathers of more than just Apatow, however, and the institution behind the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has taken steps to avoid such negative publicity in the future. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the HFPA has announced an 11-page list of revisions to the rules for next years ceremony, which will take place January 8th, 2017. On top of tweaks to the rules regarding foreign, musical, and animated films, the HFPA changed the guidelines so that “dramas with comedic overtones should be entered as dramas,” as opposed to comedies.

 

If you’re interested, a full list of the rule changes can be found here. You can also check out a trailer for The Martian from the parallel universe where it actually was a comedy below:

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Bill Tressler

Bill is a writer and comedy enthusiast from New York. An avid gamer and podcast fan, he strives to always toe the line between charming irreverence and grating honesty.
Bill Tressler

Bill Tressler

Bill is a writer and comedy enthusiast from New York. An avid gamer and podcast fan, he strives to always toe the line between charming irreverence and grating honesty.