Sparks didn’t fly when Filipino-American comedian Jo Koy, hosting the 2024 Golden Globe Awards, cracked a joke involving American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and her high-profile relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce.
Sitting stoic beside actress Keleigh Sperry, Taylor remained unmoved as Koy referenced the constant camera cuts toward her during Kelce’s games.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift,” Koy quipped.
Taylor seemed unhappy with Jo Koy’s joke as she responded with a nonchalant sip of her drink as the camera panned to her.
The stand-up comedian was also booed for his opening monologue where he compared blockbuster movies Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”
“Oppenheimer is based on a 724-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is based on a plastic doll with big boobies,” he said.
When his jokes received negative feedback, Koy put the blame on his writers.
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote. Yo, I got the gig ten days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Shut up! You’re kidding me, right? I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at,” said the first Filipino-American to host the prestigious Golden Globe Awards.
“Oppenheimer” topped the Golden Globes on Sunday – but its fellow summer smash hit “Barbie” missed out on best comedy film honors to “Poor Things.”
“Oppenheimer” took five prizes including best drama, best director for Nolan, best score, as well as acting trophies for Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr.
Nolan told journalists backstage he was drawn to the “tragedy” of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a scientist who remained loyalty to his country and never apologized for his actions, yet was “wracked by tremendous guilt.”
Emma Thomas, the film’s producer and Nolan’s wife, said his work about “one of the darkest developments in our history” was “unlike anything anyone else is doing.”
Murphy, who plays the title character in the three-hour epic, hailed his “visionary director,” while Downey Jr, portraying the protagonist’s bitter rival, praised the movie as a “masterpiece.”
In winning best director, Nolan fended off Gerwig, who helmed “Barbie” – the other half of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that grossed a combined $2.4 billion last year at the box office.
Turning nostalgia for the beloved doll into a sharp satire about misogyny and female empowerment, “Barbie” was the leading film heading into the night with nine nominations, but ended the gala with just two prizes.
It won the award for best song, for a tune written by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas. And as the year’s highest grossing movie, it claimed a newly created trophy for box office achievement.
“We would like to dedicate this to every single person on the planet who dressed up and went to the greatest place on Earth, the movie theaters,” said Margot Robbie, the film’s star and producer.
“Thank you to all the Barbies and Kens in front of and behind the screen,” added Gerwig.
But “Barbie” lost out on best comedy to “Poor Things” – a surreal, sexy bildungsroman which also earned Emma Stone best actress for her no-holds-barred turn as Bella Baxter.
“Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person. She accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently,” said Stone. With AFP