The 80th Golden Globes selected comedian Jerrod Carmichael to be its host – a bold choice, to be sure. Carmichael is known for dropping scathing and uncomfortable observations with a razor-sharp wit – whether its hot-button subjects like race, or deeply personal issues like his own sexuality (Carmichael’s Emmy-winning 2022 stand-up special “Rothaniel” also doubled as his official coming-out announcement). Well, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association was left sweating bullets before the 2023 Golden Globes ceremony, because they had to put faith in Jerrod Carmichael, without knowing a single word of his opening monologue!
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In Variety‘s wrap-up of the 2023 Golden Globes, the trade revealed the surprsing detail about how the HFPA didn’t know what Carmichael was going to say in his opening monologue:
“Hollywood Foreign Press Association members, Dick Clark Prods. producers and NBC execs were likely on the edge of their seats as Carmichael opened the show and immediately went hard on the HFPA. That’s because no one but Carmichael himself knew what he would say that night on live TV. During rehearsals, Carmichael practiced his stage presence, but never revealed what was in his monologue.”
It’s hard to even speculate how the HFPA ultimately came away feeling about the decision to let Jerrod Carmichael to compose his Golden Globes monologue in secret, since it turned out that the bulk of that monologue was aimed squarely at the HFPA!
In his signature style, Jerrod Carmichael’s opening monologue was more a conversation, witht he subject being why he ever agreed to take the Golden Globes hosting gig. Carmichael was quietly scathing in depicting the HFPA and the Globes as an “embattled white organization” that was using him for PC social gains. Like his other comedic diatribes, Carmichael was both brutally honest and sentively insightful, all while threading the needle to make the obvious unspoken tensions in the room something to laugh about. As Variety notes:
In his brutally honest opener, Carmichael riffed on why he was chosen to be host (“I’m here because I’m Black”) and why he accepted the gig. He even name checked HFPA president Helen Hoehne, while referencing the scandals the org has faced in the past two years, leading to last year’s televised hiatus. But just as he took on the HFPA, he then turned it around and ended his monologue by noting he was there to celebrate Hollywood talent, much to the relief of all involved. And now, Globes producers believe they may have gotten over the hump of having to further address the controversy.
You can stream Jerrod Carmichael’s 2023 Golden Globes monologue on YouTube.
