Last night at the Golden Globes, Django Unchained and Amazing Spider-Man 2 star Jamie Foxx took the stage alongside Lily Rabe ... Collins ... Aldridge ... James to present the award for Best Original Score. Together, they presented the list of nominees, and the scores for Carol, The Danish Girl, The Hateful Eight, Steve Jobs, and The Revenant each enjoyed their own special five-second clips and moments of appreciation before Foxx opened the glossy winner's envelope.
"And the winner is," Foxx said, "Straight Outta Compton."
The winner was, of course, decidedly not this summer's sensational Straight Outta Compton, because it was not nominated for Best Original Score. Nor was it nominated in any other category, despite yearlong critical acclaim (reflected in its impressive 88-percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Half the audience laughed while the other half audibly gasped and murmured. And they were right to. Jamie Foxx's joke gestured directly at the absurdity of Straight Outta Compton's omission—and more subtly, at the void where the Golden Globes' interest in films about the lives of modern-day African-American people should be.
In the last few years, the Golden Globes have been hailed for staying on "the right side of history" when it comes to honoring portrayals of racial and sexual diversity onscreen. And while there's certainly a robust list of Golden Globe–nominated films with black actors in them, there's a curious thing happening when it comes to portrayals of black people in particular. In years when there have been Golden Globe–nominated films about the lives of black people, they skew considerably toward historical subject matter, largely with a race-issues-of-the-time bent: the Civil Rights movement, segregation, slavery, apartheid. In the recent past, movies like Fruitvale Station and Hustle & Flow have been largely or completely ignored by the Golden Globes despite heaps of critical acclaim, and even this year's lauded Creed garnered only one nomination—for Sylvester Stallone.
Of course, the Golden Globes did take notice of Taraji P. Henson, who took home a Golden Globe for her performance as Cookie Lyon on Empire—not a film but a TV series about African-American people in the present day. And you could argue that with its relatively un-highbrow pedigree (pop-music biopic helmed by a journeyman action director), Straight Outta Compton could seem like a long shot for awards-season consideration, regardless of subject matter. But last night's Golden Globes had a more-than-healthy share of surprisingly anti-snobby, borderline fan-servicey awards picks, like Stallone's sentimental win for Creed, and a victory for Lady Gaga—who you have to imagine fits squarely into the HFPA's Household Name Among the Young Hip Folks Demographic checkbox—for American Horror Story.
So as for last night, on a night when Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence made some bleeped-out jokes about lady parts and Ricky Gervais got a few laughs revealing what he likes to put in his ass, the award for best Talking About That Thing We Don't Talk About goes to the one and only Jamie Foxx.
