Tina Fey and Amy Poehler started off the first-ever bicoastal Golden Globes on a high note!
The comedians joined forces for their opening remarks from opposite coasts and started things off by cracking jokes about the differences between life in New York and California amid the pandemic.
“I’m Tina Fey, coming to you from the beautiful rainbow room in New York City, where indoor dining and outdoor muggings are back!” Tina zinged.
“And I’m Amy Poehler here at the Beverly Hilton’s District 7, Los Angeles, and this is the 78th annual Hunger Games,” her co-host added.
The co-hosts then shared some words for the first responders in the audience at the Beverly Hilton, who were invited to the big night as the night’s nominees joined via video chat.
“We know that you have seen a lot of crazy stuff at your job this year, but you have not seen the kind of stuff that we have seen at previous Golden Globes,” Amy told the special guests. “This front table right here usually houses the biggest stars in the world.”
“It’s usually Meryl Streep just hammered, cannot even remember what movie she is there for,” Tina joked.
Amy added, “Brad Pitt is always waving at me like, ‘Amy! Amy!’ And it’s like, ‘Dude, I’m working!'”
Golden Globe Awards 2021: Red Carpet Stars
View GalleryThe ladies continued to give the audience their hilarious Hollywood intel, including a how-to guide for discerning what’s TV versus what’s a movie.
“If the British actors are playing British people, it’s TV. If they’re playing Americans, it’s a movie,” Amy explained.
“If you’re like, ‘Mario Lopez is surprisingly good in this,’ that’s TV,” Tina quipped.
“And if it stars Matthew McConaughey as a poetic drifter, it’s a car commercial,” Amy said.
Amy and Tina then turned their attention to the stars and lovingly roasted some of their 2020 projects.
“‘The Queen’s Gambit’ is whatever James Corden was up to in ‘The Prom,’ I guess,” Tina joked as James laughed via Zoom. “‘The Prom’ came out at the perfect time, because this year, so many teenagers did not get to go to their prom. So, they could watch James Corden and Meryl Streep go to it instead, and that’s still fun, right guys?”
Amy, meanwhile, described “The Undoing” as “a sexy and dramatic mystery where Nicole Kidman‘s coat is suspected of murdering her wig,” and “Normal People” as “an emotional show about two young lovers in Ireland [that’s] best viewed in bed with your hot laptop right on your crotch.”
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The two also acknowledged some of the big controversies surrounding the award show, including Sia’s much-criticized film “Music” receiving multiple nods.
“I don’t want to get into it, guys, but it’s really problematic. And Twitter is saying it’s the most offensive casting since Kate Hudson was the Weight Watchers spokesperson,” Tina joked.
They also addressed the mounting criticism around the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which Tina described as a group “made up of around 90, international, no-Black journalists who attend movie junkets each year in search for a better life.”
When addressing the Black actors and Black-led project the organization overlooked this year, they told viewers that award shows were “stupid” and “invented by Big Red Carpet to sell more carpet.”
“The point is, even with stupid things, inclusivity is important, and there are no Black members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” Tina stressed. “I realize, HPFA, maybe you guys didn’t get the memo, because your workplace is the back booth of a French McDonald’s. But you gotta change that! So here’s to changing it.”
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