From Barbenheimer to Saltburn, 2023 has been a prosperous year for the film industry. Hosted by comedian and actor Jo Koy, the 81st annual Golden Globes Awards recognized movies for their respective achievements on January 7th. The ceremony was met with an abundance of backlash online due to Koy and his opening monologue, which featured misogynistic jokes about the Barbie movie and Taylor Swift.
The Barbie movie, released in July 2023, was a thought-provoking movie that offered commentary on society’s unachievable expectations for women and the harmful effects the patriarchy has on women’s psychology. Koy, however, poked fun at the film by reducing it to a movie about “a plastic doll and big boobies.” The joke was immediately met with cringing faces and awkward laughing.
He added: “The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet—or what casting directors call ‘character acting'”
Once the joke fell flat, Koy attempted to shift blame to the writers.
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote,” he said in a video of the monologue shared on YouTube. He shouted out: “Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up! You’re kidding me, right? Slow down. I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at,” he added.
Cue more awkward shuffling and cringing faces.
Koy tried to move on, and shifted his attention to Taylor Swift. “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift,” Koy said. Swift reacted by pursing her lips and sipping her champagne. The crowd was so quiet they played the laugh track. After a couple “oohs,” Koy mumbled, “Sorry about that.”
The next day, Koy told Extra that he intended his joke to be a “compliment.”
“It’s like, she can be more intimate tonight. That’s all,” he said.
Koy’s performance met with a lot of negative reactions online, as some people commented he was misogynistic and made people uncomfortable.
Some celebrities, including Whoopi Goldberg and Howard Stern, spoke out in his defense, saying that “Hollywood has no sense of humor about themselves,” and that “hosting gigs are brutal.”
