A Golden Silence

On Sunday, Hollywood’s biggest stars gathered at the Beverly Hilton for the 83rd annual Golden Globes. This year, notably, the ceremony unfolded amid extraordinary political chaos. In the days leading up to the Globes, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis; Donald Trump moved to depose Venezuela’s leader and declared the United States in control of the South American country; the secretary of defense sought to strip Sen. Mark Kelly of his rank and pension for reminding service members they are not obligated to follow illegal orders; and the Justice Department opened a criminal probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, an act of apparent retribution tied to Trump’s long-running feud with the central bank.

Needless to say, as the world’s biggest movie and television stars mingled in black-tie attire and sipped cocktails beneath the glamorous chandeliers, the broader state of American governance appeared deeply—and quite unsettlingly—out of order.

Yet those who tuned into CBS to watch the three-hour ceremony would have had little sense of any of it from the program itself. Indeed, if someone were to go back and rewatch the show 100 years from now, they’d likely have no clue about the political mayhem defining the moment. While host Nikki Glaser gently alluded to aspects of the backdrop—most notably when she skewered CBS News as a network where viewers can “see B.S. news”—the rest of the broadcast unfolded largely as if the surrounding moment did not exist. Hollywood star after Hollywood star took the stage to deliver acceptance speeches, but almost none ventured beyond industry jokes or expressions of gratitude, avoiding even a passing reference to the democratic crisis unfolding beyond the walls of the Beverly Hilton.