--- description: Beyond the usual boozy fun, it was a night of outspokenness and messages. But is Hollywood really Charlie Hebdo, or does it just play it on TV? title: From Cosby to 'Charlie,' This Golden Globes Had Something to Say image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9e1cb5fed61038f2/698779600b72e3af3f6dd12d/nup_166887_1737.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Review: From Cosby to _Charlie_, This Golden Globes Had Something to Say by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 12, 2015 2:16 PM CUT  Fey, Cho and Poehler at the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards Fey, Cho and Poehler at the 72nd Annual Golden Globe AwardsPaul Drinkwater/NBC by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 12, 2015 2:16 PM CUT Accepting the Golden Globe for best actor in a TV drama, Kevin Spacey shared a story about meeting Stanley Kramer late in the legendary director’s life. “I just wish my films could have been better,” Kramer said. It was a fitting anecdote Sunday. Kramer was known for “message movies”–films like _Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner_, _On the Beach_ and _Judgment at Nuremberg_, which made pointed, hard-to-miss, unabashedly liberal comments on bigotry, war and other big issues. And Sunday’s broadcast was in many ways the message Golden Globes. This year, Hollywood had more to get off its chest than the fabric from its plunging necklines. (About which, Globes viewers were witness to more exposed sternums Sunday night than thoracic surgeons see in their careers.) It started with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, hosting what they’d announced in advance was their last Globes, and they clearly meant to leave their audience talking. Their routine–the now-familiar, seemingly effortless ping-ponging between them–began with the usual skewering of the latest movies mixed with on-point pokes at the industry’s shallowness and sexism. Patricia Arquette’s role in _Boyhood_, Poehler said, was proof that “there are great roles for women over 40, as long as you get hired when you’re _under_ 40.” But at the end, the two former _SNL_\-mates whittled their comedy down to a spearpoint, targeting–as they suggested they would–Bill Cosby, and the rape accusations that recently resurfaced against him. The fairytale movie _Into the Woods_, Poehler said, included Sleeping Beauty, who “just thought she was getting coffee with Bill Cosby.” Fey launched into a Cosby imitation that she’d [brought out years ago on _Weekend Update_](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/12/04/bill%5Fcosby%5Frape%5Fallegations%5Ftina%5Ffey%5Fbrought%5Fthem%5Fup%5Fon%5Fsaturday%5Fnight%5Flive.html "undefined") in connection withe the charges: “I put the _pills_ in the _people_!” she said, in her best Pudding Pop expostulation. ### Golden Globes 2015: Red Carpet Photos  Jessica Chastain arrives to the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015. Christopher Polk—NBC/Getty Images  Anna Kendrick attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Salma Hayek Pinault attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Jessica Chastain attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Emily Blunt arrives to the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Kevork Djansezian—NBC/Getty Images  George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin Clooney attend the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Amy Adams attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Eddie Redmayne attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Steve Granitz—WireImage/Getty Images  Julianne Moore attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jeff Vespa—WireImage/Getty Images  Tina Fey attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Amy Poehler attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Kevin Spacey attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Emma Stone attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Lorde attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Steve Granitz—WireImage/Getty Images  Jeffrey Tambor attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jeff Vespa—Getty Images  Quvenzhane Wallis attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Lena Dunham arrives to the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Kevork Djansezian—NBC/Getty Images  Adrian Grenier arrives to the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Christopher Polk—NBC/Getty Images  Julia Louis-Dreyfus arrives to the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Kevork Djansezian—NBC/Getty Images  Allison Williams attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Keira Knightley arrives to the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Kevork Djansezian—NBC/Getty Images  Patti Smith attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  James Corden attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Bill Hader attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Steve Granitz—WireImage/Getty Images  Diane Kruger attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Chrissy Teigen and John Legend attend the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Kate Mara attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jeff Vespa—WireImage/Getty Images  Lana Del Rey attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Kit Harington arrives at the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Kevork Djansezian—NBC/Getty Images  Giuliana Rancic attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jeff Vespa—WireImage/Getty Images  Pedro Pascal attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Conchita Wurst attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Kelly Osbourne attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Steve Granitz—WireImage/Getty Images  Naomi Watts attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Kevork Djansezian—NBC/Getty Images  Gina Rodriguez attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Katherine Heigl attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Uzo Aduba attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images  Felicity Jones attends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Steve Granitz—WireImage/Getty Images  Reese Witherspoon ttends the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jason Merritt—Getty Images A few awards later, they brought on some help to hit another recent Hollywood hot button, the North Korean attacks on the film _The Interview_, and the industry’s response or lack thereof. (Earlier, Fey said the awards would celebrate the best TV, “as well as all the movies that North Korea was OK with.”) Comedian Margaret Cho played a North Korean general and movie critic (for _Movies Wow!_ magazine) who cast a glowering eye on the festivities. (Besides _The Interview_, she disapproved _Orange Is the New Black_ competing in the comedy category: “It’s funny, but not ‘ha-ha’ funny!”) The statements in the acceptances themselves were, not surprisingly, more earnest. Common, accepting the best-song award for _Selma_, expressed solidarity both with unarmed black kids shot by police and with the two New York City policemen who were recently assassinated. Joanne Froggatt, a winner after a season of _Downton Abbey_ in which her character was raped, dedicated the award to real-life rape survivors. And the winsome Gina Rodriguez of The CW’s _Jane the Virgin_ accepted a best comedy actress award, tearfully citing the show’s importance to Latino viewers, “a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes.” That last award was also an example of the Golden Globes’ continued streak of honoring new shows and new faces in its TV awards (in this respect, it’s almost the anti-Emmys). The Golden Globes, voted on by a relative handful of journalists, don’t mean a lot in terms of predicting other awards or turning shows into hits. But one thing the awards can do is give mass-audience publicity to off-the-radar shows. And the Globes did that last night for 2014’s best show, _Transparent_ on Amazon, which won best comedy and best actor for Jeffrey Tambor. (It was a big night for streaming TV and anything that wasn’t traditional broadcast: only The CW and PBS won from the latter category.) Tambor, who plays transgender parent Maura Pfefferman, continued the earnest theme by thanking the transgender community; creator Jill Soloway dedicated the show’s award in part to [Leelah Alcorn](http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/31/us/ohio-transgender-teen-suicide/ "undefined"), a transgender teenager who became a social media icon after her suicide. The Globes’ openness to the new continued to a fault in the drama category, won by Showtime’s _The Affair_–an ambitious, challenging, well-acted he-said-she-said drama that was also often a morose, overengineered mess in its first season. But again: it’s the Globes! No need to get too worked up. Indeed, the very appeal of the Globes traditionally is their lack of seriousness or import–they’re generally a loose, boozy good time packed with stars. But a heavy year in the news gave us a heavier Globes, and it seemed fitting that this year’s Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award went to Hollywood’s speaker-outer-in-chief, George Clooney. Late last year, it was Clooney who chided the industry for the lack of vocal support for the victims of the Sony hacking. And Sunday night, Clooney ended his speech on a note of solidarity with the French cartoonists massacred by Islamist extremists in Paris: “Je suis Charlie.” _Vraiment?_ Yes, Clooney and his wife Amal wore their support for artists’ expression literally, wearing badges with the slogan on the red carpet, where other attendees were brandishing pens in solidarity. But when it came to the Globes’ own satire, reaction was decidedly mixed. Reaction shots showed much of the crowd uncomfortable at Fey and Poehler’s Cosby jokes, and there’s already been [social-media reaction against those](http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2015/01/golden-globes-2015-bill-cosby-jokes-prince-and-chrissy-teigens-face-make-waves-online.html "undefined"), as well as attacking Cho’s sendup as a [racist caricature](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2015/01/12/margaret-cho-north-korean-golden-globes-racist-racism/21623491/ "undefined"). Anyone surprised? For all the horror at the shootings and support for the right to expression, Americans get nervous about satire long before it reaches the scathing, vicious tone of _Charlie Hebdo_‘s cartoons. We’ve had numerous debates over whether [a rape joke can ever be good and funny](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/11/why-daniel-tosh-s-rape-joke-at-the-laugh-factory-wasn-t-funny.html "undefined") (though I’d say Fey and Poehler’s, aimed at a powerful person accused of assault, are Exhibit A of how one can be). And though Cho herself is Korean, playing a foreign character–and though she already [played dictator Kim Jong Il ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K-SmlP4U5w "undefined")on Fey’s _30 Rock_–any lampooning of a heavily accented Asian character on this stage was likely to [trip the outrage meter](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/12/the%5Fyear%5Fof%5Foutrage%5F2014%5Feverything%5Fyou%5Fwere%5Fangry%5Fabout%5Fon%5Fsocial%5Fmedia.html "undefined"). As with the _Charlie Hebdo_ cartoons themselves, it was an example of a tension in American melting-pot culture, especially in left-leaning communities like Hollywood: classical liberalism (which emphasizes expression and personal and artistic liberties) bumps up against progressivism (which emphasizes identity politics and power dynamics). And one sad week in the news isn’t likely to change that. So, _nous sommes tous Charlie_? Maybe. But more in theory than in practice. _Read next:_ [_Golden Globes Recap: At This Show, Politics Only Go So Far_](http://time.com/3663360/golden-globes-2015-michael-keaton-politics-show/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3663547/golden-globes-2015-review-fey-poehler-cosby-charlie-hebdo/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3663547/golden-globes-2015-review-fey-poehler-cosby-charlie-hebdo/"},"headline":"Review: From Cosby to Charlie, This Golden Globes Had Something to Say","datePublished":"2015-01-12T14:16:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:16.379Z","description":"Beyond the usual boozy fun, it was a night of outspokenness and messages. 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