When I first heard that comedian Jo Koy had been tapped to host the 2024 Golden Globes, I was excited. Not because I was specifically a fan of Koy’s (I only really have room in my heart for one cishet male comedian over 40, and that’s Nick Kroll), but because I didn’t know his comedy well, and when it comes to awards show hosts, new is always a plus. (Didn’t we learn from Ricky Gervais’s endless hosting reign that sometimes it pays to shake things up instead of having the same dude do literally everything forever?)
Unfortunately, once Sunday night’s Golden Globes award ceremony actually rolled around, it became clear that while Koy may have been new to the hosting gig, his jokes were not quite fresh. Skewering Hollywood (especially its highest flyers, who are actually in the room) is part and parcel of any awards show host’s job, but Koy made eyeroll-inducing cracks about Barbie, forced Meryl Streep to engage in a truly cringe Black Panther bit, and managed to quite visibly piss off Taylor Swift with a random Travis Kelce reference—all in the space of about eight minutes. It…wasn’t the best, to be honest.
The Golden Globes are objectively a tough room, especially given the controversy that’s embroiled the Hollywood Foreign Press Association over the past few years. Even graded on a curve, though, Koy’s monologue was still objectively hard to watch, begging the question: is it time to throw it back to a hostless awards-show season?
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