The 80th Golden Globe Awards graced our screens last night, celebrating excellence in film and television from 2022, and it has already been subject to controversy…
Viewers have bashed part of the event over the “inappropriate” jokes made about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
This came just before Evan Peters swiped the Best Actor award for his chilling portrayal of the cannibal killer.
The event took place at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, and it was a night to remember. An esteemed panel of professionals from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association selected the most deserving winners.
It was a prestigious occasion, filled with stars from all corners of the entertainment industry that were excited to be honored for their hard work and dedication.
Obviously, the Hollywood Foreign Press has not been without controversy over the last few years, and that is something that many people wanted them to address.
During the show, President Helen Hoehne mentioned the changes made to the organisation in order to ensure that its members had a more diverse representation. “We commit to continue strengthening our partnership with Hollywood and with the worldwide fans who celebrate the best on film and television,” she said. “We will continue to support groups that amplify a variety of voices and continue to add representation to our organisation from around the world as we did this past year.”
The HFP’s lack of diversity was also addressed by this year’s Host Jerrod Carmichael: “I’m here because I’m Black,” he said in his opening monologue, adding that the association “did not have a single Black member until George Floyd died.” His comments seemed to spark a positive response from Twitter users, and his name quickly began trending on the site.
Aside from that, there were some clear stars of the show when it came to accepting awards. Unsurprisingly, The Banshees of Inisherin won best picture, for a musical or comedy, and received a whopping eight nominations throughout the night.
Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans won the final award of the night for Best Motion Picture Drama.
The winners of the TV category were HBO’s House of the Dragon, which won Best Drama Television Series, and Abbott Elementary, which won best television series, musical or comedy. The White Lotus was also very successful, winning Best Limited Series, Anthology, or TV Movie.
When it came to the best actors awards, Evan Peters was the frontrunner. He bagged the award for his chilling portrayal of serial killer Jeffrey Dhamer in Netflix’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
Between 1978 and 1991 Dhamer took the lives of seventeen men, and the show has previously been criticised for making money off of the tragic deaths of these innocent victims.
Despite that, during last night’s event, Nicole Byer and Ana Gasteyer appeared to make light of the tragic real-life story, and understandably, viewers were outraged.
Discussing Dahmer on stage, the pair noted that while he was “not a nice guy,” he “nailed it on eyewear… setting a trend for years to come.”
To make matters worse, Gasteyer then put on a pair of glasses, similar to that of the serial killer, before presenting the award to Peters.
The audience was clearly shocked by the whole thing, as were viewers, who took to Twitter to share their thoughts…
One person wrote: “Jeffrey Dahmer jokes are not funny, especially to his victims’ families.”
While another said: “The golden globes should be ashamed for letting all of those people make jokes about Dahmer, he was a murderer, and the families of his victims are still alive, imagine how they feel when they see stuff like that. It’s just so distasteful and cruel in my opinion.”
“These Dahmer jokes are actually so tasteless and [I don’t know] how and why they aren’t stopping?” a third commented.
