So, the Golden Globes nominations were announced today.  You know I love awards shows; I don’t really know why, but I do.  I was pretty excited about it, but then I saw the nominees.  They were pretty wacky, but there are really just two things I want to address in this post.  And both of those have to do with the fact that Burlesque was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.  Yes, Burlesque.  You know, the one I saw in a theater full of gays, who alternated between clapping at Cher’s singing/wigs and laughing at the terrible dialogue and acting.  It could win a Golden Globe.

My first issue with this is the category itself.  For Suri Cruise’s sake, why are musicals and comedies lumped together, Hollywood Foreign Press Association?!  This is not the 1940s.  The “Musical Comedy” is still a thing, yes, but it’s now only part of a growing genre that includes Genre Musicals, Rock Operas, and Jukebox Musicals, all of which could be either dramtic or comedic.  Sometimes, HFPA, they’re both!  Just like other movies!  Let’s take a look, shall we, at some other musicals nominated for Golden Globes and what their competition was:

1983: Yentl won, beating The Big Chill, Flashdance, Trading Places, and Zelig
1996: Evita won, beating The Birdcage, Everyone Says I Love You, Fargo, and Jerry Maguire
2001: Moulin Rouge! won, beating Bridget Jones’s Diary, Gosford Park, Legally Blonde, and Shrek
2007: Sweeney Todd won, beating Across the Universe, Charlie Wilson’s War, Hairspray, and Juno

So, I’m not saying those movies weren’t deserving or weren’t better than those that they beat, but if you’re going to categorize movies by Drama or Comedy, go all the ‘effing way!  Hairspray and Everyone Says I Love You? Those fit in the comedy category, if you ask me.  The four winners?  Not so much.  Burlesque, unless you’re talking about how unintentionally comical it was, doesn’t belong in this category either.

Of course, it doesn’t really deserve to be nominated at all.  I mean, I’m not saying that this movie wasn’t amazing and that I didn’t love it, because it was and I did.  But there’s a difference between a movie being good and being quality.  Quality it was not.  Two of the songs were nominated, and I’m all for that.  One, written by pop balladeer extraordinaire Diane Warren, fit into the movie about as well as the movie fit into this category.  But it was a great song, and Cher did her amazing Cher thing with it.  Unfortunately, as a movie, its spot should have been taken by some other movie.  I can’t speak for the other nominees, as I didn’t see them (though I have it on good lesbian authority — by two different lesbians — that The Kids Are All Right was terrible).  But I can tell you Burlesque’s slot could have been given to any number of other movies.  For example, HFPA loves an adult rom-com.  How about Date Night?  Or for a little edge, what about Kick-Ass.  That movie was amazing.  Or even a Hangover-esque shocker in nominating Hot Tub Time Machine?  I mean, if you’re going to nominate a ridiculous movie, at least make it one that was supposed to be hilarious.  And on that note, I leave you with this scene from Burlesque.  Try not to laugh: