The 81st Golden Globes occurred on Sunday, January 7th and everyone was talking about it- but not for the reasons you may think. The star-studded event was hosted by comedian and actor Jo Koy. While award shows are known to poke fun at celebrities and the movies nominated, people were not pleased with the jokes made by Koy. Many found his jokes to be inappropriate and particularly mean towards the women in the audience and the feminist films.
One of the jokes that garnered massive online media attention was Koy’s jokes comparing the two biggest motion pictures of the year, Oppenheimer and Barbie. When talking about Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a movie about the scientist who created the infamous atomic bomb, Koy praised the movie and only critiqued the length of the film. As the audience reacted well to this quip, Koy continued on about Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. The movie performed the best in the box office and details the struggles and unrealistic expectations of women through the tale of the iconic, inspiring girls toy, Barbie. Koy stated, “Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies…The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet.” As you would expect, many celebrities did not react well to this statement, with Barbie’s lead actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling making unamused expressions and Selena Gomez even putting her head down in disappointment. Pop culture fan, Senior Joel Albarran stated, “The Barbie joke was not needed. It wasn’t cool for him to do that. As it was no one really knew who [Jo Koy] was, so now he’s going to have that follow him for the rest of his career.”
Another gag of Jo Koy landed him in hot water with the Swifties. Singer, songwriter, and superstar Taylor Swift was in attendance due to her Cinematic and Box Office Achievement nomination for her film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Swift’s presence brought in an impressive amount of viewers to the event, so fans were not happy when she was the target of a joke that did not land well. Koy’s joke was, “The biggest difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.” Fans reacted negatively to this joke because of the amount of hate the singer has received for being shown during football games despite her not having control over the cameras. Many viewers pointed out that the joke was in bad taste considering how easy it could have been to make a joke praising her. Albarran also commented, “I think it is very hurtful to whoever is at the butt of the joke. It brings them down and their worth, especially Taylor Swift considering she’s written several songs about men doing that to her.” Koy’s punchline was also compared to Trevor Noah’s jokes during his hosting of the 2023 Grammys where Noah made a pun of one of Swift’s songs, joking “By the way, I love your song Anti-Hero. Yes, thank you so much. My auntie is also a hero. Her name is Beatrice.” Instead of making fun of Swift, Noah jumped off of the song title in a fun way. He was able to make people laugh without degrading or attacking anyone, unlike Koy’s insults portrayed as humor.
But were Koy’s jokes taken too seriously? Many people have come to Koy’s defense saying that his words were only meant for humor. Making fun of people is his entire purpose at the award show, to entertain the audience even at the expense of a few people’s feelings. Nonetheless, the common critique of Koy is that his Barbie joke was insensitive considering the entire point of the Barbie movie and everything it stands for. To reduce a movie that is supposed to uplift women down to women’s bodies is not acceptable despite Koy’s intentions.
It’s okay to make jokes and have fun, but there are ways of doing it that don’t explicitly target those who are already vulnerable. You can have fun without being mean.
