On Jan. 11, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association presented its annual Golden Globe Awards. Hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the show honored the year’s best achievements in television and film.

The Golden Globes are often less glorified than the Emmys and Oscars, but this year gave viewers a reason to pay attention. Both winners and the show itself set a new standard for progressive programming, especially when compared to the 2015 Oscars’ whitewashed nominees.

This should serve as a wake-up call for the rest of Hollywood: create forward-thinking programs or get left in the dust.

Award shows have the reputation of being predictable, lighthearted nights of celebration. Winners are often easily guessed, like Modern Family’s five-year Emmy streak. Hosts deliver tiny jabs of humor at the expense of other celebrities, but it’s never anything very insulting. These shows coast in the slow lane.

This year’s Golden Globes turned that notion on its head. The show has been known for its unorthodox nominees and winners in the past, but its show this year gave us more than expected.

Hosts Fey and Poehler started off the night with feminist-charged humor that defied the norm. Their jokes targeted Amal Alamuddin, George Clooney’s new wife, but in a positive way. They spotlighted her accomplishments as a civil rights lawyer, instead of her outfit or looks.

Beyond the show’s content and humor, the awards themselves showed advancement for the LGBT community. Amazon’s “Transparent” scored a win for Best Comedy Series. The show tells the story of a transgender woman, played by Jeffrey Tambor, who comes out to her family. The creator of “Transparent,” Jill Soloway, dedicated the award to both her own trans-parent and Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager who recently committed suicide.

Tambor also snagged the best male actor award for his role on the show. He dedicated it to the trans* community, thanking them for their courage, inspiration and patience.

While the Golden Globes did their part to progress entertainment, the 2015 Academy Award nominations, which were announced Jan. 15, fell short. Every single actor and actress nominated for an Oscar was white. This is especially ridiculous after a year full of racial protests. The film “Selma” only grabbed a Best Picture nomination, noticeably snubbing its female, African-American director Ava DuVernay, and leading man David Oyelowo.

These nominations expose a deeper problem: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is 93 percent white and 76 percent male. This is unacceptable in such a diverse society and film industry, especially when it results in whitewashed nominations and winners.

But more must change than just nominees and those who choose them. The television and film industries themselves can start by developing more progressive programming. This does not mean simply filling background roles with minority characters; one-dimensional fillers do not constitute as representation. Instead, Hollywood needs to move past stereotypes and develop characters beyond their genders, races and sexual orientations.

This year’s Golden Globes were a night of advancement for both feminism and the LGBT community, but the recent Oscar nominations show more must be done. An industry so influential cannot keep rehashing the same basic plotlines and characters, and we cannot keep rewarding it for doing so.

Kathryn Krawczyk is a freshman magazine major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at kjkrawcz@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @KathrynKrawczyk.

Published on January 22, 2015 at 12:15 am