The week the Golden Globes faded

From left, Meher Tatna, Chairperson of the HFPA Board, Ali Sar, Chairperson of the HFPA, and Helen Hoehne, Vice-Chairperson of the HFPA, attend the 78th Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton, the February 28, 2021 in California.Todd_Williamson / Getty Images

Alexander Nevsky likes to pose on his social media with guns and horses. Despite sharing a name with the prince that Sergei Eisenstein brought to the screen, this 50-year-old Russian actor admires the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger more. Like this one, he often tells his story of overcoming: of the boy

Movie lover to

Mr. Universe winning

amateur

bodybuilder

and low-fortune actor who has starred in 13 low-budget films.

Nevsky is now preparing to play a series B western, a job he will combine with his membership in the all-powerful Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which organizes and awards the Golden Globes and which this week it has lived and lives its lowest hours amid accusations of corruption, a lack of diversity in the composition of its juries and little credibility.

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Nevsky's profile, a member since 2003, is not exceptional within an exclusive club made up of 86 people. There's the former South African beauty queen in 1978; the famous

Polish woman who likes to portray herself dressed in fur coats and vintage cars; a Chinese actress and other small luminaries with unknown filmographies. All of them can continue to be members as long as they publish sporadically in their countries and collaborate on the organization's page. Nevsky's most recent contribution was a commentary on

O Brother !, a

film by the Coen brothers released more than 20 years ago. There are also journalists who work for foreign media, including EL PAÍS collaborator Rocío Ayuso, who are more in line with the spirit of an organization of correspondents that awards the most famous film awards in Hollywood, after the Oscars, to which, as the topic dictates, they serve as a prelude.

The week of pains of the awards began with an announcement by the NBC network: it will not broadcast as usual the 2022 ceremony in the face of the increase in criticism against the HFPA. In reality, the station, caught between its fears and possible financial damage, came to that decision only when the pressure became untenable, according to a reconstruction by

The Los Angeles Times.

Because the attacks have come this time from the industry itself, which in the past has shown itself to be an unbeatable bed partner of the Golden Globes. Scarlett Johansson has asked not to participate in events of the organization and complained about the sexism she suffers in her conferences press. Tom Cruise returned the three awards he has won this week. These voices have been joined by other performers and producers, such as Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay, in addition to the Time's Up movement: they all ask not to have a relationship with the HFPA. A group of 100 publicists, who mediate between the stars and the press and are an important source of access for the work of prominent correspondents in Hollywood, announced that they will cease meetings with them for now until the association makes the necessary changes so that be more transparent and ethnically diverse.Studios like HBO and Netflix have also set a distance with the awards.

The message appears to have been picked up by the HFPA.

The association promised on Monday to add 20 new voting members by August.

The increase will grow by 50% next year and a half, they promise, in a move similar to that carried out by the Hollywood Academy in reaction to the controversy of 2015 with the hashtag #OscarSoWhite (Oscar too white).

Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong'o and Michael B. Jordan, on stage at the 2019 Golden Globes gala.Paul Drinkwater / NBCUniversal via Getty Images / EL PAÍS

The HFPA has members of various ethnicities, but there are no blacks, and Latino representation is marginal.

A decade ago, a member called Samantha Ofole-Prince, a British journalist and critic who recalls in

Variety

magazine

that she was invited in because there were no black associates, a problem that has become critical this week. Despite initial good intentions, Ofole-Prince, who works for UK, Caribbean and West African media, was rejected. The HFPA assures that they were not convinced by the journalistic material presented. Ofole-Prince, on the other hand, believes that some members did not want her as a rival. Or at least that excuse was given by those who supported her. An unwritten rule of the HFPA is that members do not compete with each other to post to the same media. The association has not wanted to answer the questions of this newspaper.

It is not the first time that the organization, created in 1943, has been embroiled in controversy. In 1968 the United States telecommunications regulatory body questioned the way in which the award winners were chosen, which then led NBC to suspend the broadcast. In 1982, actress Pia Zadora obtained a Globe as a breakthrough star. After the recognition, considered somewhat inexplicable, it was learned that weeks earlier members of the HFPA had been invited to the Las Vegas casino owned by Zadora's husband and producer of

The Butterfly Mark,

the film for which it was awarded.

CBS, which was then broadcasting the gala, suspended the awards.

In 2011, Michael Russell, a publicist for the Balloons for 17 years, sued the association after being fired and accused some of its members of receiving money for their votes.

The trial ended with a millionaire agreement between the parties.

The headquarters of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, on May 10.

MARIO ANZUONI / Reuters

When bad times hit the newspaper industry, HFPA members found in the structure a way to supplement their income. The accounts of the association, supposedly non-profit, improved a lot thanks to the increase of influence based on a careful investment strategy for 45 million dollars (about 37 million euros) in philanthropic causes linked to the cinema that included this year a fund help for journalists affected by the pandemic. Another element of power was the growth of viewers of the galas, which translated into juicy revenues from broadcasting rights. The 2020 ceremony, held on January 5 - before the pandemic restrictions arrived - had an audience of 18.4 million, the highest since 2016.The small organization's budget for 2021 (when only 6.9 million viewers followed the ceremony) exceeds two million dollars (1.6 million euros).

The social movements that have shaken American society in recent years have paved the way for a fight against that elite. A report from the

Los Angeles Times

Posted in February helped open the melon. The text exposed irregularities in the internal management of the organization. "I want to think that this time there will be a change caused by everything that has been lived, Me Too, Time's Up, Black Lives Matter and the fight for diversity," says the Spanish journalist Rosa Gamazo. Living in the United States since the late 1990s, she is one of two Europeans, along with Norway's Kjersti Flaa, who sued the HFPA after being denied access to the association. The lawsuit was dismissed by a judge last year, but his attorney is working on an appeal. “They are not interested in the competition. They want people who work for super-small media or pamphlets, so that it doesn't affect them, ”explains Gamazo. “The issue is access to the material and interviews they have. That is the interesting thing.It's annoying that they have access to everything when most of them don't do anything with it ”.