Awards shows are dying. Is that so bad?

I USED TO LOVE THE GOLDEN GLOBES. THERE’S more riding on the Oscars, sure, and the Grammys have performances from the world’s most bankable singers. But for those of us who were never all that impressed by these institutions’ efforts to identify the best in popular art—or who simply prefer low camp to high glamour—it was always the boozy, blowsy Globes that delivered. Where else could we mortals observe People’s then reigning Sexiest Man Alive Brad Pitt thanking antidiarrheal drug Kaopectate, or Meryl Streep kicking off an acceptance speech by announcing, apparently apropos of nothing, “I wanna change my name to T-Bone”?

So I knew I was finally over awards shows when the run-up to the 2020 Globes, on Jan. 5, elicited nothing in me but dread. The feeling wasn’t unrelated—to a telecast that stretched past its allotted three hours, registered as a dull inevitability.