Golden Globes host dragged over Barbie and Taylor Swift jokes
Jokes about Barbie and Taylor Swift did not go down well at the 2024 Golden Globes. (Getty Images)
Golden Globes viewers are furious with this year’s host Jo Koy after he included “sexist” and “reductive” jokes about Barbie and Taylor Swift in his opening monologue.
The comedian’s opening speech was a painful watch, prompting nominees to send him death glares from across the room and viewers to cringe from their sofas at home.
Koy got some polite laughs at first when he teased that Oppenheimer “needed another hour”, but he quickly lost the crowd when he turned his attention to the Barbie movie.
He began: “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page, Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project. And Barbie is based on a plastic doll with big boobies.”
Before he continued, cameras cut to director Greta Gerwig, whose face fell when she heard the gag about her film – the one that primarily centers around female empowerment.
It was not a good look, and it only got worse from there.
“I don’t want you guys to think that I’m a creep,” Koy continued, cutting through the awkward silence, “but it was kind of weird being attracted to a plastic doll.”
The joke here is that Koy was, in fact speaking about Ryan Gosling’s Ken. Cameras then cut to a stoney-faced Gosling, who was less than impressed with Koy’s gay joke.
Realising that he was bombing at an exceptional rate, Koy defended himself and blamed the poor jokes on other writers.
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote,” he commented, before adding: “Yo, I got the gig ten days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up! You’re kidding me, right? Slow down! I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”
But it was too late, Koy had already lost the audience – and the millions of viewers watching from home, who couldn’t quite believe what they had just heard.
“Reducing Barbie to a movie about ‘a doll with big boobs’ for a joke… Did you watch the movie with your eyes closed??? How did you miss the whole point,” tweeted one viewer.
“Kind of crazy that Barbie was a movie that made so many girls feel seen just for a guy to get on stage and say it was just about big boobs,” commented a second.
A third admitted: “That stupid joke about Barbie really got to me, that movie was a cinematic masterpiece. Not just a blonde with big boobs like grow tf up.”
Unfortunately, Koy’s poorly received jokes didn’t stop there.
Later on in his six-and-a-half-minute monologue, the comedian made the dangerous decision to poke fun at Taylor Swift.
Pointing out that the Golden Globes clashes with a Kansas City Chiefs game, Koy joked: “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.”
Right on cue, the cameras cut to Swift, who held a frosty expression on her face before reaching for her drink, clearly unimpressed.
So soon after 2023 was declared the year of the girl, viewers agreed that Koy’s jokes were in poor taste.
“So far Jo Koy has insulted Taylor Swift, the woman responsible for the highest-grossing music tour EVER, and the women responsible for the highest grossing film in Warner Bros history — Barbie. This year, of all the years. Reductive, sexist, and cheap. Hate it,” one viewer complained.
Another argued: “Making a sexist joke abt the Barbie movie [that] literally combats sexism. Making an odd joke abt Taylor Swift which only fuels men’s weird hatred for her. PETITION TO STOP MEN FROM HOSTING AWARD SHOWS??
Alexa, play “What Was I Made For” by Billie Eilish.
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