Seth Meyers, the current host of Late Night, is close to hosting the 2018 Golden Globes, as per Billboard. The outlet reports that Meyers is finalizing a deal to host the January 7 awards show. It will be his first time helming the event, although Meyers has experience leading these types of shindigs — he hosted the 2014 Emmy Awards when he was only months into his Late Night run. Billboard also notes that 2018 is the last year the Golden Globes will be airing on NBC, Meyers' home network. (In 2014, Dick Clark Productions finalized a deal with NBC, giving the network rights to air the ceremony until 2018.)
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Meyers rounds out a man-heavy awards show slate for 2018. Jimmy Kimmel will host the 2018 Academy Awards, and James Corden will host the Grammy Awards. All three are the respective late night hosts of the hosting networks — Kimmel rules ABC, which will air the Academy Awards, and Corden lords over CBS (sorry, Stephen Colbert), the network that presents the Grammys. This is all a little insulting, considering the era we're in. This fall, 2017 became the year of exposing the corruption of men in Hollywood — the Times took down Weinstein, Buzzfeed took down Kevin Spacey, and The Washington Post took down Charlie Rose. These hosts will have to address these reckonings at their highly-public ceremonies. And how does a powerful man make a joke about the corruption of other powerful men? Not very well, it turns out. Late night television has been struggling to discuss the Weinstein fallout, probably because it's riddled with white men.
The last time a woman hosted the Golden Globe Awards was in 2015, when Amy Poehler and Tina Fey co-hosted the show. Both women were also associated with NBC, via Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock, respectively. (They hosted three years in a row, as per their contract, in 2013, 2014, and in 2015.)
Prior to Fey and Poehler, the comedian Ricky Gervais hosted for three years in a row. And, prior to that, the show didn't even have a host. (John Larroquette and Janie Turner hosted in 1995 in what seems to be a failed experiment. The ceremony didn't hire a host again until 2010.) As far as awards shows go, the Globes have yet to find their voice. The show awards both film and television, which some find disconcerting. And, the association behind the ceremony, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, continues to be the butt of jokes at the ceremonies. During one of her hosting stints, Poehler joked that "HFPA" sounded like a disease.
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Regardless, the Golden Globes have become an important fixture of awards season. The show is seen as an early predictor of the Academy Awards, and, you know, it's another excuse for celebrities to gather and celebrate the year in entertainment.
Meyers may be yet another man — sigh — but as far as late night hosts go, he is by far the most political. His popular segment "A Closer Look" has branded him one of late night's most vocal anti-Trump critic. In August, Indiewire ranked Late Night number one in Trump criticism. Critic Liz Shannon Miller wrote that the show had "become late night’s flagship show when it comes to facing America’s political climate head-on." Miller also pointed out that Meyers actively highlights different voices on his show — in a segment titled "Jokes Seth Can't Tell," the host brings out writers Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel to recite jokes that a white man simply can't tell. In general, Meyers is excellent at handing off the mic. While the rest of late night fumbles for purchase in the Harvey Weinstein conversation, Meyers gave a platform to the women writers on the show. If we're lucky, he'll do the same at the Globes. Then, he might just rescue awards season.