EGN NEWS DESK
Nikki Glaser didn’t win a Golden Globe herself on Sunday evening. “I’m first-time Golden Globe loser, Nikki Glaser,” she mentioned after dropping the award for finest stand-up comedy efficiency to the comic Ali Wong.
But she gained one thing rarer: good opinions for internet hosting the ceremony.
Glaser — a fixture of the superstar roast circuit who declared the present “Ozempic’s greatest evening” — took on a notoriously tough function that requires a fragile steadiness. She needed to make enjoyable of Hollywood and its foibles sufficient to entertain the viewers at house, however not a lot that it alienated the A-list viewers within the ballroom.
“I’m not right here to roast you tonight,” Glaser mentioned in her opening monologue. “I would like you to know that. How might I, actually? You’re all so well-known, so proficient, so highly effective. I imply, you may actually do something. I imply, besides inform the nation who to vote for.”
With the warmth on a light-weight simmer for the three-hour telecast, Glaser managed to ship probably the most positively obtained Globes internet hosting of latest years, because the present has sought to raise itself out of a historical past of scandal and close to obsolescence.
Inside the ballroom, Glaser’s jokes saved the viewers laughing, and leisure critics noticed her set as one thing of a comeback for a present in want of 1. Robert Lloyd of The Los Angeles Times wrote that “within the time period of the commerce, she killed.” In Vanity Fair, Richard Lawson wrote that her efficiency “referred to as to thoughts the sleek glide of yesteryear, when many awards exhibits ran with a buzzing professionalism sincerely missing in our present age of unnecessary tinkering and poor internet hosting.”
She obtained plaudits from lots of her colleagues within the comedy world, with the comic Guy Branum suggesting that she host the Oscars and Jon Stewart — who hosted the Oscars twice, to lackluster opinions the primary time round — weighing in approvingly.
The previous two years of Globes internet hosting have been decidedly extra bumpy.
While internet hosting the present in 2023, Jerrod Carmichael addressed this system’s variety disaster head-on, noting that the group that placed on the Globes didn’t “have a single Black member till George Floyd died” and speaking via his reluctance to tackle the internet hosting function to start with. Last 12 months, the host Jo Koy’s efficiency fell flat, drawing sufficient criticism to immediate the comic to acknowledge it the following day in an interview during which he declared the venue a “powerful room.”
Glaser’s set had a a lot softer touchdown: Her jokes poked enjoyable at Hollywood with out disemboweling it, and he or she sprinkled in sufficient self-deprecation to maintain the viewers smiling.
The upside to dropping a Golden Globe to Wong? “I simply made $11,000 betting on Ali Wong on a European playing web site,” she joked.
In one other dig at herself, Glaser began in on a efficiency that mashed up two movie nominees: the movie-musical “Wicked” and “Conclave,” a drama concerning the collection of a brand new pope. She started to carry out a spoof referred to as “Pope-ular,” earlier than appearing as if a producer in her earpiece had reduce her off — “Wait, this sucks?” — and recommended that she was embarrassing herself in entrance of Elton John.
With a rotating wardrobe of glittering robes, Glaser made fleeting mentions of weighty or edgy subjects (“The after-party’s not going to be pretty much as good this 12 months,” she joked, referencing the abuse allegations towards Sean Combs), however she principally saved issues gentle. She poked enjoyable at Timothée Chalamet’s mustache, ribbed Selena Gomez’s fiancé and razzed Harrison Ford right into a scowl. She revealed her private fantasies concerning the actor Glen Powell, pulled Adam Sandler right into a bit about Chalamet and bantered about Hollywood vapidness.
“The level of constructing artwork is to not win an award,” Glaser mentioned. “The level of constructing artwork is to begin a tequila model so widespread that you just by no means must make artwork once more.”
Her materials was not with out Hollywood criticism, nevertheless it tended to heart extra across the business’s mundanity than its malfeasance.
“Cast and crew are main the best way with 11 mentions,” she mentioned in the course of the present, as she launched a scoreboard that was monitoring shout-outs in winners’ speeches. “Moms are holding robust with three shout-outs.”
How about God? Zero. “No shock on this godless city,” she quipped.
For an awards present that has weathered years of disaster and criticism, Glaser embraced enthusiasm: She appeared actually, really excited to be there. At the present’s finish, she declared the job “enjoyable and simple” — and he or she didn’t look like joking.
