Tina Fey & Amy Poehler's Golden Globes Opener Called Out The HFPA In A Big Way

Ever since the nominations for the 2021 Golden Globes were announced at the beginning of February, the annual awards show and the committee behind it have faced considerable backlash. That criticism did not go unnoticed by hosts Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. At the beginning of the ceremony, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's 2021 Golden Globes opener called out the very organization that put on the show.

The infamously ambiguous Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been a subject of moderate controversy over the years, but the backlash against the nominating committee reached a fever pitch in 2021. TV and movie fans were left perplexed by the HFPA's nominations on Feb. 3 — most notably the universally panned Emily in Paris earning nominations while the critically beloved I May Destroy You was completely snubbed. A few weeks later, a Los Angeles Times exposé revealed that out if its 87 members, the HFPA includes no Black journalists. The revelation led to even more backlash against the awards show.

When Fey and Poehler took the stage at the top of the show on Sunday, Feb. 28, viewers waited to see how the hosts would address the controversy. After some jokes about the unorthodox digital ceremony and the standout movies and shows of 2021, the SNL alums called out the HFPA head-on. Fey made a point to call out the fact that the nominating committee has no Black members as the two joked about how ambiguous the organization really is and made jabs about the show being meaningless, stating that the whole thing could have been an email.

You can watch Fey and Poehler's speech in full below.

Moments after Fey and Poehler's jokes about the HFPA in their opening monologue, multiple members of the international organization made a rare appearance on the Golden Globes stage to promise "a more inclusive future" for the committee and the awards show.

It remains to be seen what changes will be made within the HFPA, but hopefully Fey and Poehler's direct call to action in their opener — and the members' promise to make the organization more inclusive — means that we will see noticeable changes before the 2022 Golden Globes.