The Golden Globes, American film awards at the heart of a lively controversy in recent months over their representativeness, announced Wednesday that they would change their rules to allow foreign language films to compete in the generalist categories and films of animation. These criticisms prompted the NBC broadcaster to cancel the ceremony scheduled for next year, to allow time for the Golden Globes to improve its ethnic and cultural diversity as well as its transparency. Many had particularly criticized this year the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA in English) which awards these trophies for having relegated “Minari,” an American film featuring South Korean immigrants settling in the Arkansas and mainly filmed in Korean, in the category of best foreign language film. While it was featured in many Oscar flagship categories, “Minari” was unable to appear at the Golden Globes for Best Comedy or Best Drama. “Parasite,” the Oscar-winning film the previous year, had suffered the same fate for the same reasons. “As we review our rules this year” to take into account criticism from the entertainment industry, “we decided to take new approaches to upcoming ceremonies and to make sure these films benefit from the the attention they deserve, “HFPA President Ali Sar said in a statement to AFP. “The language will no longer be a barrier to be recognized as the best,” he assures us. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of about 90 journalists working for various media, has been facing charges of discrimination, sexism and corruption for several years. Last month, the organization passed a series of reforms to improve its representativeness and try to appease critics, but those assurances failed to convince the entertainment industry and criticism continued to rain. Stars like Scarlett Johansson and Tom Cruise have judged these reforms far too slow and vague while two members of the HFPA have resigned from this group which they described as “toxic.” Heavyweights like Netflix and Warner Bros have made it known that they will no longer work with the association until significant changes are implemented. On Wednesday, the HFPA said the majority of its members have completed diversity and inclusion awareness sessions. New rules prohibiting, for example, the acceptance of gifts and providing for the hiring of diversity advisers are also planned.
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