Nikki Glaser Kept Things Light (Mostly) at the Golden Globes

Nikki Glaser herself did not win a Golden Globe on Sunday night. “I’m losing out on a Golden Globe for the first time, Nikki Glaser,” she said after losing the award for best stand-up comedy performance to comedian Ali Wong.

But she got something even rarer: good reviews for hosting the party.

Glaser — a star of the popular barbecue circuit who has declared the show “Ozempic’s biggest night” — took on a notoriously difficult role that required a delicate balance. It had to satirize Hollywood and its foibles enough to entertain viewers at home, but not so much as to alienate the discerning ballroom audience.

“I’m not here to roast you tonight,” Glaser said in it. Opening monologue. “I want you to know that. How can I really? You’re all so famous, so talented, so powerful. I mean you can really do anything. I mean, except tell the country who to vote for.”

With the low heat of a three-hour telecast, Glaser was able to host the most positively received Globes in recent years, as the show sought to pull itself out of a funk. Scandal history And nearing obsolescence.

Inside the auditorium, Glaser’s jokes kept the audience laughing entertainment Critics opinion Her group As something of Back to view Need one. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times books “It was killed in the term of trade.” In Vanity Fair, Richard Lawson books Her performance “brought to mind the smooth glide of yesteryear, when many awards shows were conducted with a pretentious professionalism that is honestly lacking in our current era of needless fixing and poor hosting.”

It received praise from Lots of it peers in The world of comedyWith comedian Jay Branum suggestion It’s hosting the Oscars and Jon Stewart — who has hosted the Oscars twice, to lackluster reviews the first time — weighs in approvingly.

The past two years of hosting the Globes have certainly been bumpier.

While hosting the show in 2023, Jerrod Carmichael She addressed the show’s diversity crisis head-onnoting that the group that participated in the Globes “did not have a single Black member until the death of George Floyd” and spoke through his reluctance to take on the hosting role initially. Last year, host Joe Koy’s performance tanked, attracting enough criticism to push the comedian into action Admit it the next day In an interview he declared the place a “difficult room.”

Glaser’s performance was softer: her jokes poked fun at Hollywood without deconstructing it, and she was self-deprecating enough to keep the audience smiling.

The upside to losing the Golden Globe to Wong? “I just bet $11,000 on Ali Wong on a European gambling site,” she joked.

In another critique of herself, Glaser began a performance that combined two of the nominated films: the musical “Wicked” and “Conclave,” a drama about the selection of a new pope. I started on it Parody performance “Pope-ular,” she called, before acting as if a producer in her earpiece had cut her off — “Wait, that sucks?” – and suggested she was embarrassing herself in front of Elton John.

Through a changing wardrobe of sparkling gowns, Glaser made passing references to important or provocative topics (“The afterparty won’t be as good this year,” she joked, referring to the assault allegations against Sean Combs), but she mostly kept things private. a light. She mocked Timothée Chalamet’s mustache, ribbed Selena Gomez’s fiancé, and attacked Harrison Ford in a scowl. She revealed her personal fantasies about actor Glen Powell. Adam Sandler pulled A bit about Chalamet and a joke about the banality of Hollywood.

“The point of making art is not to win an award,” Glaser said. “The goal of making art is to start a tequila brand that is so popular that you never have to make art again.”

Its material was not without criticism of Hollywood, but it tended to focus more on the banality of the industry than its malfeasance.

“The cast and crew are leading the way with 11 mentions,” she said midway through the show, as she introduced a scoreboard that was tracking trends in the winners’ speeches. “Moms hold tight to three trends.”

What about God? zero. “It’s no surprise this is an atheist city,” she joked.

For an awards show that has weathered years of crises and criticism, Glaser embraced the enthusiasm: She seemed genuinely excited to be there. At the end of the presentation, she declared the job “fun and easy” — and it didn’t sound like she was kidding.