Credit: Alyssa Ao

WSPN’s Bella Schreiber shares her opinion on Jo Koy’s Golden Globes hosting abilities and performances.

What’s the difference between Taylor Swift and Jo Koy? Taylor Swift has won a total of 194 awards in her career, while Koy has been awarded one. In all seriousness, Koy’s approach to opening up the 2024 Golden Globes with pointed jokes was a terrible way to start such a meaningful event.

For those of you who haven’t had your TikTok ‘For You Page’ flooded with angry reactions to Koy’s failing jokes, let me give you a quick recap. Koy was this year’s Golden Globes host, and he failed miserably. He included jokes about Taylor Swift, sexist remarks, his writers and various other things in his opening speech.

In my opinion, the worst comments from the night were easily about the ‘Barbie’ movie. He started the disaster by saying “‘Barbie’ is [about] a plastic doll with big boobies.” He then went on to make fun of character actors–actors who often act as supporting characters but not the lead–and calling them ugly. To round the so-called ‘joke’ out, he talked about how he didn’t want to be a “creep,” but it felt weird being attracted to a plastic doll.

He completely undermined the entirety of the film, becoming everything that ‘Barbie’ pointed out as bad. The movie emphasized strong, independent women and the importance of women in the world, and he chalked all of that up to “boobies.” Many women, including myself, had a bad taste in our mouths after the speech and felt minimized by Koy’s comment.

Personally, I wanted to switch the channel away from an environment that made me feel like the only thing I was valued for was my body. As the ‘Barbie’ movie pointed out, being a woman in society has enough challenges as it is, and we don’t need bad comedians piling onto it. I truly thought Hollywood had made strides towards a less misogynistic environment after the #MeToo movement, but I was sadly mistaken.

Unsurprisingly, the whole room seemed stifled by his speech, only evoking a couple forced laughs from the audience. There was an uncomfortable tension throughout the room that was felt through the screen.

Following the event, Koy had a comedy show during which he said, “Lotta marshmallows, man—they’re delicious, but goddamn, they’re soft.” Maybe we have softened and should learn to “laugh at ourselves” more, but this was a sad attempt to take the blame off of himself.

It’s not unusual for a host to target specific celebrities for jokes, or even certain movies occasionally, but Koy’s jokes were unfunny. In my opinion, the straw to break the camel’s back was when Koy tried to turn his failed jokes to the blame of the writers.

After a couple of minutes of Koy telling jokes and no one laughing except the pre-made laugh track backing him, he lashed at the crowd. Koy went on a rant about his short notice of performing, unrealistic expectations of perfection and telling the crowd, “I wrote some of these and they’re the ones that you’re laughing at.”

Whether it’s true or not, that’s a jab at his writers and incredibly unprofessional. The minute he hires and agrees to the jokes the writers wrote, they become his jokes. Taking credit for the few laughs he got that night and blaming the rest on the writers is rude and just incorrect.

I’m not sure who decided having Koy talk on stage about how the only thing the Barbie movie was about was a “plastic doll with big boobies,” but he chose to say it, and the fault is now on him.

Yes, different people have different senses of humor, particularly Koy who was the only one in the room to genuinely laugh at any of his jokes, but that doesn’t excuse a bad performance. I’m not saying he’s a bad comedian. Koy was out of his usual element of performing to a crowd that paid to specifically see him. On top of that, he was reading from a teleprompter, something that most stand-up comedians don’t usually do. But even then, I expected better.

All in all, it was a terrible monologue, completely to the fault of his jokes and his delivery. Nobody else’s. His jokes were weak, not thought out, and some were not delivered properly so the audience could truly understand the joke. Koy, I expected better.