Golden Globe Host Comedian Jo Koy is under fire for his sexist humour at the award show

The 81st Golden Globes were held on the 8th of January this year. This award show event honours and commemorates the big wins in Hollywood in terms of movies and music, celebrating the actors and the crew that made these films happen that were so widely loved by the audience. This year the Golden Globes were hosted by Jo Koy, an American Filipino Comedian. The prestigious award ceremony held many female artists in nominations this year, after the year is “The Year of the Women”, and Jo Koy has been under fire for his wildly sexist jokes that were poking fun at Taylor Swift and even the Barbie movie.

The comedian was appointed just weeks before the ceremony, not giving him much time to prepare for the ceremony, with the comedian even addressing that in the middle of his monologue stating that he “got the gig 10 days ago” and also hinting at only writing a few of the jokes in the said monologue. Koy during his monologue turned the attention to one of the star attendees Taylor Swift and made the joke “The only difference between The Golden Globes and NFL is that there are fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift”, which resulted in her not being amused and sipping her drink plainly. The joke hinted at her NFL pro boyfriend Travis Kelce, and whenever she is in attendance at one of his games the NFL ensures that there are as many cameras as possible in her VIP block. This joke fell flat with the audience, especially Swift, who was not amused at all and plainly sipped her drink in response. 

Jo Koy then made the situation worse when during his opening monologue he decided to talk about the two big films of the year- Oppenheimer and Barbie. He started his joke with “Oppenheimer is based on a 712 Pulitzer Price winning novel about the Manhattan Project” and then immediately jumped onto the climax of the joke “And Barbie is a film about a plastic doll with big boobies” rendering the audience but especially the women in the audience speechless, disappointed and unamused. This blatantly sexist joke was not only tasteless, bland and in bad spirits where a grown adult felt the need to shame one of the biggest blockbuster hits of the year and devalue it in comparison but also this highlighting of sexism by the host not only detailed the whole crux of the film but also in real-time proved the whole point of the film right.

The audiences were not amused by the host that was picked out this year and how he turned out to make his whole set and turn his whole opening monologue into a sexist and bigoted rant with most of his jokes falling flat. Some people watching the show from home were also quick to point out that it was such a big opportunity not only for him but also for the whole Asian community he represented and to make the jokes he made has let people down. Some fans on Twitter went as far as commenting “Where is Will Smith when you need him”, referencing last year’s event that went down with Chris Rock who had the opening monologue made an inappropriate joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will’s wife which resulted in him yelling at Chris and slapping him.