The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has added 103 new international voters to consider the Golden Globe Awards, the group said Thursday.
This signifies the first time in the association’s history that a group of non-member voters has been added to select the nominees and awards, doubling the size of the voting body while increasing its diversity.
“After bringing in our largest member class last year with 21 diverse members, it was clear we had to find new opportunities to bring in additional voters to ensure the continued diversification and growth in the voting body,” HFPA president Helen Hoehne said. “The addition of new non-member voters drawn from international markets gives us the opportunity to more rapidly increase the number of voters, while preserving our international identity and maintaining the commitment to bring in qualified and experienced entertainment journalists.”
The new voters were recruited from international industry organizations, as well as from active outreach to esteemed foreign film festivals and journalism professionals. The new voters are composed of 22.3% Latino, 13.6% Black, 11.7% Asian, 10.7% Middle Eastern, and 41.7% White, with 58.3% self-identifying as ethnically diverse.
Combined with the current HFPA membership, the total Golden Globe Awards voting body is 52% female, 51.5% racially and ethnically diverse with 19.5% Latino, 12% Asian, 10% Black and 10% Middle Eastern. The voting body also includes individuals who self-identify as LGBTQIA+. The total number of voters is now 200.
Geographically, the voters represent 62 countries around the world. According to the HFPA, This is the largest voting body in the history of the Association with 43.5% from Europe, 18.5% from Latin America, 17% from Asia, 9% from the Middle East and 7% from Africa.
The news comes after the embattled HFPA recently announced its plans to sell its stake in the Golden Globes to interim CEO Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries and turn it into a private venture, shedding the organization’s non-profit status. Recently, MRC also separated its media assets from Boehly’s Eldridge, with Boehly retaining ownership of Dick Clark Productions, the longtime producer of the Golden Globes.
NBC canceled the 2022 Golden Globes after a Los Angeles Times article exposed that the HFPA had no Black members in its organization of its then 87 members, sparking outrage and a boycott of top industry publicists, which as of recently TheWrap had reported was still in place. One top publicist wrote in a letter to the HFPA that he felt “duped and misinformed” based on the organization’s decision to sell.