The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) – arbiter of the entertainment industry’s Golden Globe Awards – has been mired in a spate of embarrassing scandals and…
The organisers of the Golden Globe Awards are in hot water amid a racism row targeting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the body that organises the annual ceremony. The HFPA has fired Philip Berk, its former president, after he triggered outrage by sharing a controversial anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM) article that spoke of the movement as a “racist hate group,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter. Earlier, Berk’s expulsion was demanded by the NBC, the TV network that broadcasts and finances the Golden Globes. The email forwarded by Berk, who served eight terms as HPFA president until 2011, contained an article by a rightwing website Frontpagemag.com, as reported by the LA Times. The story referred to BLM as a “racist… hate group” and claimed that it was spearheading the “race war.” Berk’s actions were denounced by several HFPA members, with one writing that the “vile rhetoric” was “simply unacceptable.
