Golden Globes 2018: Hollywood's rowdiest awards show gets serious

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"It's been years since a white man was this nervous in Hollywood," Meyers said.  

The tone was set even before the show started, when the majority of stars paraded the red carpet in black gowns (here and there with a splash of colour trim), in a pre-planned sign of solidarity for gender equality and the accusers in Hollywood's multiplying sexual harassment scandals.

Minutes before the show started, the mood in the ballroom was merry. Black attire dominated, but the usual chatter and mingling carried on. 

Even the hosts of E!'s live broadcast of the pre-show arrivals on the red carpet wore black, including the indefatigable Ryan Seacrest. And many male stars switched out white shirts for black ones with their tuxes. 

It made for an interesting look in place of what has usually been a riot of colour at the Globes.

"We feel sort of emboldened in this particular moment to stand together in a thick black line dividing then from now,” nominee Meryl Streep (The Post) told Seacrest.

But it wasn't easy. I, Tonya star Allison Janney called the dress code “incredibly important” but admitted it left her initially stressed.

“I didn’t know what dress to wear,” she told USA TODAY on the red carpet. She ended up in a black gown with white detailing on the torso. “I was like, 'Well, this isn’t all black. Is this OK?' ” To check, she ran it past her fellow campaigners.

"It's a very small gesture," Alfred Molina told the Associated Press. "Me wearing black isn't going to change anything, but from small gestures come big ones. I think it's important to let women know that you listen to them and believe them."

Eight actresses, including A-listers such as Streep, Michelle Williams, Emma Watson and Amy Poehler, brought gender and racial justice activists as their guests, from such organizations as the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the #MeToo movement, a black feminist organization called Imkaan, and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, which represents women in the industry with the highest rate of sexual harassment (two-thirds of all female restaurant workers report being harassed).

Adding to the earnest tone of the event was more intense security than usual. When one USA TODAY reporter arrived via Lyft, the car’s trunk, glove compartment and bottom were inspected, and a canine unit sniffed around the vehicle.

NBC's Al Roker tweeted approvingly. "I have never seen security like this for the @goldenglobes Checkpoint after checkpoint. They are not kidding around. And that’s good," he posted before the show.

Then there was first-time host Meyers, who nightly trounces President Trump with political jokes on Late Night With Seth Meyers. On Sunday night, not so much.

Instead, he tackled the scandals head-on while still hailing the best of 2017's movies and TV at the annual awards staged by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Review: Seth Meyers is almost perfect on an off-key Golden Globes night

"Good evening, ladies and remaining gentlemen!" he started out, before launching into remarks that mixed scandal with inside-industry allusions.

"For the male stars in the room, this will be the first time in months that it won't be terrifying to hear your name read out loud," Meyers said, grinning. 

Early on, he called out the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose alleged history of sexual predation set off a cascade of similar allegations against Hollywood men.

 "Don't worry, he'll be back in 20 years when he becomes the first person to be booed at the annual 'In Memoriam,' " said Meyers, earning groans from the audience. "It will sound like that," Meyers responded.

In a new version of his late-night shtick, Meyers provided the setup to a joke, and a star in the audience added the punchline: "The Golden Globes turned 75 this year but ..." Meyers began, and Jessica Chastain provided the kicker: "the actress who plays his wife is still only 32."

He and pal Amy Poehler engaged in an extended bit where she pretended to chastise him for "mansplaining." Finally, Meyers thanked the women in the audience: "I look forward to whatever you'll be leading us into next."

Best dressed at the Globes: Tracee Ellis Ross, Claire Foy and more

After all that went down in the industry in 2017, Meyers said in a pre-show interview with USA TODAY, there was no way to avoid scandal chatter, even at the Globes.

"We’re certainly not going to ignore it, but we want to talk about it in a way that’s cathartic, as opposed to reminding us all how awful it is," Meyers said. "That’s the tone we’re certainly trying to strike, which is to release the pressure rather than build it up."

Backstage, each actor and actress was asked about the controversy. Sam Rockwell, holding his Globe for best supporting actor for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, didn’t feel comfortable answering the question of what men could do to contribute to the cause.

“I don’t know the answer,” he said. “People have to stop being bullying. I think that’s what it comes down to." 

There was no missing the almost grim determination of many female stars to declare where they stand and what they want from the industry.

Elisabeth Moss, who won the Globe for best actress in a TV drama series, the relevant-again The Handmaid's Tale, talked backstage about the need for more women to be involved in front of and behind the camera.

"We want to tell stories that reflect our lives back at us. Many women go to the movies" and watch TV, she said, pointing to the profitability of such projects. It's important to have "as many women behind the camera as possible."  

Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman to be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, then delivered a stem-winder of a speech (two standing ovations) in which she declared the cause of female empowerment transcends Hollywood.

"I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon!" she said. "And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say 'Me too' again."

When Frances McDormand won for best performance by an actress in a drama for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, she said she usually keeps her politics to herself.

"But it was really great to be in this room tonight and to be a part in a tectonic (shift) in our industry power structure," she said. "Trust me, the women in this room are not here for the food. We're here for the work."

With women directors still scarce in Hollywood, presenter Natalie Portman pointedly noted that all the nominees for best director this year were men, before announcing the winner as Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water.

Debra Messing called out E! for alleged gender discrimination in pay for co-hosts — in an interview with E!'s Giuliana Rancic.

"Time is up," Messing said. "We want diversity and we want intersectional gender parity. We want equal pay. ... And that's something that can change tomorrow."

Hundreds of women in entertainment are so fed up with the lack of diversity and parity that last week they unveiled Time's Up, a well-funded initiative dedicated to confronting abuse of power and promoting workplace equality in their own and other industries. 

Messing said she wore black to honor the "brave whistleblowers who came forward and shared their stories of harassment and assault and discrimination," she said. "I'm wearing black to stand in solidarity with my sisters all over the globe, and I’m here to celebrate the rollout of this incredible initiative."

The activists and advocates who accompanied the stars say they've been inspired by the effort. They hope by attending the Globes they can help shift focus away from the perpetrators of sexual misconduct and back to survivors, and create lasting change.

"I hope people see the momentum and the energy of the movement," said Ai-jen Poo, head of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who was Streep's guest and held hands with America's most honored actress ever while being interviewed by Seacrest. 

“People are aware now of a power imbalance," said Streep, nominated this year for her role as publisher Katharine Graham in The Post.

Two years ago, awards season was roiled by outside scorn and self-flagellation because of #OscarsSoWhite, the movement to call out the lack of diversity in the industry.

Last year, the Globes show was dominated by politics and the election of Trump, who despite his industry connections continually dragged Hollywood. The disdain was mutual: Streep, who was the 2016 Cecil B. DeMille Award winner, delivered a fiery speech against him without mentioning his name.

This year the agitation is coming from the Weinstein scandal and #MeToo movement, accompanied by a tsunami of allegations of sexual harassment and assault that has helped fell powerful men across multiple industries — but especially in entertainment. 

Weinstein, the blustering, volatile movie producer who dominated the Globes for two decades, was the first to topple, following devastating investigative reports in The New York Times and The New Yorker last October about allegations that he sexually harassed, coerced, assaulted or raped more than 80 women (at last count) in encounters dating back decades. 

What followed has upended an industry in which all the old customs and rules, good and bad, have been thrown out and their replacements are still uncertain.

So the annual sybaritic shindig that is the Golden Globes comes at a moment when few in the industry know where they stand anymore and everyone is feeling their way to a new normal.