Ava DuVernay, Regina King respond to Golden Globes’ lack of single Black voter

Ava DuVernay and Regina King seem to think the diversity drama now engulfing the Hollywood Foreign Press Association hits the mark ahead of Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards.

The prominent Black directors took to Twitter Monday to respond to recent reporting in the Los Angeles Times “revealing” the HFPA doesn’t have a single Black person among the 87 members who decide the fate of Golden Globe winners.

“Reveals? As in, people are acting like this isn’t already widely known? For YEARS?,” DuVernay tweeted Monday in response to a headline about The Times’ two-part exposé.

King responded to DuVernay’s post by tweeting a viral Drake meme showing the singer seated courtside at an NBA game, pointing directly into a camera with a knowing grin.

DuVernay then responded to King’s reply with yet another meme including the text, “Those are the facts.”

In a response to The Times pieces published Sunday, the HFPA said it was “committed to addressing” its lack of Black inclusion.

The Times exposé described the HFPA as an “insular, improbably powerful group” variously “fawned over, derided and grudgingly tolerated” because it controls the annual Golden Globes ceremony that nets a massive audience for NBC and doles coveted trophies used for marketing ahead of the Academy Awards.

Though its members are described as film journalists, “relatively few” HFPA voters actually work full time for major overseas outlets, The Times said.

The organization has been the butt of jokes and scandal throughout its history, with 2016 show host Ricky Gervais calling its trophy “a bit of metal that some nice old confused journalists wanted to give you in person so they could meet you and have a selfie with you.”

The HFPA’s lack of any Black members seems to underscore criticism this year that the group sidestepped several highly acclaimed projects to make some surprising nominations possibly influenced by conflicts of interest.

According to The Times, more than 30 HFPA members were invited to the French set of the Netflix show “Emily in Paris” and treated to two-night stays at the five-star Peninsula Paris hotel and a luncheon at the Musée des Arts Forains, a private museum filled with amusement rides.

“They treated us like kings and queens,” one member who participated in the junket told The Times.

Last month, “Emily in Paris” received two Golden Globes nominations even though it was not considered a serious contender.

Meanwhile, the highly acclaimed HBO series “I May Destroy You,” created by Black writer and actress Michaela Coel, was snubbed by HFPA members.

Even a writer on “Emily in Paris,” Deborah Copaken, said a Guardian op-ed that “I May Destroy You” deserved the nomination over her show about “a white American selling luxury whiteness.”

The Times said it interviewed seven current and former HFPA members and found the group is “struggling to shake its reputation” as an organization whose awards “can be influenced with expensive junkets and publicity swag.”

It also said the HFPA pays voting members to serve on special committees and doled out between $22,915 and $135,957 to board officers and directors in the tax year ending June 30, 2019.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, meanwhile, does not pay the 54 governors on its board, The Times reported.

“It’s unusual that all of these people are getting paid,” Daniel Kurtz, a partner at New York-based law firm Pryor Cashman and an expert on nonprofits, reportedly told The Times.

“Relative to the HFPA’s revenues and charitable contributions, its employment-related expenses are modest,” an HFPA rep told The Times.