Golden Globe Awards and Academy Awards: Are we putting TV shows and movies in the wrong categories?

From the Golden Globe Awards to the Academy Awards, a controversy for years has been around how exactly certain movies and TV shows have been classified into their categories.

Most recently, Judd Apatow slammed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts for putting Barbie in the adapted screenplay category, instead of original screenplay, for the Oscars, because the characters were created by Mattel.

“It’s insulting to the writers to say they were working off of existing material,” Apatow wrote on X, previously known as Twitter, on Saturday. “There was no existing material or story. There was a clear box.”

For Sunday night's Golden Globes, Todd Haynes’ Netflix film May December, starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton, was in the running the musical-comedy. But several people believe the movie comes across as much more of a drama, particularly next to films like The Holdovers or American Fiction.

"I think filming it, it didn’t feel — with Samy’s script, and the direction of Todd, it didn’t feel funny, it’s a pretty complex kind of script," Melton told The Hollywood Reporter, when asked about the film being submitted in the comedy category. "And I think the only thing we can do, as artists, when making a project, for me as an actor, is to tell the character’s story."

"We have really no control of how the audience is going to receive what they see. And the beautiful thing about Todd, one of the many beautiful things, is that he displays this table of food for the audience, and you get to pick and choose what you want to take from it. To see the audience respond in laughter, I find that it’s sometimes easier to laugh than to cry. And discomfort can be an interesting thing to watch."

Going back in history, several people had questions about whether Jordan Peele's Get Out is a comedy or a drama, while the film ran in the comedy category at the 2018 Golden Globes.

"The problem is, it’s not a movie that can really be put into a genre box," Peele said in a 2017 interview, according to IndieWire. "Originally, I set out to make a horror movie. I ended up showing it to people and hearing, you know, it doesn’t even feel like horror. It’s in this thriller world. So it was a social thriller."

"What the movie is about is not funny. ... I’ve had many Black people come up to me and say, ‘man, this is the movie we’ve been talking about for a while and you did it.’ That’s a very powerful thing. For that to be put in a smaller box than it deserves is where the controversy comes from."

From a supporting actor and actress standpoint, those categories have been a bit murky as well.

This year, Brian Cox was in the running for the Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series – Drama, which ultimately went to his co-star Kieran Culkin, but (spoiler alert) Cox's character isn't in the entire season.

Back in 2009, Kate Winslet was in the Golden Globes race for two films, The Reader and Revolutionary Road, but was in contention for the supporting actress award for The Reader. Fast forward to the Oscars that year and she won for her performance in that movie again, but in the lead actress category.

When Marlon Brando won a Golden Globe for The Godfather in 1973, he was nominated in the lead actor category, while some have argued that the role was more aligned with a supporting actor nod. Brando won the Oscar for lead actor as well that year.

American Horror Story has been all over the map in terms of its award nomination categories.

While there have been 12 seasons of the series, its also been in the running for limited series categories, because the show doesn't have one continuing story from season to season.

In 2012, American Horror Story was nominated as a drama series at the Golden Globes, but in 2014 and 2016, it was considered a miniseries.

Call it a fault, or possibly a strategy to get more wins, but there still seems to be significant confusion each year about these awards categories.