Words by Rosalind Thacker
The Golden Globes’ recognition of Emily in Paris over Michaela Cole’s I May Destroy You goes to show just how little value awards shows still maintain.
The 2021 Golden Globe nominations were announced last week, and there was one glaring absentee from the list.
I May Destroy You was written, directed, co-produced by and starred Michaela Cole, and was based on true events related to her own sexual assault. The 12-part series was unafraid to tackle issues of consent, trauma, race, masculinity and queer identity whilst perfectly balancing those hard-hitting themes with a sharp, challenging humour. Not only that, but it tells Cole’s story in a way that encapsulates many other viewers’ experiences, and was praised for its ability to allow those viewers to process their own sexual assaults.
This kind of autobiographical art, both brave and profound, is exactly the type of content you would expect the Golden Globes to be recognising. Instead, they opted to nominate Emily In Paris – a series described by one of its own writers as “a show about a White American selling luxury Whiteness, in a pre-pandemic Paris scrubbed free of its vibrant African and Muslim communities.”
These were the words of Deborah Copaken, who wrote an article for the Guardian on how I May Destroy You was her favourite show of 2020 and expressed her anger towards the Globes for nominating her series and not Cole’s. Emily In Paris is said to have its place in entertainment culture as ambient television; something that is as “ignorable as it is interesting.” It serves its purpose to create background noise while you make lunch, or scroll on your phone, up until Netflix interrupts to ask if you’re still watching because you haven’t skipped the introduction for a while. In fact, the series got a huge negative response from its French viewers, who deemed it an insulting depiction of their country. Unlike what is presented of London in I May Destroy You, Paris’ rich ethnic diversity and culture was ignored, and completely overwritten to be an Americanised projection of high-fashion, high-culture, and lots of privileged White people who go to brunch, drink coffee, and smoke cigarettes.
I May Destroy You was not just a fantastic piece of television, but also an essential one. Its lack of nomination appears to not only undermine Cole’s real-life experience of sexual assault but also the experiences of every person who watched the programme and felt they could relate in any way to what Arabella goes through. Whether it was to do with race, gender or sexuality, the programme doesn’t shy away from big issues that are prevalent in society and affect people every day. The term ‘ground-breaking’ can be thrown around too often, but occasionally there comes along a programme that seriously impacts a large proportion of viewers who have undergone similar experiences. Many I May Destroy You viewers were moved in a deep, emotional way, and ground-breaking is the only word that seems appropriate to describe it. It’s no surprise, then, that the Golden Globe nominations received as much backlash as they did, and it just goes to show that even amidst the most unprecedented year of our lifetime, there’s still room for surprises.
Check out our profile of Michaela Cole: Actress, Writer, Director, Game Changer.