The Golden Globes demonstrated their interest in contemporary World Cinema last year by nominating two Hollywood-produced films in the Best Foreign Language Film category, and ultimately handing the award to Clint Eastwood’s Japanese-language Letters From Iwo Jima. I was one of many who found this worrisome, but at the same time, it didn’t seem like it was totally out of left field. At least they didn’t give it to Apocalypto (nominated in the same category, thus unfortunately giving Mel Gibson a dose of “they only understand my work in Europe” cred).

At The Hollywood Reporter, Steven Zeitchik says the Hollywood Foreign Press Association looks almost certain to repeat the pattern this year. Lust, Caution and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are just two of several films with Hollywood studio backing, directed by name-brand Indiewood auteurs, in a language other than English and incorporating a mix of foreign talent, that the Globes are expected to deem “too foreign” for their Best Picture category and just right for their Foriegn Language film category. This will, of course, have a ripple effect, pushing deserving non-Hollywood Foreign Language films out of consideration.

Ultimately, the problem stems from the fact that the HFPA’s field of vision is apparently so narrow that they don’t even think there is a problem. And they’re not the only ones.

You almost can’t blame the Globes–this kind of thing is essentially baked in to the HFPA’s mission statement. More than any other awards, the Golden Globes have always been about blatant, sometimes blind Hollywood worship. They had the opportunity to give a Hollywood legend an award usually reserved for a faceless foreign nobody, and you expected them to suddenly exercise restraint?

Which is not to say they should be above criticism for so flagrantly not even trying to embrace foreign cinema. But the quote in Zeitchik’s story that really struck me came from an unnamed “insider”, who actually seems to mean to critique the HFPA’s Hollywood myopia, but ends up revealing his/her own:

“What will it take for them to change it — 10 really good foreign-language movies?

The implication being that it would be almost unthinkable for a single year to produce ten “really good”, non-Hollywood movies in a language other than English. Funny, because I could name ten off the top of my head. Eleven, if you count Red Road. The work is out there–it’s just not on the HFPA’s agenda to go looking for it. And why should they? Above all else, the Golden Globes is a giant photo op. Whose photo is going to sell more magazines–Emmanuelle Seigner’s, or Carlos Reygadas‘?