Several members of the audience “Ooh”-ed. Two or three cackled. The primary sound, though, was silence. It isn’t that the audience didn’t get the joke. People in that Beverly Hilton ballroom were well aware that Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige, hasn’t been seen in public in 15 years, either because she prefers to live a private life or… for other reasons. It was a scathing joke, delivered in Carmichael’s amiably off-handed style, and I’m sure a few people were offended, a few were scared and a lot were too shocked to be sure how to react.80th Golden Globe Awards 2023 Download.
That’s not a bad ratio. I respect the joke and, as always, Carmichael’s delivery of it. But as the telecast began to drag, I got to thinking about the joke, whom it was directed at and why Carmichael was able to make it. The joke was on Scientology, its alleged role in Shelly Miscavige’s alleged disappearance and Hollywood’s silence or even complicity. But that wasn’t what opened the door to the joke. What opened the door was that when the Los Angeles Times ran a report highlighting various misdeeds and failings within the Hollywood Foreign Press, Tom Cruise was one of the only actors in town who announced that he was returning the baubles the HFPA had given him.
Did he actually return the awards? How would I know? Is there hypocrisy in the things Cruise condones versus the things Cruise condemns? Seems right. But the entire joke was facilitated by the fact that when Cruise heard the things that were shady about the Golden Globes — or saw reporting on them — he actually responded and, true at least to the spirit of his word, he was not in the ballroom on Tuesday night, even as Top Gun: Maverick was up for a slew of awards.