it is to do with the HFPA - as they gave out the golden globes and they no longer exist after a series of scandals:
https://www.vulture.com/2023/12/what-happens-to-the-golden-globes-post-hfpa-explained.html
Dec 2023:
All of Your Questions About the First Post-HFPA Golden Globes, Answered
The Golden Globes as we know them are no more: Back in June, California’s attorney general approved a plan to dissolve the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and turn the Globes into a for-profit enterprise, the most radical of a series of evolutions meant to restore the industry’s faith in the scandal-plagued awards ceremony.
The HFPA doesn’t exist anymore, but that Golden Globes haven’t gone away?
Nope. The 2024 Globes are still on the calendar for January 7, only this time they’ll air on CBS. The Globes were dropped by their longtime broadcaster, NBC, after a multitude of racism and petty-corruption scandals, and the organizational transformation is a response to those scandals. As the Globes’ new owner, Todd Boehly, told the Los Angeles Times last year, his aim was to “transition the organization from a not-for-profit with no accountability and bad governance to an organization where there is employee-based accountability.”
What is the subtext of all of this money talk?
To understand the stakes, you have to go back two years to the height of the backlash against the HFPA. The uproar was led by Hollywood publicists, who made a lot of noise about their principled objections to the organization’s lack of Black members and general willingness to be bribed. But by many accounts, that was just a smoke screen. The publicists’ real problem with the HFPA was its policy of exclusivity. If an actor wanted to campaign for a Golden Globe, they had to attend press conferences that only HFPA members were invited to, where every HFPA member was invited. These conferences constituted much of the journalism that this ostensible “press association” performed. Publicists hated this system, since it took power out of their hands and put it into the HFPA’s. By making members salaried employees, Boehly has said, they will no longer be financially reliant on exclusive access to stars, thus solving the publicists’ issue.
https://www.vulture.com/2024/01/golden-globes-2024-thank-hollywood-foreign-press.html
Golden Globe Winners Thank the Nonexistent Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Someone must have forgotten to tell Hollywood speechwriters what happened to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Following the dissolution of the (controversial) body that formerly awarded the Golden Globes, multiple of tonight’s winners still thanked the HFPA in their speeches.
It sounds like the proper term is now “Golden Globes journalists,” after the show expanded its voting body to 300 journalists around the world.
Robert Downey Jr. reminded us of this early on, when he accepted his award for Oppenheimer.
So, er.. in short, people were still referencing the defunct HFPA which has been replaced by salaried journalists, and RDJ was referencing the change... (and was hoping the change would be for the better)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Foreign_Press_Association
Lots of controversies led to the dissolution of the HFPA, and its replacement by the new structure instead.
also:
https://www.avclub.com/golden-globes-hfpa-name-change-robert-downey-jr-1851148459
Actors kept thanking a non-existent body at the Golden Globes
Robert Downey Jr. thanked the newly-minted Golden Globes Journalists for "changing your game, therefore changing your name," but most people didn't get the memo
A whole lot of things went wrong for the Golden Globes Journalists last night. They messed up the seating chart. Comedian Jo Koy made a queasy bid for Worst Awards Show Host Of All Time. They scared the hell out of Elizabeth Debicki and even flubbed what should have been an easy ace with a hollow Suits reunion. On top of all that, a bunch of award winners couldn’t even get their name right.
https://www.prweek.com/article/1856945/golden-globes-winners-confused-thank
This year’s winners incorrectly thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in speeches.
https://www.semafor.com/article/01/08/2024/why-the-golden-globes-flopped-this-year
The Golden Globes can’t get rid of its HFPA ‘baggage’
The absence of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — long ridiculed for internal corruption, unqualified members, and lack of diversity — was noticeable in this year’s list of winners and nominees which The Daily Beast described as “a crop which ranks as probably the most respectable” in a long time. But for many, the HFPA will remain inseparable from the awards, as some winners mistakenly thanked the non-existent organization in their speeches. “If you keep the Golden Globes name, you keep the Golden Globes baggage,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter. Some winners like Oppenheimer’s Robert Downy Jr. acknowledged the restructuring, saying, “Golden Globes journalists, thanks for changing your game, therefore changing your names — salute.”
unrelated but interesting:
https://www.thewrap.com/golden-globes-journalists-resigned-rats-cancer-internal-hfpa-emails/
