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What we learned from the Golden Globes: Meryl Streep always wins and Ryan Gosling never fails

The curtain has fallen on this years ceremony and heres our key takeaways, including the best anti-Trump speech, the wittiest mention of syphilis and what it all means for next months Oscars

Theres no stopping La La Land, the post-truth underdog

Right from the start, which saw Jimmy Fallons opening skit entirely devoted to a spoof of La La Land, it was obvious Damien Chazelles hymn to Hollywood had converted the 90-odd members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association men and women who had left their homelands to travel to La La Land and pen their own hymns to Hollywood.

But just how faithful the converts proved couldnt quite be predicted: the film took seven gongs over the evening (best song, best score, best director, best screenplay, best actor, best actress, best comedy or musical), beating the likes of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to make new record.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone with their awards. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/NBC/(Credit too long, see caption)

So how did they do it? Especially when some of the awards (such as screenplay) were felt by some to be a bit optimistic? Well, that opening sequence was also significant, because it showed that La La Land is a lot easier to parody than, say, Moonlight (black gay man in Miami struggles with sexuality and addict mother) and Manchester by the Sea (gloomy janitor returns home after the death of his brother to grapple with previous family tragedy) and may end up with a lot more cultural currency, even significance, as a result.

That the Globes split their categories (drama and comedy or musical) naturally favours movies such as Chazelles, but, as Benjamin Lee pointed out in his liveblog, every La La acceptance speech also pushed the notion of the movie as an underdog a crazy mad idea and a wild punt for the studio to back.

But remember: this is a romance starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, directed by a man whose most recent movie won three Oscars, and which like Argo and The Artist strokes that hand that feeds it. But, whatever works.

Unless its the actual underdog

La La Lands main rival, Barry Jenkinss Moonlight, went into the race with nearly the same number of nominations, and came away with just one win. But what a win: best drama. The fact it was robbed in the supporting actor category (where Mahershala Ali lost out to Aaron Taylor-Johnson) may even help its chances going forward for what we now have is a genuine underdog (albeit one thats so far picked up 120 awards) with a little outraged momentum behind it (thought #JusticeForMoonlight felt a bit of a trending punt). The last movie to take just best drama at the Globes? Best picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave

Congratulations can still come with a bouquet of barbed wire

Despite significant wins for actors of colour actors this year, there were slightly fewer than expected (see Ali), and efforts to forget the #OscarsSoWhite controversy were undermined by not one, but two, people (George Bushs daughter, Michael Keaton) conflating the names of the two big nominated movies featuring black actors. Fences are still visible; perhaps Figures still arent, quite.

Meryl 2020

Meryl Streep attacks Donald Trump in Golden Globes speech

Can a blonde white woman in her late 60s defeat Donald Trump? If anyone can, Meryl can. Her speech picking up the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement award was easily the runaway moment of the night: impassioned, funny, fearless and picking up perhaps the prize dreadful moment in the president-elects campaign: his mocking of a disabled reporter on the campaign trail.

It kind of broke my heart, and I saw it, and I still cant get it out of my head because it wasnt in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate when its modelled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybodys life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.

Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use definition to bully others, we all lose.

Trump duly responded, not on Twitter, but by telling the New York Times he hadnt watched the show but was not surprised that the liberal movie people ridiculed him. Sad!

Hugh Laurie for VP

A shock choice for supporting actor in a drama series over favourite John Lithgow for that other great statesman, Churchill but Laurie made up for it with a pitch-perfect address, which preceded Streeps and lamented that this was likely the last Globes ceremony. Accepting the prize on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere, Laurie said:

I dont mean to be gloomy, its just that it has the words Hollywood, Foreign and Press in the title. I just dont know I also think to some Republicans, even the word association is slightly sketchy.

Viola Davis for secretary of state

A controversial one this, not because she aced the supporting actress performance for which she won her prize, nor for her great speech, nor even her composed anti-Trump rant backstage:

Viola Davis makes powerful anti-Trump speech backstage at Golden Globes

But for allowing us all to get a glimpse of the real Streep, sharing a strange food-shaming incident in her introduction to the great woman.

Streep: Whatd you do last night, Viola?

Davis: Oh, I cooked an apple pie.

Streep: Did you use Pippin apples?

Davis: Pippin apples, What the hell is Pippin apples? I used Granny Smith apples.

Streep: Did you make your own crust?

Davis: No, I used store-bought crust. Thats what I did.

Streep: Then you didnt make an apple pie, Viola.

Davis: Well, thats because I spent all my time making collard greens! I make the best collard greens. I use smoked turkey, chicken stock and my special BBQ sauce.

Streep: Well, they dont taste right unless you use ham hocks. If you dont use ham hocks, it doesnt taste the same.

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Accidents can happen, thank God

In what looked like one of the most locked-down ceremonies in years, a couple of bona fide surprises leapt out. The first with the HFPAs love for Paul Verhoevens hot-potato rape revenge comedy Elle a movie previously deemed too controversial for major acclaim. But it took not just best foreign language film (over the more politically safe Toni Erdmann) but also best actress for Isabelle Huppert: now a major Oscar contender, leaving both previous frontrunners (Natalie Portman and Emma Stone), fretting into their frocks.

The second shocker also showcased the Globess more offbeat taste: two big wins (best comedy series, best actor for Donald Glover) for Atlanta, about the citys rap scene. The Globes can be notoriously wacky this time round, in a good way.

We need to pin our hopes on the other Jimmy

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Fallon had a lot to live up to. In part because Amy Poehler and Tina Fey set such a high benchmark for this gig a couple of years back; also because Fallon patsied to Trump on his chatshow a couple of months back. But despite a few early digs at the president-elect, he failed to deliver. Most glaring was his inability to competently wing it when the teleprompter broke. All such issues were highlighted by the brilliance of some of the presenters, in particular Kristen Wiig, who having stolen the showin 2013 with her Will Ferrell double act, repeated the trick this time with Steve Carell. Can fellow talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel top it at the Oscars next month? Probably.

Heartthrobs are called heartthrobs for a reason

Ryan Goslings best actor speech saw peak metrosexual pin-up this year: losing nominees Ryan Reynolds and Andrew Garfield shared a snog, while Gosling further confirmed his dreaminess at the podium. He ended his speech by paying tribute to his lady Eva Mendes for looking after their daughter and her brother (who had cancer, and to whose memory he dedicated the prize) while she was pregnant with their second child and he was off twinkling his toes on La La Land. So, sweetheart, thank you.

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Tom Hiddleston, meanwhile, went full humanitarian, closing with a story about a recent trip to South Sudan with the UN Childrens Fund and dedicating his prize to aid workers everywhere. The weird cuts to Christian Slater and the kids from Stranger Things didnt help, but it was still stirring stuff.

The Brits are coming! But so is Netflix

Hiddleston won for The Night Manager, the Beebs big hit of the night gongs also for Laurie and Olivia Colman but the series-which-should-have-been-made-by-the-BBC-but-wasnt took best TV series (drama) and best actress (for Claire Foy). After the anti-climatic hoohah around Netflixs first big film production, Beasts of No Nation, the streaming service finally made good. Lucky, given The Crown still has five very expensive series still to fund and run.

Real actors are never off

Lithgow backstage with Claire Foy and Peter Morgan. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Greatest ad-lib of the night? Probably John Lithgow, who channelled Churchill with aplomb in the press room. Being told his fly was undone, Lithgow quoted back the great cigar-chomper: Its not a problem. A dead bird never leaves its nest. The runners-up prize goes to Hugh Grant, wrongly leaked as the winner of best actor (comedy or musical), who describes the plot of Florence Foster Jenkins as, accurately enough, about a woman slowly dying of syphilis.