Following it's recent run of nominations at the annual Golden Globe Awards, various questions have arose regarding May December's genre and whether it genuinely does belong within the comedy category.
Of course, the Golden Globes are known for splitting films and tv shows into various categories, restricting certain pieces of content to from competing against eachother.
Every year, a movie or tv show is either deemed as a 'Drama' or a 'Musical or Comedy'. With both musicals and comedies being grouped together to form their own awarding category at the Golden Globes.
And although it may seem simple for the Hollywood Foreign Press to determine which films belong to specific categories, you would be surprised as to how many times this has been done incorrectly. And Todd Haynes' 'May December' is just the most recent example of this.
Some of the most outlying nominations in the 'Best Motion Picture: Musical or Drama' category over recent years would be Cameron Crowe's 'Jerry Maguire', Ridley Scott's 'The Martian' and Milos Forman's 'Man On The Moon'.
Actor and comedian, Jim Carrey, said it best himself when he accepted the award back in the year 2000 for 'Best Actor: Musical or Comedy' due to his work on 'Man On The Moon'.
"I was a little shocked that it was in the Comedy or Musical category, but, you know, I'll go with it." - Jim Carrey
Todd Haynes' 'May December', although officially deemed as a romance/drama, received four nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press for the upcoming Golden Globe Awards this year. Two of them lying within the 'Musical or Comedy' categories.
'May December' follows the story of a well-known actress, Elizabeth Berry, who spends time learning about the unique and odd relationship between Joe and Gracie Atherton in order to portray Gracie in an upcoming movie.
The only odd thing about Joe and Gracie's relationship is their 30-odd year age difference that began when Joe (Charles Melton) was only a 13-year-old child.
Given the fact that the movie tackles various strong subjects and talking points such as sexual abuse, mental illness, large age gaps in relationships etc, you would assume that this film belongs nowhere near a category labelled as 'Musical or Comedy'.
The reasoning for this could be due to the fact that the amount of content within film this past annual year is too overflown with movies that fall under the 'Drama' category, that to fit a specific number of movies in at the Globes, some are better off deemed as either a musical or a comedy.
Alongside 'May December', nominated within the Best Picture: Musical or Comedy category is Ben Affleck's 'Air', Alexander Payne's 'The Holdovers', Greta Gerwig's 'Barbie', Yorgos Lanthimos' 'Poor Things' and Cord Jefferson's 'American Fiction'.
Although there are a handful of these films listed in this category that arguably shouldn't be listed as a 'Musical or Comedy', Todd Haynes' 'May December' is definitely the most questionable.
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