Jo Koy’s jokes fall flat, fail to inspire at the Golden Globes

Jo Koy attends the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 07, 2024 | Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/AFP

Leading up to Jo Koy’s 2024 Golden Globes hosting gig, many had high hopes for the Filipino-American stand-up comedian and actor who now holds the title as the second Asian host in ceremony’s history, after Sandra Oh. 

However, the pressure of being the Globes’ last-minute pick two weeks before the ceremony may have been too much for Jo Koy who struggled onstage on Sunday night.

Jo Koy opened with a monologue that was met with a chilly response. In the grand tradition of Golden Globes hosting, he both praised and roasted the attendees to varying degrees of success. He also squeezed in a joke featuring a lick of his Filipino mom’s thick accent, a usual in his stand-up act that some have criticized as mocking in the past.

It seems Jo Koy was already anticipating a lull and some amount of backlash as he started getting defensive, even throwing his writers under the bus with unscripted side comments. 

“Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up,” he said at one point. “I wrote some of these, and those are the ones you’re gonna laugh at.”

Welcome to the 81st Annual #GoldenGlobes! Hollywood's *biggest* party of the year! 🥂

🎤 Here is your host for the night… the incredible and hilarious @Jokoy! pic.twitter.com/m1wbTjENr7

— Golden Globe Awards (@goldenglobes) January 8, 2024

Two of his most unpopular statements were swipes at “Barbie” and Taylor Swift. One joke insinuated that “Barbie” was a film “on a plastic doll with big boobies.” Taylor Swift’s icy reaction to the joke “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift” was caught on camera. Many were left unamused with what a number of netizens noted as jokes made at the expense of women.

The New York Times’ Nicole Sperling reports, “Never seen an audience rebel against an emcee so quickly. One prominent director just couldn’t keep his opinion quiet. ‘They all showed up. They are all here and this is what they give us? This is a disaster.’”

Vanity Fair’s David Canfield had a similar observation. “If you’re wondering if that played as bad in the room as it (probably) did on TV, the answer is yes. I mostly saw eyes darting around tables in confusion, wondering if they were supposed to be laughing,” he noted. 

Jo Koy set out to prove something for young Asian-American kids. But audience backlash and headlines such as Vulture’s “Jo Koy’s Golden Globes Monologue Might Send the Writers Back on Strike” puts the success of his gig up for question. 

“As a kid and watching TV and not having that many role models to kind of indirectly inspire me, that’s what this means to me,” Jo Koy told the Associated Press in an earlier interview. 

“We need to start moving forward. That’s what this is. We’re moving forward now. You learn from the past and you make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“They’re giving me the blessing to be me,” he adds. “I want to bring my style to the Globes. Of course, I’m going to have fun. But most importantly, I want to make sure everyone’s happy. I’m going to make fun of myself. If I can do that, I can make fun of other people.” 

Where was this energy during the ceremony?