What Does Losing The Golden Globe Mean For Lady Gaga's Oscar Chances?

The momentum in back of A Star Is Born has been strong ever since it premiered to a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival in August. Critics and crowds alike are raving for Bradley Cooper’s first turn as a director, and for Lady Gaga’s first starring role in a major motion picture.


Since then, the film has picked up nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards, SAG Awards, Grammys, Producers Guild Awards, and has been honored at the AFI Awards and Palms Springs International Film Festival.


Nevertheless for all of those honors, of the film’s five Golden Globe nominations — which was among the most nominations an individual entity procured this year — they only picked up one award at the January 6 ceremony, Best Original Song, and lost out on in The perfect Picture, directing, and acting categories — including Lady Gaga’s Best Actress nod. So, what does that mean for the musician-turned-actress’s chances at the Academy Awards?


Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga at the Venice Film Festival


First, let’s establish the most crucial point of all: The Golden Globes and the Oscars have entirely different voting bodies. For the Globes, voters are members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, made up of journalists from around the world (or, ahem, the “globe”). At the Oscars, we’re getting the advice of Hollywood insiders, including actors, directors, producers, editors, casting directors, cinematographers, and thus on. Different voting bodies means there really is potential for different results.


How often these different results are seen in The perfect Actress category is another matter, made slightly more complex by the way the two awards shows organize their honors. The Golden Globes separates films into two categories, letting movies compete as a drama or as a comedy/musical, so the Golden Globes produces two Best Actresses per year, one drama and one comedy/musical.


The Oscars, on the other hand, does not separate by genre, narrowing the pool of nominees down from ten slots to five. I’m not going to mention that insinuates it’s more tough to secure a Oscar nomination, nevertheless statistically, it is far less likely, which isn’t good news for anyone, Lady Gaga included.


Fortunately, the passion Lady Gaga and the film have already obtained — not only in the form of nominations, yet also in celebrity adoration and internet meme-ification — means she’s certainly going to be on voters’ minds as they review their ballots. Nevertheless will that be enough?


Lady Gaga with her 2019 Golden Globe for Best Original Song


The Academy, historically made up of older white gentlemen, loves to reward years of hard work. In the past ten years, only two nominees won The perfect Actress category on their first ever nomination: Sandra Bullock in 2010 — right after she’d appeared in approximately 17,000 movies — and Brie Larson in 2016, whose acting in Room was simply stunning. (The preceding decade was more welcoming of first-timers, throughout which time six of the ten best actresses were first-time nominees — and several of whom were Hollywood heavy-hitters with customary résumés: Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, Halle Berry, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, and Marion Cotillard.)


There’s one more segment of not-great news for Gaga: The last time the Academy awarded a Best Actress who didn’t also receive the Globe was Halle Berry in 2002. Certainly, correlation isn't causation, yet that fact must make Glenn Close (a six-time Oscar nominee, zero-time winner) and Olivia Colman feel good about their Oscars odds. (And seriously, have you seen The Favourite?)


Right now, these voting patterns would be very different at this point in time. Within the past few years, the Academy has made a widely publicized task to set up a more inclusive body of voters — meaning more people of color, more ladies, and more young people. They’ve added approximately 2,000 new members within the past three years as piece of their pledge to double the Academy’s diversity by 2020 — increasing the number of people of color from 8 percent to 16 percent, and upping the percentage ladies by a couple of points to 31 — which could (and hopefully will) result in a shift in who is recognized at the ceremony.


It’s also worth noting that Lady Gaga is no stranger to the Oscars, and should she be nominated, it wouldn’t be her first time. In 2016, she picked up a nomination alongside Diane Warren in The perfect Original Song category for their song, “Til It Happens To You,” which appeared in the documentary The Hunting Ground. She followed up her nomination with a impactful performance at the ceremony that featured over 50 sexual assault survivors, all tagged with words like “survivor” and “not your fault,” standing with her on stage.


Lady Gaga performing at the 2016 Academy Awards


Gaga had also been tapped to perform at the ceremony one year earlier — months before she debuted her acting chops in American Horror Story: Hotel — because the Academy honored the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music.


Another positive sign for Gaga: “Shallow” is shortlisted for Best Original Song, and since the Academy members are probably still kicking themselves for not giving her award the initial time around soon after that room-silencing efficiency, and due to the mainstream success of the song, I, for one, will be shocked if she doesn’t snag that award.


In short, they like her, they really like her — her music, at the very least.


It’s hard to mention exactly what this all means for Lady Gaga’s chances in an acting category, particularly as the crossover from musician to prestige actress is slim. We can look to Madonna, who won Best Actress, Musical or Comedy, at the 1997 Golden Globes for her role in Evita, and who'd previously performed at the Oscars — however that may not result in the prediction most are hoping for. Madonna did not receive a Best Actress nomination at that year’s Academy Awards. (The film, nevertheless, obtained five nominations and won Best Original Song for “You Must Love Me,” which Madonna performed at the ceremony.)


We can also look to Cher, who, in 1988, took house The perfect Actress Oscar for her role in Moonstruck soon after securing the Golden Globe. Unfortunately for Gaga fans, Cher’s monumental win came with her second acting nomination at the Academy Awards, soon after having lost Best Supporting Actress for her role in Silkwood in 1984. (She did win the Golden Globe that year, though — marking her first win on the motion picture side.)


Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott, and Lady Gaga at the TCL Chinese Theatre


Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Gaga, Cooper, and the complete A Star Is Born team definitely have the will. For the past few months, they’ve taken every possibility to champion the movie everywhere from major film festivals to local theaters. They’ve done sit-down interviews with reputable outlets detailing the artistry that went into the project.


They’ve instructed us, time and time again, just how much they believe in the work they did, all to generate the sort of buzz that’s reserved only for the perfect assignments of the year, to get as several voting members of the Academy to be able to see their film, to love their film, and to tell their colleagues about the film.


Although just in case those voting members still hadn’t heard of their movie, they put up viral billboards in the swankiest parts of Hollywood. They immortalize their hand and footprint outdoor of Hollywood's well known TCL Chinese Theatre. They send out screeners — or copies of the movie — so voting members of the Academy can watch at residence, and so they hold special “For Your Consideration” screenings for members who desire to get the complete movie-going experience. They attend luncheons and events where they can chat with voters face-to-face. And so they do all of this with one objective in mind: to win Oscar gold.


The intense campaigning started with the film’s world premiere in Venice, all leading up to today, Monday, January 7, as soon as the opening round of Oscars nominations voting opens, and, if a nomination is secured on Tuesday, January 22, the campaigning will continue up until the final round of voting closes just days before the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, February 24.


In the meantime, it’s hard to mention what boxes the Academy members are checking off and whether their habits from the past will shine again. However one thing is for sure: A Star Is Born’s Oscars campaign is going strong, and Lady Gaga is totally diving in.