Golden Globes Changes “Foreign Language” Category to “Non-English”
The foreign language category has long been a tricky beast throughout the history of award shows, and the issue has been brought to the forefront in recent years with the increased attention foreign films and TV shows have been receiving. With the 2022 nominees announced, the foreign language category underwent an interesting but long overdue change. The category is currently listed on the Globes website as “Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language (Formerly Foreign Language)”, noting the updated category title along with its original name.
The category was originally for “Best Foreign Film”, with films such as The Bicycle Thief (Italy) and Black Orpheus (Brazil/France/Italy) winning the award. In some early years, multiple films would be given the award, and in some years no films were nominated for the category. However, in modern times the category has consistently been awarded to a single film.
From 1957 to 1973, the Globes had a spin-off category called “Best English-Language Foreign Film” which was intended open the doors to foreign films targeting English audiences. Of course, this resulted in several wins for the UK, and the category was eventually discontinued.
Such a category has always been difficult to define and other award shows have dealt with the problem as well. The underlying premise is to honor films typical Hollywood audiences would not be familiar with and to shine the light on productions outside of Hollywood. However, the UK has a sizable and influential entertainment industry which has the same global reach many Hollywood productions have as well. And like most American movies, they also are in English, making them easier for American audiences to consume. It’s no wonder then that the UK leads with seven wins in the category.
So what makes a “foreign film” and what makes a “foreign language film”? What is the difference?
While great foreign films have long existed, the heart of the entertainment industry, and therefore the majority of investment, has always resided in the United States. The UK, as mentioned, enjoyed a privileged spot as well in the industry able to piggy back on Hollywood’s success and the American market because of the shared English language. This did not prevent great foreign films from being produced, but because most were in a non-English language, they rarely received much attention or acclaim outside of their home market.
A foreign film category is an attempt to help showcase these films that might go overlooked by American audiences, but when you consider that the UK is “foreign” to the United States, it allows many English language films to be included, which seems to go against the original intent. This is likely the reason for changing the category to foreign-language at some point, as the Globes did in 1987. This change moved the English films into the main Best Picture competition and focused the foreign film category on specifically non-English movies.
This change was imperfect, though. It had the consequence of preventing non-English films from being considered for Best Picture, such as with the American film Minari or the South Korean film Parasite which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020, making it the first non-English film to win that award. So, the Golden Globes decided to allow any film eligible for foreign language film to also be eligible for Best Picture.
And now that brings us to modern times where the line of what makes a foreign film foreign is blurred, and one may wonder if the category is even necessary anymore. On one hand, smaller markets should absolutely be highlighted and given an opportunity for additional exposure, but on the other hand we have global access to entertainment options so a great foreign film like Parasite is no longer a hidden gem to be uncovered by a random industry award group.
However, the recent change from foreign-language to non-English is a move in a good direction as it focuses on a key difference that makes many films less accessible and less marketable around the world. English still dominates as a global language, and the lucrative markets of the United States and the UK give English films an inherent advantage at the box office (and, because of that, in getting investment). Even overseas, English media performs well because of the popularity of English as a second language around the world.
Semantically speaking, though, “foreign language” is a weird way to refer to non-English since English itself is a foreign language, having originated as the name implies in England. You could argue that English isn’t foreign because it is spoken here in the United States, but then the same could apply to Spanish, German, Hindi and pretty much any language since the United States is renowned for being a multicultural country. So neither definition of “foreign-language” would suffice and the change to this category’s label better reflects the actual intention of the category: to highlight non-English films in an entertainment industry that is primarily dominated by English films.
While this category might still make sense, it could entirely disappear in the near future. Given the size and economic strength of the UK and US film industries, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see English films disadvantaged at the box office or at award ceremonies, but we’re definitely seeing non-English films and markets getting more exposure and being better able to compete for money and attention in our globally connected world.
