Oprah Slays the Golden Globes

Having taken on the poisoned chalice of hosting the 2018 Golden Globes, Seth Myers was never likely to do business-as-usual even if he'd wanted to. Faced with a sombre audience, many dressed in black to protest sexual abuse in the workplace, he opened the 75th Golden Globe Awards by peppering his monologue with references to a string of disgraced Hollywood titans, Kevin Spacey included:

"Call Me by Your Name is nominated for Best Motion Picture. It's a gay coming-of-age film --", Myers announced at one point, only to have Billy Eichner interrupt, "-- said Kevin Spacey...'you lost me at 'of age.'"

But in one of the evening's biggest upsets, that movie's star, Timothee Chalamet, lost out on the award for best actor in a drama to Winston Churchill, aka Gary Oldman, who plays the British war leader in Darkest Hour. It was as if the ghost of Golden Globes past had come back to snatch away the shining present.

Armie Hammer also failed to clinch an award as best supporting actor, while the movie lost out to Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which unexpectedly found itself the Oscars front runner after taking the biggest haul of the evening. The movie's star, Frances McDormand, also won for best actress in a drama. Pulling no punches, she used her moment on stage to express satisfaction at the shift in Hollywood's power structure, adding, "Trust me, the women in here tonight are not here for the food. We are here for the work."

Early winners of the night included HBO's Big Little Lies, and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, which won for best drama, as well as getting a gong for star Elisabeth Moss. For her role in Big Little Lies, Nicole Kidman won a Globe for Best Actress in a Television Movie or Limited Series.

Meanwhile, as expected Saoirse Ronan won the Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy for Lady Bird, while Allison Janney walked off with an award for her supporting role in I, Tonya. Lady Bird also took the Globe for Best Musical or Comedy. In the biggest upset of the evening, Jordan Peele's fiercely satirical, and completely topical, horror-comedy, Get Out, was shut out entirely.

But the evening's greatest moment belonged to Oprah Winfrey. Receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement, she began with a powerful reminder that this was a first: "It is not lost on me that at this moment, there are some little girls watching as I become the first black woman to be given this award," she said, before going to honor "all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault, because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue." A new day was on the horizon, she promised young girls watching the telecast. "And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight. And some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say 'me too' again."

And while Reese Witherspoon's decree that "Oprah's hugs could end wars," was verging on the absurd, the image neatly captured the animating spirit of the 75th Golden Globe Awards: men have created a messy world, but women will save us.