Demi Moore finally gets her flowers

Demi Moore’s very human reaction to winning a Golden Globe on Sunday night said a lot about Hollywood and how its denizens judge themselves. At the same time, Moore’s triumphant and emotional acceptance speech spoke to the movie industry’s evolving and contradictory views of the gap between respectable prestige films and box office successes. 

For years, Moore was among Hollywood’s finest in terms of that second objective. From her ‘80s breakthroughs in “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “About Last Night” to her starring role in the 1990 supernatural romance “Ghost,” and 1997’s dramatic action film “G.I. Jane,” she made plenty of noise in a certain brand of attention-getting movies. 

Yet as Moore noted with a mix of shock and joy on Sunday night, her best actress nod for the horror satire “The Substance” was a career milestone. “This is the first time I’ve ever won anything,” she told the glittering audience of her peers, adding that someone had once flatly dismissed her early on as “a popcorn actress.”

Moore clearly felt some sense of vindication, and validation. Sunday's Golden Globes officially kicked off a two-month “awards season” that will culminate with the Oscars in early March. And Moore’s win means she’s certainly now in the running for an Oscar nomination. Granted, as others have discovered in the past — most notably Jennifer Lopez, a Globes nominee for the movie “Hustlers” in 2020 who didn’t make the Academy Awards cut — the predictive power of the Globes isn’t always precise, but that didn’t prevent Moore, and her fans, from basking in the moment.

The response is at least partly an acknowledgement: The recognition of Moore feels overdue. The success she enjoyed at the peak of her career — including a string of hugely popular movies after “Ghost” that included “A Few Good Men,” “Disclosure” and “Indecent Proposal” — perhaps has been unfairly dismissed, especially in the snobbier quadrants of Hollywood and culture.

Nor should it be lost how the plot of “The Substance” underscores the particular challenge faced by almost all actresses as they decide how intensely they should attempt to turn back time. Critics and fans have heralded the movie as a takedown of the absurd beauty standards and unrealistic expectations placed on women, making Moore’s recognition at age 62 doubly satisfying. 

Indeed, while Moore has continued to work steadily, the quality of those roles hasn’t consistently measured up, from playing a villain in the “Charlie’s Angels” sequel to a stint in the over-the-top TV drama “Empire” a few years ago. In terms of ageism — sometimes subtle, often not — the machinations of Hollywood is an age-old story.

From that perspective, there's a reason Moore’s exultation at the Globes resonated with many of us who grew up, and have grown older, watching her. Then again, that’s hardly a problem specific to Moore. The recent history of award shows, and the Globe results themselves, make this abundantly clear.

After all, Sunday’s Globes lineup included a relatively new award for best cinematic and box-office achievement, a category introduced to reward those so-called “popcorn movies” upon which studios rely to stay afloat financially. That prize went to “Wicked,” the musical smash, on a night that saw many of the top awards go to relatively niche films like the period drama “The Brutalist” and polarizing Spanish-language musical “Emilia Perez” (the latter also beat out “Wicked”). 

Demi Moore might or might not have another in-the-spotlight turn during this season’s awards marathon, but the Globes already delivered a moment that can’t be taken away from her. At least, she can no longer claim to have never won anything. And those who have embraced her movies across the years can share in that celebration as they sit back and pass the popcorn.