Why Golden Globes attendees wore yellow ribbon pins to the 2024 awards ceremony

(JTA) One of the movies up for best picture at the 2024 Golden Globes awards is about the Holocaust. One of the most notable displays during the ceremony alludes to a current attack on Jews.

In the lead-up to the awards ceremony Sunday night, advocates for Israeli hostages in Gaza worked to supply attendees with yellow ribbon pins to affix to their red-carpet garb. Terror groups in Gaza are still holding approximately 136 hostages, who were kidnapped when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the ongoing war.

Yellow ribbons are a longstanding symbol of readiness to welcome home prisoners or hostages. The Bring Them Home movement, which advocates for the Israelis held in Gaza, is distributing the pins as part of its effort to keep the hostages in public view.

It was unclear in the days ahead of the ceremony how widely the ribbons would be taken up. Stars on the red carpet largely were not wearing the ribbons on Sunday night, although a handful, including the “Succession” star J. Smith-Cameron, bore one, as did Jesse Sisgold, president of Skydance Media, and Jon Weinbach, writer of “Air,” a movie up for best comedy.

The ribbons would represent a significant reference to contemporary politics during awards season, which has been expected as the Israel-Hamas war has gained widespread attention — and has sowed conflict — in the arts world. Local police were reportedly gearing up for potential protests outside the awards ceremony in Los Angeles, after protesters in favor of a ceasefire have sought to disrupt high-profile public events across the country over the last three months.

Few of the films up for Golden Globe awards prominently feature Jewish stories or actors. Two exceptions are up for best picture: “Oppenheimer,” the biopic about the Jewish father of the atomic bomb, and “Zone of Interest,” about the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss.

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