There are plenty of movies up for awards tonight most people haven’t seen—show me someone who heard of Lion before the broadcast began and I’ll show you a liar or a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press. But one familiar-sounding movie that keeps coming up is one that never existed at all: Hidden Fences.
The title is a conflation of two of the year’s biggest films with black leads—Hidden Figures, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe; and Fences, starring Viola Davis and Denzel Washington. Incredibly, they are very different movies.
Still, “Hidden Fences” came up at least twice during the pre- and official Golden Globes broadcast, first dropped by alleged red carpet correspondent Jenna Bush Hager in an interview with an incredulous Pharrell; and then again by Michael Keaton, while announcing the nominees for best actress in a drama.
It did not go unnoticed.