Emmy Awards In Review: Lots of Tears and Bad Kimmel Jokes
The 68th Emmy Awards took place in Los Angeles tonight. Here are some of the night’s big winners in case you missed it:
Outstanding Comedy Series: Veep
Outstanding Drama Series: Game of Thrones
Outstanding Variety Talk Series: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
Outstanding Limited Series: The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Outstanding Television Movie: Sherlock: "The Abominable Bride"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: Rami Malek (Mr. Robot)
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie: Courtney B. Vance (The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story)
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie: Sarah Paulson (The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story)
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff: my raw, unfiltered, totally objective thoughts. The Emmys began with a half-ass intro by Jimmy Kimmel, who let’s face it, isn’t very funny anyway (but more on that in a minute). Then…is that Jeb Bush? Am I seeing things? Must be an actor I saw once that I didn’t realize looks like Jeb. Wait, IT’S ACTUALLY JEB?!? I’m watching with my 84-year old Grandma and we are losing it. I’m laughing because of how sad this is and I honestly can’t believe someone okayed this. She’s laughing because it’s funny. Jeb!
Overall the Emmys were less than surprising. Not really many snubs because the “great shows” that I don’t watch won. And the real great shows that I do watch are never nominated. It’s a night for me to just yell at the television and I promise you I did a lot of that.
The Emmys are always useless if you ask me. There are so many freaking television shows on now, and I watch like fifteen a week and yet like three of them are nominated. What fun is that for me, the clearly above average TV watcher? My favorites this past season were UnReal, Jane the Virgin, Crazy Ex Girlfriend (I wrote a blog about this on my personal site), and Veep. See a pattern here? I love the women. Mr. Robot was good— until this season, and then it wasn’t. That doesn’t diminish my huge crush on Rami Malek, now an Emmy award winning actor! Congratulations Rami!
Kimmel was the king of tasteless “comedy” if that’s even what you can call it. A terrible joke about Bill Cosby once again tried to normalize rape and make it a laughing matter. Only, the joke’s on Jimmy because not a single person laughed instead the entire audience cringed. Rape is not funny nor will it ever be. How did that joke even make it past the first draft of the script? But the tasteless humor did not end there. After the heartbreaking and touching “In Memoriam,” Kimmel says, “That was a great In Memoriam but I hope they can make it even better next year.” Classy.
As the night went on we had the classic wins, Game of Thrones, Veep, The People vs. OJ Simpson, but the emceeing didn’t improve. Kimmel must have known it was him vs. the World. Throughout the show his demeanor changed drastically; he no longer cared. He knew his jokes weren’t landing and he seemed to be giving up. He had no energy to give, he spoke in a monotonous voice, he didn’t move his body and created one of the saddest award shows out there. He couldn’t keep his celebrity counterparts engaged or the audience at home. I was live tweeting and the census was the same: get Kimmel off of the stage.
Trump jokes were the go to joke bait of the night. I hate that we’re giving him an even bigger platform. His ego is inflated enough now he’s going to get 500 new Google alerts from the Emmys broadcast we are tired. Get some new material! If you’re a comedian you shouldn’t have to rely on this cheap laugh. It was tired and sad. Let me laugh about how Cuba Gooding Jr. was great in Snow Dogs, that wholesome family humor was the best of the night. Jeb!
An award show is always going to have memorable speeches. Patton Oswalt won for his stand up special “Talking for Clapping,” and he thanked his daughter and his late wife. Julia Louis-Dreyfus laughed about her satirical political comedy becoming more serious than our current election and started to visibly shake as she thanked her Father who passed away this past Friday. Not a dry eye in the house.
And Jeffery Tambor won for best actor in a comedy season for the season year in a row for the Amazon original Transparent. He hoped that he would be the last cisgendered male to play a transgender woman. The Trans representation will never happen in the media unless they are given a chance by the casting directors, the writers, the directors. He encouraged Trans parts to be played by Trans people. Other speeches were standouts, including the director Jill Soloway, a winner in a category filled with men, calling for us to “Topple the patriarchy.”
Aside from the great speeches and terrible jokes I have three more stray thoughts:
1. In my opinion one of the world’s greatest episodes of television is “Mother” in Veep. It has the greatest scene in history. This episode was nominated for directed and writing but lost to both. It will never be lost in my heart. I just spent twenty minutes looking for the scene online but I had no luck. Take my word for it, or better yet, binge all five seasons of Veep in two weeks like I did!
2. The split vote thing wasn’t winning. If a show was nominated three or four times, almost always something completely unrelated would win.
3. This is the first time I ever cried at the “In Memoriam”… from Gene Wilder to Anton Yelchin to one of my directing heroes Gary Marshall- it was too much for me to handle, plus I’m menstruating.
In conclusion: The Emmys had high emotional moments, but otherwise were bad. Jimmy Kimmel ruined it and I sincerely hope his career is slowly put to rest because of it.