I Hate-Watched the Emmys, and I Liked It
Last night, I rushed home, put on some stretchy yoga pants (can I still called them yoga pants if I exclusively lounge in them?), set-up my sound system, ordered drunken noodles, charged my smart phone, and got ready to cheerfully hate-watch the Emmys. I wasn't disappointed. I totally despised this year's award show, and according to Twitter, there's a big chance that you did, too.
During last night's awards ceremony, data from Twitter showed that the highest volume of tweets came in during Carrie Underwood's performance (what was that?), Jeff Daniels' win for best actor (seriously?!) and Breaking Bad scooping up the award for the best drama (OK, that was awesome). The fact that two out of the three most Tweeted moments were godawful is a testimony to how lame last night's ceremony was. Carrie Underwood's performance wasn't only off-key, it was generally off. As for The Newsroom's Jeff Daniels ... do I need to explain why people were upset that he won over accomplished (and much less annoying) actors like Jon Hamm, Kevin Spacey and Bryan Cranston?
The Emmy awards didn't only go to the wrong people. They also exclusively went to white people. And I don't mean that in a hyperbolic way. Exactly zero people of color even took the stage for the entire first hour of the show, nor did any receive an individual on-stage award. As the website Awesomely Luvvie notes, it was "just a bunch of white folks giving each other awards, with a sprinkling of Black folks and Mindy Kaling."
I knew the Emmys were going to be depressingly white-washed, but I didn't think it would be this bad. This photo by Natalie Maine from The Dixie Chicks kind of says it all.
If you think the Emmys were just racist, you'll be delighted to hear that they were sexist, too. No surprise here, since so few women are represented in gender-neutral categories such as directing. The only woman of color who has ever been nominated didn't even take home a trophy.
Source: MissRepresentation
Even Stephen Colbert's well-deserved win, which should have been one of the most enjoyable moments of the night, was fantastic until his writers came on stage. Then, it looked like a Mad Men theme party.
Finally, what was up with the wrap-up music cutting all the winners off? After Modern Family won best comedy, creator Steven Levitan was about to make a great speech about bullying, but instead had to nervously rush through it like he was holding a hot potato.
Despite these major downfalls, the Emmys were worth hate-watching, mostly for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's hilarity. WHY CAN'T THEY HOST EVERYTHING.
Did I miss anything? What did you hate the most about this year's Emmys? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook. For more on the phenomenon of hate-watching, check out The Li.st's co-founder Glynnis MacKinnol explain why she hate-watches The Newsroom every single week and why you should too.