And so another year’s Emmy Awards have come and gone. The 2018 Emmys were full of poking fun at serious social issues, surprise proposals and fantastic television getting the respect it deserves.
So without further ado, here were the highlights of this year’s Emmys.
1. While this year’s Emmys didn’t “solve” the problem of diversity on television like the opening number would have you think, it still took important strides toward recognizing its own complicity in the problem.
The opening musical number, “We Solved It,” featured Kenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Tituss Burgess, Kristen Bell, Sterling K. Brown, RuPaul and John Legend. It joked about how the presence of black nominees and Sandra Oh being “the first Asian woman to be nominated for a Lead Actress Emmy ever” caught the awards show up with the times, while also acknowledging at the end of the song that the Emmys have a long way to go.
Diversity was a running theme throughout the evening, as the hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che also brought up the whitewashing of television in their opening monologue.
CHE: Things are getting better, but as we all know, TV has always had a diversity problem. Can you believe they did 15 seasons of “E.R.” without one Filipino nurse?
CHE: Have you been to a hospital? That’s just crazy. Even on a great show like “Cheers.” I mean, “Cheers.” I love “Cheers,” but you’re telling me they made a show about an all-white sports bar in 1980s Boston, and not one black dude walked in, saw everybody, and then walked right back out immediately? I would have. I would have.
JOST: There’s even more diversity coming to TV. There’s a Latino “Magnum P.I.” There’s going to be a black Samantha on a reboot of “Bewitched,” but it’s going to get balanced out by an all-white reboot of “Atlanta” called “15 Miles Outside of Atlanta.” And it focuses on white women who call the police on the cast of “Atlanta.”
2) In the middle of a pretty standard, nondescript awards show was a surprise for the ages.
Glenn Weiss, the recipient of the award for outstanding directing for a variety special, proposed to his girlfriend Jan Svendsen on live TV!
He accentuated the proposal with a sweet speech to his future wife.
“Mom always believed in finding the sunshine in things and she adored my girlfriend Jan,” Weiss said to his fiancée and to the audience. “Jan, you are the sunshine in my life. And mom was right, don’t ever let go of your sunshine. You wonder why I don’t like to call you my girlfriend? Because I want to call you my wife. Jan, I want to put this ring that my mom wore on your finger in front of all these people and in front of my mom and your parents watching from above. Will you marry me?”
She said yes, of course.
3) “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” got the recognition it so rightly deserves.
Because Emmys sweetheart “Veep” wasn’t in the running this year, the award for best comedy was up for grabs. Thankfully, the Amazon original “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” took “Veep”’s place, as well as four other awards.
And this win brought us arguably the best moment of the night: Alex Borstein walking to the stage to accept her Emmy for best supporting actress in a comedy.
https://twitter.com/e_alexjung/status/1041848235478925313
Until next year, Emmy Awards.
