by Olivia Joung
This past Academy Awards decided to go hostless, after its original host – Kevin Hart – decided to step down after his old homophobic tweets emerged. This year the Emmys decided to do the same thing, as it had gone surprisingly well. .
After all, it made sense: the Oscars succeeded without one, and the main critique behind most awards shows in the past couple of years have been that they were too political. Due to recent events ranging from the 2016 election to the #MeToo movement, awards shows have gone from being a celebration of entertainment to one big elaborate comment on current political issues. So what better way of avoiding a political-heavy opening host monologue is there than getting rid of it altogether?
However, it was the wrong move.
Without a host to keep everything moving, the show seemed to drag on, and what was actually three hours felt like eight. The whole show just felt like a series of random and uncomfortable bits performed by a series of random and uncomfortable celebrities haphazardly stuck together. At one point, while presenting the award for Best Writing in a Comedy Series, Ken Jeong and Nick Cannon made a Tik Tok with the audience, an embarrassing attempt to pander to a younger demographic.
As predicted, Game of Thrones took home the award for Best Drama Series despite its lackluster final season. Other wins were a surprise to the audience. Most notably, the British comedy-drama Fleabag won a whopping four awards, including Best Comedy Series despite widespread predictions that Veep would take home all the trophies, especially since it had been their final season. In fact, the Comedy categories which included shows like Barry and Veep made the show interesting, and it seemed like nearly all of them were equally deserving of the awards.
Ironically, it was widely agreed that the best part of the Emmys was the acceptance speeches, which usually garners the most criticism and eyerolls. Michelle Williams, in particular, gave an inspiring speech demanding equal pay for women while receiving her Emmy for her work on the limited series Fosse/Verdon.
Information from The Hollywood Reporter and Times
