Emmys still able to poke fun at self
LOS ANGELES • The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a new sitcom about a 1950s homemaker turned edgy standup comedian, took an early lead at the Emmy Awards, which gently mocked itself for its own lack of diverse winners.
Series star Rachel Brosnahan was honoured as best comedy actress, Alex Borstein earned the supporting actress trophy and the series creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, nabbed writing and directing awards.
In a ceremony that started out congratulating TV academy voters for the most ethnically diverse field of nominees ever, the early awards all went to whites.
“Let’s get it trending: #EmmysSoWhite,” presenter James Corden joked at the midway point, riffing off an earlier tribute to Betty White.
“I want to say six awards, all white winners, and nobody has thanked Jesus yet,” co-host Michael Che said, referring back to his earlier joke that only African-American and Republican winners do.
Then Regina King broke the string, with a best actress trophy in a limited series or movie for Seven Seconds, which tracks the fallout from a white police officer’s traffic accident involving a black teenager.
She was followed by Darren Criss, who won the lead acting award for the miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace and who is of Filipino descent.
Thandie Newton won best supporting drama actress for Westworld, and Peter Dinklage added a third trophy to his collection for Game of Thrones.
The ceremony had a reallife drama moment when winning director Glenn Weiss, noting his mother had died two weeks ago, proposed to his girlfriend, Jan Svendsen. “You wonder why I don’t want to call you my girlfriend? It’s because I want to call you my wife,” Weiss said. She said yes, he put his mother’s ring on her finger and the crowd whooped and cheered.
Brosnahan used her acceptance speech to give a shout-out to her comedy’s celebration of women power.
“It’s about a woman who’s finding her voice anew, and it’s one of the things that’s happening all over the country now,” she said. She urged the audience to exercise that power by voting.
Bill Hader collected the best comedy actor award for Barry, a dark comedy about a hired killer who stumbles into a possible acting career.
Henry Winkler, a.k.a. “The Fonz,” won a supporting actor award — his first Emmy — for Barry, four decades after gaining fame for his role in Happy Days.
“If you stay at the table long enough, the chips come to you. Tonight, I got to clear the table,” an ebullient Winkler said, with an equally delighted auditorium audience rising to give him a standing ovation. To his children, he said: “You can go to bed now, daddy won!”