RECLAIMING THE THRONE
Game of Thrones named best drama at Emmys to beat out last year’s winner, The Handmaid’s Tale,
It was billed as a battle between the fictional worlds of Westeros and Gilead. The fantasy series Game of
Thrones won for best dramatic series, emerging victorious over
The Handmaid’s Tale at the 70th annual Emmy Awards on Monday night. It wasn’t a sure thing: The
Handmaid’s Tale won last year, and the Margaret Atwood adaptation remains prescient in the #MeToo era. But Game of
Thrones, despite being absent from the ballots last year, roared back to prominence.
Despite the focus on the headline contest for best drama, this was ostensibly an Emmy Awards night about diversity. But it didn’t quite deliver on the mission statement.
Inside the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, an entertaining musical number featured John Legend, Ricky Martin, Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson singing, tongue firmly planted in cheek, that they had solved the lack of diversity in Hollywood.
“This year has the most diverse group in Emmy history,” said Thompson. “It’s one step closer to a Black Sheldon.”
Still, the first eight awards were given to Caucasians, including Jeff Daniels and Ryan Murphy. The streak was broken by Regina King, who won for outstanding lead actress in a limited series, for Seven Seconds.
The diversity machine hit a further speed bump when Claire Foy got the best dramatic actress Emmy for The Crown, beating Canadians Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black and Sandra Oh of Killing Eve.
Oh, the first Asian woman to be nominated for an Emmy for a drama series (with five prior supporting Emmy nominations for Grey’s Anatomy) was a sentimental favourite to win. Foy was something of a surprise. Many thought that The
Handmaid’s Tale’s Elisabeth Moss, who won last year, had more sway over voters.
This year’s Emmys, broadcast on a Monday to avoid a conflict with NBC’s Sunday Night Foot
ball, featured the most diverse slate of nominees in history.
Thirty-six of the nominees for acting awards were visible minorities. That’s up from 27 last year, which was already a re- cord. At the Creative Arts Emmy Awards last week, African-American actors saw a historic sweep in the four guest actor categories. They included Tiffany Haddish for Saturday Night Live, Samira Wiley for The Handmaid’s Tale, Ron Cephas Jones for This Is Us and Katt Williams for Atlanta.
The political statements at Monday’s awards started on the red carpet, with black-ish star Jenifer Lewis sporting a Nike jersey with a metal-studded swoosh. The sporting good giant recently faced backlash after featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as the face of its Just Do It campaign.
Hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost amped up the race discussion, saying that at the first Em- my awards 70 years ago, “everyone agreed that Nazis were bad” — a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn white nationalists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., last year.
It was risky having two male comics host the 70th Emmy Awards, given this was the first show of the #MeToo era — sparked by last year’s sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein — and given so many talented female comics were available.
The last woman to host the Emmys was Jane Lynch in 2011.
But Canadian producer Lorne Michaels seemed to spread the workload with a range of presenters, including comics such as Maya Rudolph and Fred Ar- misen, so the spotlight wasn’t necessarily on the two hosts, whose banter was often flat. Still, some spots hit home, including Che’s Reparation Emmys, when he presented Emmys to Black actors including Marla Gibbs of The Jeffersons and Kadeem Hardison of A Different World.
The highlights of the night weren’t necessarily the awards.
Glenn Weiss was presented the Emmy for directing a variety special (the Oscars) and promptly proposed to his girlfriend, to applause from the audience.
The underappreciated spy thriller The Americans got some love from Emmy voters in its final season, winning for best writing in a drama series, and earning a trophy for Matthew Rhys for best lead actor in a drama.
And it took a while, but The Fonz finally won an Emmy. Henry Winkler won for best supporting actor in a comedy series as an acting coach in HBO’s dark comedy Barry.
It was a first for the actor who was nominated multiple times for Happy Days. “I wrote this 43 years ago,” joked Winkler in his acceptance speech. Amy Sherman-Palladino’s smart and immensely charming The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, about a housewife trying to become a comic, won outstanding comedy series, capping a night in which it also won acting awards for Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein, as well as writing and directing prizes for Sherman-Palladino.