Martha Plimpton, Rob Lowe, and Sofia Vergara crown Melissa McCarthy at the Emmys
[Note to readers: My mother, Cyma Dolan, died on August 19th,
which I share only to explain the radio silence on The Feminist Spectator. I’ve been surprised how grief has seemed to
steal my words, making it hard to write here and elsewhere. My mom loved awards shows; writing about the
Emmys seems a good way to find my way back to the blog. In her memory then, now and always.—jd]
Thank goodness for Jane Lynch, the lovely lanky
lesbian otherwise known as Glee’s
misanthropic Sue Sylvester, who proved last Sunday to be one of the few awards
show hosts in recent memory to be able to get the tone exactly right. Lynch kept her happy, wide-eyed energy up and
her gently sarcastic deadpan humor focused, dispatching her duties with just
the right mix of irreverence and, well, glee.
The opening number—happily filmed instead of sung,
danced, or acted live, which always seems to trip up performers more accustomed
to tape—showed Lynch acting with Mr. President of TV (Leonard Nimoy), revealing
the (fabricated) secrets of the interconnected lives and spaces of those who
populate our small screens. The conceit
mostly worked—when Lynch barged into the living room set of The Big Bang Theory singing and dancing,
Jim Parsons, in character, sighed something like, “I hate when musical numbers
intrude on our space.” (Parsons went on
to win an Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy later that night.)
Lynch then visited the set of Mad Men to announce to its characters that in the future, women
will be able to marry one another (though, she conceded, they’ll still have to
sleep with men to advance professionally), and that people will watch
television on their phones. John
Slattery, as Roger Sterling, perplexed by her prophecy picked up one of the
set’s old-fashioned black telephone receivers to peer into it.
When Lynch ended the number live, in one of the
several satiny evening gowns she wore all evening, she danced a few steps
backed by chorus boys, then remarked on how difficult it is to move in triple
Spanx. The crowd gave her a warm
standing ovation, perhaps just for her game and buoyant honesty, which she
managed to maintain throughout the evening.
Otherwise, the show’s best moment came with the
announcement of the nominees for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Amy Poehler’s (Parks and Recreation) name was announced first; she left her seat
to approach the stage, and actually mounted the apron, as though taking a premature
bow. This was already funny, as she
seemed to be brooking awards show traditions.
Then each subsequent nominee joined her, twittering together with
excitement as though they were finalists in a beauty pageant.
Although it might have been belittling, the little
scene instead let these uniformly talented women parody the awards show itself,
and work against its sensationalized competition. Only performers like Poehler, McCarthy, Edie
Falco (Nurse Jackie), Laura Linney (The Big C), Martha Plimpton (Raising Hope), and Tina Fey (30 Rock, whose SNL sketches the moment resembled in tone and content) could pull
this off with such good-humor and aplomb.
When Melissa McCarthy won the category for her
turn in Mike and Molly (after her
terrific performance in last summer’s Bridesmaids),
she was crowned and given roses as the others applauded. McCarthy wore her kudos gracefully, admitting
that the moment was huge for a woman who grew up in a small town in
Illinois. Hers was a moving performance of
the kind of simple humanity too often missing among the glitterati.
Kyle Chandler finally won for Outstanding Lead Actor
in a Drama Series for his beautiful work on Friday
Night Lights, one of the best shows ever produced on television. But in his disappointingly muddled acceptance
speech, he neglected to thank his FNL wife,
Connie Britton, who lost out to Julianna Margulies for her performance in The Good Wife.
Their Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama category
was filled with talented women (including Elizabeth Moss, always wonderful in Mad Men, Mariksa Hargitay for what might
have been her penultimate season in Law
& Order: SVU, Mireille Enos for
her moody, steely work in The Killing,
and Kathy Bates in Harry’s Law, a
part originally written for a man). Too
bad Friday Night Lights didn’t win
Outstanding Drama Series over Mad Men,
if only because its run has, sadly, ended.
Modern
Family’s happy win for Outstanding Comedy Series was buttressed by wins for
Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen as the clueless Dunphy parents. Burrell competed mostly against his cast-mates,
all of whom were nominated and any one of whom would have been an appropriate
winner for their wonderful deadpan humor and their willingness to engage the
show’s playful but perspicacious Freudian pseudo-traumas.
Glee’s
Chris Colfer—the young, out gay actor who plays the show’s young, out gay character,
Kurt—was overlooked in a season that gave Kurt a lot of emotional range. Seeing him crowned prom queen beside his
self-hating gay nemesis as prom king was one of the series’ highpoints last
year.
But so much of this Emmy broadcast was just dumb. I know these evenings are meant for the
industry, but if that’s the case, why broadcast them at all? Why ask millions of viewers to sit through
stupid palaver meant to appeal to no one but the lowest common viewer
denominator? Why embarrass performers like
Kerry Washington with such silly patter?
Why try to pretend the stakes are so low when they’re really so high?
I don’t think anyone’s taste is corrupt enough to
find funny the snarky voice-over commentary broadcast this year as winners
approached the stage. And why not ask
winners to dig a little deeper, think about the viewer, and say something
meaningful when they accept their awards, instead of starring stupidly at the
audience and saying only, “Wow,” before thanking lists of people that mean
nothing to anyone but their peers?
The schizophrenic evening swung between tediously
slow acceptance speeches and clips of nominees edited at such a fast and
furious tempo it was hard to distinguish Modern
Family from The Killing. The pace of those clips made the actual work seem
secondary. But it’s only honest to say
that, in fact, it is.
Like all awards
shows, the Emmys are really a showcase for women’s hair and gowns and jewelry,
for the secondary market of magazines and tabloids that dine out on the gaffes
and the superficial glory. The Miss America take-off with McCarthy et al spoke the truth.
I only wish
Lynch had hosted in a nice tux instead.
Looking forward to this year’s TV season,
The Feminist Spectator
You know what really irks? The Modern Family being called 'Modern' when all its female characters are straight from the 50s.
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