Months after the Academy Awards were criticized for a ceremony in which the nominees where all white, the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards were being praised for doing the opposite in honoring TV shows that cast their staffs regardless of race and gender. Most of the shows that were nominated aired on a diverse group of pay cable and streaming services, meaning that the average cord-cutter had little access to them because of the lack of diversity in their bank accounts.
African-American actors were well represented in winning the dramatic categories. "The People v. O.J. Simpson", which won for Best Limited Series, featured Sterling K. Brown as Best Supporting Actor and Courtney B. Vance as Best Actor. Regina King won Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for her role in "American Crime". And the comedy duo of Key & Peele scored an Emmy for best sketch series.
In addition to saluting lesbian actresses Sarah Paulson (Best Actress in a Limited Series for "People v. O.J.") and Kate McKinnon (Supporting Actress in a Comedy for "Saturday Night Live"), the Television Academy took pains to do the same for transgenders. But not
real transgenders. Louie Anderson (Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for "Baskets") and Jeffrey Tambor (Best Actor in a Comedy for "Transparent") won Emmys as old white men playing women, a tradition that on TV dates back to Milton Berle.
New faces also surfaced in the dramatic acting categories: Rami Malek won Best Actor for "Mr. Robot", and Tatiana Maslany of "Orphan Black" captured Best Actress honors.
Other than that, the usual Emmy suspects collected their trophies. "Game of Thrones" became the most-honored series in history with 38 awards, including this year's Best Dramatic Series. "Veep" retained its Best Comedy Series title, while its star Julia Louis-Dreyfus won a Best Actress in a Comedy Series award for a sixth time.
Jimmy Kimmel did a good job as the Emmy host, although some of his bits did give us pause.
- Mispronouncing Melania Trump's name as Melaria.
- Giving out PB&J sandwiches made by his mother to the audience, just like Ellen DeGeneres treating her Oscars studio audience to takeout pizza.
- Poking fun at the lack of diversity in his own category, as one of the nominees for best late night variety show, dominated by white guys. "Last Week Tonight" was the winner.
- Needling Maggie Smith for not bothering to accept her past Emmys in person. Well, she won again for Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for "Downton Abbey"--and still didn't show up. Neither did Ben Mendelsohn, who won for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for "Bloodline".
- We could have done without the footage of the "ABC News Special Report" on O.J. Simpson's slow speed car chase in the opening sketch.
There were two separate tributes to comedian Garry Shandling and producer Garry Marshall. The "In Memoriam" segment wasn't messed around with like it usually is. But why were Prince and Glenn Frey, musicians who didn't have much to do with TV, included?
The ratings tell us that 11.3 million of you watched the ABC telecast, making this the lowest-rated Emmys in history. That's to be expected when your competition is an NFL football game and a JonBenet Ramsey special. It's also to be expected when most of the nominees and shows are not well known to audiences without access to cable or Netflix. Diversity, however noble, does have its drawbacks.
