The 2020 Emmys Tried Its Best but…It Was Very Awkward
As live events, awards shows can be awkward in the best of times. And forgive us for stating the obvious, but we are not in the best of times!! The 2020 Emmys decided the show must go on anyway, and that means an empty Staples Center, zero red carpet, and hiccups that put previous years to shame. As host Jimmy Kimmel said ahead of showtime, producers prepared for a “beautiful disaster,” and, well, they delivered. Check out some of the highlights (lowlights?) of the unusual all-virtual Emmy Awards below.
The show pulled an Oscars…in a bad way.
If you were to mentally rank the most awk moments in the history of awards shows, the Oscars messing up Moonlight’s Best Picture win is probably number one. And the 2020 Emmys just mimicked it. ??
During Saturday night’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards, a voice-over wrongly named Jason Bateman as the winner of an award that *actually* belongs to This Is Us’s Ron Cephas Jones.
Not the best way to kick off prime-time Emmys weekend.
And can you say tech problems?
It was absolutely inevitable, but a lot of celebs had tech problems during their “red carpet” interviews, which meant people like Regina King and Rachel Brosnahan experienced the same kind of lag you do when you’re on calls with your boss. It’s not their fault, and it’s not your fault!
The audience footage used during Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue was…interesting.
Okay, so for Jimmy’s opening monologue, ABC used audience footage from a previous Emmys ceremony to include after each of his jokes. It was a little awkward and also might have been confusing for people who didn’t know the Emmys would be entirely virtual.
There was a serious lack of laughs.
Another inevitability, but Jimmy cracking jokes in an empty Staples Center to absolutely no laughs was really awkward! And I know I complained about the fake audience reactions, but it truly was a lose-lose situation. He just couldn’t win on that.
Jennifer Aniston set stuff on fire.
Another bit that was a little ?? was when Jimmy and Jennifer Aniston (who was at the Staples Center for a hot sec) took the first Emmy winner envelope and lit it on fire to get rid of the germs. But awkwardly, the fire wouldn’t actually extinguish when Jen tried to put it out with the fire extinguisher. That’s live TV, people!
But in all seriousness, Jen is too precious to this nation. She should not be forced to do things like this.
Jimmy Kimmel made an inappropriate ICE joke.
After John Oliver won his award for Outstanding Variety Show, Jimmy made a joke about how he was going to call ICE on him. Considering people are being deported from this country against their will every day, that is really not funny.
Anthony Anderson got censored for saying “WAP.”
Anthony was talking about how this year’s Emmys features the most Black nominees ever, and he referenced THE Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion song “WAP.” But when he said the name of the song, ABC bleeped it out! I mean, we’ve all heard the song! Just let him live!
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