Last night’s Emmy awards were about what you’d expect – lots of talk of diversity, politics, voting “blue” and #MeToo. The seven minute opening monologue by SNL cast members and hosts of “Weekend Update” Michael Che and Colin Jost, took shots at Republicans, Rosanne Barr and white supremecy.
That was followed by a mildly funny five minute skit about how Hollywood has solved the diversity program.
But then the awards started being given out and guess what happened? For the next hour or so, all the winners were white and mostly men. In fact, of the twelve acting categories, only two winners were people of color.
How diverse.
The Emmy Awards kicked off with jokes about "solving" diversity in entertainment but despite having diverse nominees, the winners were mostly white. https://t.co/3TRZqc4VXM
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 18, 2018
Well, at least it was nice of the #Emmys to admit there's no place for straight white guys. #diversity
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) September 18, 2018
Diversity, diversity, look DIVERSITY! And the winners are…Henry Winkler, Bill Hader, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel! #Emmys pic.twitter.com/2eZw5fxBxT
— jessica alexandre (@jess_alexandre) September 18, 2018
Update: 3 hours in and only 3 non-white people have won so far: Regina King, Thandie Newton and RuPaul.
….but diversity. Right. #Emmys pic.twitter.com/9uczDH7Cmm
— GeAndra. (@geandraimani) September 18, 2018
It would seem that yet again, Hollywood talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.
Although, what does race really have to do with a performance anyway? The award should go to the person who did the best job with their role and if that’s not a person of color, then what does it really matter?
So much emphasis is placed on having diverse winners but if the actors and actresses don’t turn in a great performance, giving them an award just because they’re black is plain dumb. Like every other job, rewards and awards for performance should be based on how well you do your job.
So maybe the lesson to take away from this is not that Hollywood is racist but that people of color need to up their game if they want to start winning more awards.