Awards, diversity and politics – The Emmy Awards broke various records, Sunday

In many ways, the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards made history Sunday.

The 2016 awards ceremony broke records in the diversity of the nominees, and saw other records broken.

Blake Coker | Argonaut

Blake Coker | Argonaut

“This year’s nominees are the most diverse ever,” said Jimmy Kimmel, 2016 Emmys host, during his opening monologue.

In evidence of this, Best Leading Actor award went to Rami Malek. This was the first time in 18 years a minority actor won the award.

Award winners from diverse backgrounds encouraged a further increase in diversity during their acceptance speeches.

Alan Yang, who co-wrote “Master of None” and Outstanding Comedy Series Writing award winner, implied Asian-Americans lack representation in the film and television industry.

“There’s 17 million Asian-Americans in this country, and there’s 17 million Italian-Americans. They have ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Rocky,’ ‘The Sopranos.’ We got ‘Long Duk Dong,’ so we’ve got a long way to go,” he said during Sunday’s broadcast. “Asian parents out there, if you could just do me a favor, if just a couple of you get your kids cameras instead of violins, we’ll be all good.”

“Transparent’s” Jeffrey Tambor, winner of Best Lead Comedy Actor, also spoke up in favor of diversity.

“To you people out there, you producers, and you network owners, and you agents and you creative sparks, please give transgender talent a chance,” he said during the show.

Tambor, who is a cisgender male acting as a transgender female, said he would be happy if he is the last cisgender to act in that role.

“Game of Thrones” was another big winner at the Emmys, winning in three categories and overtaking “Fraiser’s” record for most trophies won by a fictional series. The record was eclipsed by one trophy, with the previous record at 37 and the current record at 38.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus from “Veep” set a record Sunday, winning her sixth Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and her fifth in a row.

Another common theme of the 2016 Emmys was politics. Many participants used their speeches to express political views, including the host.

“Television brings people together, but television can also tear us apart. I mean, if it wasn’t for television, would Donald Trump be running for president? No,” Kimmel said in his opening monologue.

Aziz Ansari, Outstanding Comedy Series Writing Award winner, whose parents are Muslim, said he had decided to “go with Trump,” and  proceeded to joke that all Hispanic and Muslim nominees should be removed from the ceremony.

“Our show started as a political satire,” Louis-Dreyfus said on Sunday. “It now feels more like a sobering documentary.”

Nina Rydalch

can be reached at

[email protected]

Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.