Arts & Entertainment
‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Lena Waithe win big at politically charged Emmys
the Hulu series won a total of eight awards for the night
(Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe accept the award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. Screenshot via Twitter.)
The 69th Primetime Emmy Awards was filled with historic wins, political humor and some LGBT representation on Sunday night.
Hosted by late night talk show host Stephen Colbert, the awards ceremony wasn’t short on digs at the Trump administration. Colbert’s opening monologue was riddled with Trump references. In one of the most surprising moments of the night, Sean Spicer made an appearance wheeling out a podium as a nod to Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of him on “Saturday Night Live.”
“This will be the largest audience to witness the Emmys, period,” Spicer told the shocked crowd.
Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin joined together for a “Nine to Five” reunion on stage and took their own aim at Trump.
“Back in 1980, in that movie we refused to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot,” Fonda began.
“And in 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot,” Tomlin finished to the cheers of the crowd.
The “9 to 5” stars take aim: “In 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.” #Emmys pic.twitter.com/rvZVu4MfgP
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) September 18, 2017
RuPaul also made an appearance as a living Emmy statue being quizzed by Colbert on her dating life with other award statues.
.@RuPaul plays “Emmy” at the #Emmys, disses other awards shows https://t.co/wvJkc1TOJl pic.twitter.com/2zPdvcZPoG
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 18, 2017
Dave Chappelle presented the award for Outstanding Director in a Comedy Series and brought attention to D.C. Public Schools with a random shoutout.
“All right, now I’m going to read this teleprompter. Shout out to D.C. Public Schools, here we go,” Chappelle, who is an alumni of Duke Ellington School of the Arts, joked.
Later in the night while accepting his award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, comedian John Oliver asked to get D.C. Public Schools trending on Twitter. His plea was heard and the hashtag was trending nationally.
The awards of the night marked firsts for many who held the statue on stage.
Lena Waithe made history for winning an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for co-writing the episode “Thanksgiving” on “Master of None” with the show’s co-creator, Aziz Ansari. She is the first black woman to receive the honor.
“Thanksgiving,” tells the story of how Waithe’s character Denise comes to terms with her sexuality and coming out in a black family over a series of family Thanksgivings. Waithe thanked her girlfriend while accepting the award and gave a special shoutout to her “LGBTQIA family.”
“I see each and every one of you,” Waithe says. “The things that make us different – those are our superpowers. Every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world, because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it. And for everybody out there that showed us so much love for this episode, thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a queer black girl from the South Side of Chicago.”
Awesome message from Lena Waithe during her #Emmys acceptance speech. #Emmys2017 #EmmyAwards pic.twitter.com/Ln1sKck8Xt
— Josh Sánchez (@jnsanchez) September 18, 2017
Donald Glover became the first black person to win both Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and for comedy directing for his work on “Atlanta.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus won for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on “Veep,” making her the record-holder for most Emmys won for the same role in the same series.
Sterling K. Brown was the first black man to win Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for “This is Us” since Andre Braugher won in 1998. Riz Ahmed took home Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for “The Night Of,” making him the first South Asian man to receive the honor.
Kate McKinnon won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and thanked Hillary Clinton, who she frequently portrayed on “Saturday Night Live.”
“San Junipero,” from the sci-fi Netflix series “Black Mirror,” also received awards for Outstanding Television Movie and Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or Movie. “San Junipero” follows an interracial, lesbian couple who fall in love in a simulated, alternate reality. It’s often been praised for its positive portrayal of an LGBT relationship and for having a happy ending.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” swept the Emmys, winning a total of eight awards including Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Elisabeth Moss.
List of winners below.
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Sterling K. Brown- “This Is Us”
Anthony Hopkins, “Westworld”
Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”
Matthew Rhys, “The Americans”
Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”
Kevin Spacey”House of Cards”
Milo Ventimiglia, “This Is Us”
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Viola Davis, “How to Get Away With Murder”
Claire Foy, “The Crown”
Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Keri Russell, “The Americans”
Evan Rachel Wood, “Westworld”
Robin Wright, “House of Cards”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Jonathan Banks, “Better Call Saul”
Ron Cephas Jonas, “This Is Us”
David Harbour, “Stranger Things”
Michael Kelly, “House of Cards”
John Lithgow, “The Crown”
Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland”
Jeffrey Wright , “Westworld”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Ann Dowd, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Samira Wiley, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Uzo Aduba, “Orange Is the New Black”
Millie Bobby Brown, “Stranger Things”
Chrissy Metz, “This Is Us”
Thandie Newton, “Westworld”
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish”
Aziz Ansari, “Master of None”
Zach Galifianakis, “Baskets”
Donald Glover, “Atlanta”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Pamela Adlon, “Better Things”
Jane Fonda, “Grace and Frankie”
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Ellie Kemper, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Tracee Ellis Ross, “Black-ish”
Lily Tomlin, “Grace and Frankie”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Louie Anderson, “Baskets”
Alec Baldwin, “Saturday Night Live”
Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Matt Walsh, “Veep”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Vanessa Bayer, “Saturday Night Live”
Leslie Jones, “Saturday Night Live”
Kate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live”
Kathryn Hahn, “Transparent”
Judith Light, “Transparent”
Anna Chlumsky, “Veep”
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
Riz Ahmed, “The Night Of”
Benedict Cumberbatch,” Sherlock”
Robert De Niro, “Wizard of Lies”
Ewan McGregor, Fargo
Geoffrey Rush, Genius
John Turturro, The Night Of
Outstanding Limited Series
“Big Little Lies”
“Fargo”
“Feud: Bette and Joan”
“The Night Of”
“Genius”
Best TV Movie
“Black Mirror: San Junipero”
“Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors”
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”
“Sherlock: The Lying Detective”
“The Wizard of Lies”
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series
Riz Ahmed, “The Night Of”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “Sherlock: The Lying Detective”
Robert De Niro, “The Wizard of Lies”
Ewan McGregor, “Fargo”
Geoffrey Rush, “Genius”
John Turturro, “The Night Of”
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series
Carrie Coon, “Fargo”
Felicity Huffman, “American Crime”
Nicole Kidman, “Big Little Lies”
Jessica Lange, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Susan Sarandon, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Reese Witherspoon, “Big Little Lies”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie
Judy Davis, “Feud: Bette and Joan
Laura Dern, “Big Little Lies”
Jackie Hoffman,”Feud: Bette and Joan”
Michelle Pfeiffer, “The Wizard of Lies”
Shailene Woodley, “Big Little Lies”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
Bill Camp, “The Night Of”
Alfred Molina, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Alexander Skarsgard, “Big Little Lies”
David Thewlis, “Fargo”
Stanley Tucci, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Michael Kenneth Williams, “The Night Of”
Outstanding Variety Talk Series
“Full Frontal With Samantha Bee”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
“The Late Late Show With James Corden”
“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”
“Real Time With Bill Maher”
Outstanding Reality-Competition Program
“The Amazing Race”
“American Ninja Warrior”
“Project Runway”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
“The Voice”
Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series
Jamie Babbit, “Silicon Valley”
Donald Glover, “Atlanta”
Mike Judge, “Silicon Valley”
David Mandel, “Veep”
Morgan Sackett, “Veep”
Dale Stern, “Veep”
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
The Duffer Brothers, “Stranger Things”
Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, “Westworld”
Peter Morgan, “The Crown”
Bruce Miller, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Gordon Smith, “Better Call Saul”
Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, “The Americans”
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series
Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe, “Master of None”
Alec Berg, “Silicon Valley”
Donald Glover, “Atlanta”
Stephen Glover, “Atlanta”
Billy Kimball, “Veep”
David Mandel, “Veep”
Best Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special
Charlie Brooker, “Black Mirror: San Junipero”
David E. Kelley, “Big Little Lies”
Noah Hawley, “Fargo”
Ryan Murphy, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Jaffe Cohen, Michael Zam & Ryan Murphy, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Richard Price & Steven Zaillian, “The Night Of”
Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
Stephen Daldry, “The Crown”
Kate Dennis, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
The Duffer Brothers, “Stranger Things”
Vince Gilligan, “Better Call Saul”
Lesli Linka Glatter, “Homeland”
Reed Morano, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Jonathan Nolan, “Westworld”
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch was held at Salamander Washington DC on Sunday, April 19. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) was presented with the Allyship Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The umbrella LGBTQ sports organization Team D.C. held its annual Night of Champions Gala at the Georgetown Marriott on Saturday, April 18. Team D.C. presented scholarships to local student athletes and presented awards to Adam Peck, Manuel Montelongo (a.k.a. Mari Con Carne), Dr. Sara Varghai and the Centaur Motorcycle Club. Sean Bartel was posthumously honored with the Most Valuable Person Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Television
‘Big Mistakes’ an uneven – but worthy – comedic showcase
In the years since “Schitt’s Creek” wrapped up its six season Emmy-winning run, nostalgia for it has grown deep – especially since the still painfully recent loss of its iconic leading lady, Catherine O’Hara, whose sudden passing prompted a social media wave of clips and tributes featuring her fan-favorite performance as the deliciously daft Moira Rose. Revisiting so many favorite scenes and funny moments from the show naturally reminded us of just how much we loved it, even needed it during the time it was on the air; it also reminded us of how much we miss it, and how much it feels now like something we need more than ever.
That, perhaps more than anything else, is why the arrival of “Big Mistakes” – the new Netflix series starring, co-created and co-written by Dan Levy – felt so welcome. We knew it wouldn’t be the Roses, but it seemed cut from the same cloth, and it had David Rose (or at least someone who seemed a lot like him) in the middle of a comically dysfunctional family dynamic, complete with a mother who gets involved in town politics and a catty sibling rivalry with his sister, and still nebbish-ly uncomfortable in his own gay shoes. Only this time, instead of running a pastor of the local church, and instead of a collection of kooky small town neighbors to contend with, there are gangsters.
As it turns out, it really does feel cut from the same cloth, but the design is distinctly different. Set in a fictional New Jersey suburb, it centers on Nicky (Levy) and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) – he openly gay with an adoring boyfriend (Jacob Gutierrez), yet still obsessive about keeping it all invisible to his congregation, and she drudging aimlessly through life as an underpaid schoolteacher after failing to achieve her New York dreams of show biz success – who inadvertently become enmeshed in a shady underworld when a gesture for their dead grandmother’s funeral goes horribly awry.
They’re surrounded by a crew of equally compromised characters. There’s their mother Linda (Laurie Metcalf), whose campaign to become the town’s mayor only intensifies her tendency to micromanage her children’s lives; Yusuf (Boran Kuzum), the Turkish-American mini-mart operator who pulls them into the criminal conspiracy yet is himself a victim of it; Max (Jack Innanen), Morgan’s live-in boyfriend, who pushes her for a deeper commitment and is willing to go to couples’ therapy to prove it; Annette, his mother (Elizabeth Perkins), who lends her society standing toward helping Linda’s campaign against a misogynistic opponent (Darren Goldstein); and Ivan (Mark Ivanir), the seemingly ruthless crime boss who enslaves the siblings into his network but may really be just another slave in it himself. It’s a well-fleshed out assortment of characters that helps our own loyalties shift and adapt, generating at least a degree of empathy – if not always sympathy – that keeps everyone from coming off as a merely “black-and-white” caricature of expectations and typecasting.
To be sure, it’s an entertaining binge-watch, full of distinctive characters – all inhabiting familiar, even stereotypical roles in the narrative – who are each given a degree of validation, both in writing and performance, as the show unspools its narrative. At the same time, it makes for a fairly bleak overall view of humanity, in which it’s difficult to place our loyalties with anyone without also embracing a kind of “dog eat dog” morality in which nobody is truly innocent – but nobody is completely to blame for their sins, anyway.
In this way, it’s a show that lets us off the hook in the sense that it places the idea of ethical guilt within a framework of relative evils as it permits us to forgive our own trespasses through our acceptance of its lovably amoral – when it comes right down to it – characters, each of whom has their own reasons and justifications for what they do. We relate, but we can’t quite shake the notion that, if all these people hadn’t been so caught up in their own personal dramas, none of them would have ended up in the compromised morality that they do, and that they are all therefore, at some level, to blame for whatever consequences they endure.
However, it’s not some bleak morality play that Levy and crew undertake; rather, it’s more an egalitarian fantasy in which even “bad” choices feel justified by inevitability. Everybody has their reasons for doing what they do, and most of those reasons make enough sense to us that it’s hard to judge any of the characters for making the choices – however unwise – that they do. In a system where everyone is forced to compromise themselves in order to achieve whatever dream of self-fulfillment they may have, how can anybody really blame themselves for doing what they have to do to survive?
Of course, all things considered, this is more a relatable comedy than it is a morality play, and it is, perhaps, taking things a bit too seriously to go that “deep.” As a comedy of errors, it all works well enough on its own without imposing an ideology on it, no matter how much we may be tempted to do so. Indeed, what is ultimately more to the point is how well this pseudo-cynical exercise in the normalization of corruption – for that is what it really about, in the end – succeeds in letting us all off the hook for our compromises. In a reality in which we can only respond to corruption by finding the ethical validation for making the choice to survive, how can we judge ourselves – or anyone else – for doing whatever is necessary?
In the end, of course, maybe all that analysis is too deep a dive for a show that feels, in the end, so clearly to be focused merely on reminding us of how much necessity dictates our choices –for truly, the fate of all its characters hinges on how well they respond to the compromised decisions that must make along the way. The more important observation, perhaps, has to do with the necessity to make such moral choices along our way – and it comes not from a moralistic urge toward making the “right” choice as much as it does from a candid recognition that all of us are compromised from the outset, and that’s a refreshing enough bit of honesty that we can easily get on board.
It helps that the performances are on point, especially the loony and wide-eyed fanaticism of Metcalf – surely the MVP of any project in which she is involved – and the directly focused moral malleability of Ortega, Levy, of course, is Levy – a now-familiar persona that can exist within any milieu without further justification than its own queer relatability – and, in this case, at least, that’s both the icing on the cake and substance that defines it. That’s enough to make it an essential view for fans, queer or otherwise, of his distinctive “brand,” even if he – or the show itself – doesn’t quite satisfy in the way that “Schitt’s Creek” was able to do.
Seriously, though, how could it?
Victory Fund brunch draws top LGBTQ officials, 2028 hopeful Andy Beshear
Inside the lonely world of MAGA gay men
PHOTOS: National Champagne Brunch
PHOTOS: Night of Champions
‘Big Mistakes’ an uneven – but worthy – comedic showcase
Science said stop; the Supreme Court said no
Response to a personal attack against me
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Charlie Kirk Act advances in Tenn.
