The night was all about Donald Trump, whether as the butt of comedy or the focus of resistance.
Has there ever been an Emmys ceremony as laser-focused on a sitting president as Sunday’s Trump-a-thon on CBS?
For three hours, the elephant in the room was the current GOP occupant of the Oval Office. President Donald Trump’s presence at TV’s big night was almost palpable, even though he wasn’t actually there (and certainly would not have been welcomed by anyone sitting in the good seats).
At a time when normalizing the president’s behavior is feared by his opponents, the Emmys didn’t exactly do that. But they did normalize the fact that talking about Trump — whether through scathing jokes, not-so-veiled references, or earnest resistance — preoccupies an abnormal amount of time for entertainers.
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And it’s not just show business. This is us in 2017. Love Trump or hate Trump, he won last night’s Emmys by his own standard, which is by getting more public attention than anyone else. By that measure, his victory was a landslide.
Host Stephen Colbert set the tone during his monologue by addressing the TV image-obsessed commander in chief directly: “Hello, sir. Thanks for joining us. Look forward to the tweets!”
Colbert raised the theory that Trump’s past three losses for his former NBC reality show “The Apprentice” may have fueled his political ambitions. “If he had won an Emmy, I bet he wouldn’t have run for president,” he told the starry audience. “So in a way, this was all your fault. I thought you people loved morally compromised anti-heroes. You loved Walter White. He’s just Walter Much Whiter.”
Then, in one of the night’s true surprises, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer rolled a podium onstage in homage to Melissa McCarthy’s impression of him on “Saturday Night Live.”
Pretending to give Colbert a live ratings report, Spicer announced, “This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys period, both in person and around the world.” It was a good-natured mocking — or normalization? — of his own post-inaugural claims delivered to satisfy Trump’s need for exaggerated praise.
What followed Spicey’s cameo was like a drinking game where you had to take a sip every time someone attempted to prove Trump doesn’t reflect the views of all America. Picking up his trophy for playing Winston Churchill in “The Crown,” John Lithgow stated pointedly but elegantly: “In these crazy times, (Churchill’s) life even as an old man reminds us of what courage and leadership in government really looks like.”
Alec Baldwin, who shocked nobody by winning for portraying Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” took a jab meant to torment the man he impersonates “I suppose I should say, at long last, Mr. President, here is your Emmy,” cracked Baldwin. Somehow, although Baldwin’s impression is wholly unflattering, it was easy to picture Trump feeling vindicated by the remark.
The most lacerating comment came during the “9 to 5” reunion with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, who played female employees of a horrible boss. Said Tomlin: “In 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a blind, egotistical, narcissistic bigot.” Then Parton made her cracks about her cleavage and everything felt much more 1987 suddenly.
But the comment that resonated most came from Donald Glover, who won as best director and best comedy actor for “Atlanta” on FX. “I want to thank Trump for making black people No. 1 on the most oppressed list,” said Glover. “He’s probably why I’m up here.”
Glover, of course, was on the stage for the quality of his work on the innovative series. But many of Sunday’s winners did come from series with themes that indicate American culture isn’t going back to a world of old white men in charge, despite what the Trump administration looks like.
The Emmys Class of 2017 mirrors a new reality of inclusion and shared power. Consider that the Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale” won for best drama, while HBO’s “Big Little Lies” won for best miniseries — two shows predominately about female characters.
Lena Waithe of Netflix’s “Master of None” became the first African-American woman to win for comedy writing. “This is Us” star Sterling K. Brown won best actor in a drama, the first black nominee to do so in that category since 1998. Riz Ahmed won best actor in a miniseries for HBO’s “The Night Of,” which shed light on issues like Islamophobia and a broken justice system.
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Those are just some examples of the inclusiveness that also defined the Emmys. Television is energized right now by its expansion of who gets to tell stories on the air. There are more voices now, and more chances for viewers from all demographics to see themselves in the depictions.
And yet, Trump is never far from TV’s thoughts. In the show’s final minutes, “The Handmaid’s Tale” executive producer Bruce Miller said, “Go home and get to work because we have lots of things to fight for.”
Who’ll win the fight? Probably the values embodied by the Emmys. But you can bet more people were talking Sunday about Trump’s retweet of the video that makes it look as if he knocked over Hillary Clinton with a golf ball.
Contact Detroit Free Press writer Julie HInds: 313-222-6427 or jhinds@freepress.com.
