Daytime Emmy red carpet hosts slammed for rape jokes, race remarks

The 41st Daytime Emmy Awards may not have aired on a real television network this year, but that hasn’t stopped the awards show from generating controversy.

For the first time in its history, the kudoscast was shown via livestream Sunday night because the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was unable to broker a TV deal in time for the show.

And instead of hiring entertainment reporters with expertise in daytime TV and soap operas to host the red carpet arrivals, the academy put out a casting call for “millennials between the ages of 18-35, all ethnicities, who have a strong entertainment news background and/or very strong social media following (300,000 followers minimum),” and ultimately hired the self-proclaimed social media experts Brittany Furlan, Lauren Elizabeth, Jessica Harlow and Meghan Rosette for the gig.

It’s safe to say the academy was trying to rope in some younger viewers, but let’s just say its attempt to make the awards show go viral may have backfired. The quartet of young women prompted an online backlash for their inappropriate and frequently ill-informed remarks, which included racially charged comments and rape jokes.

Here are a few high(low?)lights:

-- Harlow introduced “The Bold and the Beautiful” star Lawrence Saint-Victor as “a beautiful chocolate man,” and asked him, “What’s it like to be a black man on a soap opera these days?”

-- Furlan warned Ryan Paevey of “General Hospital,” “We’re going to get you away from us before we rape you.”

-- Furlan in particular was criticized for her inappropriate ogling of many male stars, including Mario Lopez, whom she tried to kiss despite his protest that “I’m a married man,” and the very young Daniel Polo, formerly of “The Young and the Restless.” (“I don’t want to go to jail for this one,” she said.)

The red carpet hosts provoked widespread ire on the Internet, with viewers calling the show a train wreck and “General Hospital” star Nancy Lee Grahn describing the four women as “Kardashian clones” (she didn’t mean it as a compliment, in case you were wondering).

But the inappropriate red carpet comments weren’t the only aspect of the broadcast to come under fire. The Washington Post called the show, which was hosted by comedian Kathy Griffin, a “complete hot mess” distinguished by “lots of awkward pauses, empty teleprompters, colorful expletives and sexual innuendos during the actual ceremony.” Griffin’s set also included a long-running joke about contracting a sexually transmitted disease after a one-night stand with Mario Lopez.

The academy has declined to comment on the comment, but based on an oblique Twitter message, it sounds like Furlan is anything but sorry. Quoting Kenny Powers, the bawdy protagonist of the former HBO series “Eastbound & Down,” she tweeted, “Would Alexander the Great have conquered the world if he ‘dialed it back’?”

Follow @MeredithBlake on Twitter.