Emmys Revisited: Of Raunch, Ribbons, Award Show Realities

I am an avid viewer of the Emmy Awards show and have been for many years. It always gives me great pleasure to sit and applaud or be disappointed because my favorite didn’t win. I just have to say that I think the choice of host was abominable. Garry Shandling was a disgrace and took up too much time, not allowing the people who were the stars of the program to have their just rewards. They were rushed, and that is unacceptable.

I was very offended by some of Shandling’s remarks, which were totally unnecessary, and found that if I had to watch one more commercial I was going to be ill. This was by far the worst program I have seen in recent years. Hopefully, next year will be better.

TONI JACOBSON

Monterey Park

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When will the producers of these award show extravaganzas ever get it right? I have been watching the Emmys, the Oscars, the Grammys, etc., for more than 40 years and they keep making the same mistake year after year. One would think that after all this time, they would have formed a mold or created a formula to end the shows on time.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully enjoyed this year’s telecast of the Emmys. Garry Shandling did an excellent job of holding it all together. Unlike many recent award show hosts, he successfully managed to be funny without insulting everyone’s clothing, hairdo or personal life. All I am saying is that these shows need to be modular so that when an acceptance speech goes long (and most of them do), the director can choose to drop some comedy banter that may have been scheduled. Have shorter versions ready of any prerecorded tributes or dance numbers. This is the way it was done more than 50 years ago during the golden age of live television, and here we are in the 21st century acting like it is some kind of new invention.

DON SWEENEY

Winnetka

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In reading the reviews of the Emmy Awards program, I failed to see any mention of its raunchiness. The opening monologue was so crude, I could not believe what I was hearing. Who cares what this creep’s sex life is like or if he has one?

Who writes this trash and why? There has to be some way to move this along and clean it up. The show made a good case for only reading about it in the newspaper.

EMMA WILLSEY

Huntington Beach

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All Sarah Jessica Parker needed with her fairy-tale pink bouffant gown was a wand topped with a star. It’s a stretch, trying to reconcile her Emmy evening gown with “Sex and the City.”

ELINOR LYNCH

Palm Desert

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I am shocked, though not surprised, that the only mention your newspaper made of the gold ribbons worn by so many actors during the Emmy Awards broadcast was buried in the middle of the article about the fashion parade on the red carpet (“Rosy Poses,” by Valli Herman-Cohen, Sept. 11).

The gold ribbons, as I’m sure you are aware, are a sign of these celebrity actors’ solidarity with their fellow union members; they have been on strike for 19 weeks, in a fight against advertisers for a fair commercial contract.

I am insulted that your newspaper would relegate the symbol of a strike in one of Los Angeles’ major industries, which has affected tens of thousands of citizens’ ability to earn a living, to a “fashion accessory.” What fatuous, poor journalism. Shame on you.

JESSICA HOPPER

Los Angeles

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Shame on the actors and shame on the media! The gold ribbons worn by all actors at the Emmys in support of SAG have been copyrighted by Children’s Cancer Awareness. Mothers of children who have battled cancer have worn these ribbons for more than four years now!

After being bombarded with letters from mothers of children who are fighting this horrid disease, they promised to make an announcement publicly about gold also being for pediatric cancer, but no one did (and this during Children’s Cancer Awareness Month)! These people, the ones with means to the media and money, just allowed an irreparable injury to happen to the 15,000 children who are diagnosed yearly with this disease, and they tremendously hurt the parents of the 3,000 children who died this year.

KATHRYN MACDONALD

Long Beach

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Regarding the Emmys’ red ribbons for AIDS awareness, pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, gold ribbons so that actors can earn more money: What’s wrong with this picture?

LAUREN LINETT

Los Angeles

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Being a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and a Latina actress, I attended the Emmys on Sunday with my young son.

I wasn’t expecting any Latino nominees as we, as a group, don’t audition frequently enough for the larger, more substantive, multilayered roles to realistically expect to be nominated. However, I was certainly assuming that at least one presenter would be Latino, even if just one of the usual suspects, in order to heighten that illusion of inclusiveness so frequently discussed this year.

I guess it was too much to expect. The only reference to Latinos was a clip of a Spanish TV show, shown by Garry Shandling as an example of “what is not being nominated.” Everyone had a good laugh. My son turned to me and said, “Wow, Mom, that was mean.” I had to agree.

MARCIA DEL MAR

Calabasas