Will this Emmy review be my last?

Hard to believe but almost twenty years ago I started writing snarky award show reviews. I wrote them exclusively for people on my contact list. I always wrote the recaps immediately after the show so if any of my jokes were similar to those others later posted it was clear I didn’t steal them. But that meant lonnnnng nights. And I had to weed out some people because certain radio hosts who were on my list were stealing my material and using it as their own (assuming I wouldn’t find out – but I did). Not cool.  They're gone.

My reasons for doing the reviews were to have fun and let off steam. To say the kind of shit everyone says at award show parties (where you're not proud of yourself but you laugh). And it was a great way to reconnect with people I hadn’t heard from in months. Friends would drop a note; we’d catch up, etc. As you know, months and sometimes years can go by as people inadvertently drift apart. Reviews were a fun way to say hello.

When I started the blog I decided to share the reviews with my readers. They seemed to really enjoy them. For a while some newspapers arranged with me to re-print them.

Each review would spark a flurry of comments. Some agreed with my take, others didn’t. That was totally okay. Sometimes the debates were more entertaining than the reviews themselves.

But lately things have started to shift. I don’t know how to state more clearly that my reviews are snarky, that I poke fun at everyone. And that if you take a stand in comedy there are going to be those who are offended. Larry Gelbart once said: “if you write something that offends no one then go back and start over.”

That’s COMEDY. At times it’s meant to challenge, meant to prick pompous balloons, meant to point out hypocrisy.

In my recent Emmy review I took issue with Jermaine Fowler’s announcing. He was loud, he was abrasive, he mangled copy, he sounded amateurish, he wasn’t funny, and moments that were supposed to be for the winners he made about himself. And since Fowler happens to be a person of diversity, a number of readers called me racist. (As blog moderator I chose not to publish them.) If it had been say Gilbert Gottfried and he had done the same thing and I offered the same complaints no one would have said anything. It’s not enough to not find something funny these days. The comic is now a racist. Forget that I praised numerous diversity winners and even took issue when Nicole Kidman was allowed to ramble on incessantly while Sterling K. Brown was unceremoniously cut off – no, I’m a racist.

It’s to the point where I wonder why I even bother. You make fun of anybody looking horrible in a gown and you’re body shaming. You needle an actress and you’re anti-women. You don’t praise a lame RuPaul “Emmy” bit and you’re homophobic.

What the fuck?!

It’s a SNARKY, BITCHY silly awards show review, meant to get a few laughs. Period. You don’t find something I said funny? That’s fine. You disagree with a particular take? Great. We’re all entitled to our opinions. But what I’m getting now is “Humor is one thing but that’s racist.”

When did comedy become the queen’s tea?

You hear of comedians now refusing to play the college circuit because audiences are too P.C. This is insane to me. You should be at your MOST subversive, most inappropriate, most rebellious in college. If you can’t challenge society who can?

ALL IN THE FAMILY was a groundbreaking show in the ‘70s. If it were on today people’s heads would explode. I find that heartbreaking.

But that’s the way it is today. I’m not going to change it. But for the Oscars, I’ll see how I feel in February. Maybe I’ll just go back to sending my review to my contact list. Those people don’t call me a racist. The worst I get from them is that I’m a dick.  I can live with that.