Emmys 2024: Anthony Anderson Just Proved Why Opening Monologues Should Stop
If we're giving notes to awards shows, here's a pretty big one: stop doing opening monologues.
After Jo Koy's disastrous effort at the Golden Globes on January 7 — but more on that shortly — Anthony Anderson took the stage to host the 75th Annual Emmy Awards and quickly brought out a choir before stationing himself behind a piano. They "played" and sang a few theme songs from sitcoms like "The Facts of Life" and "Good Times," with "played" in quotation marks solely because Anderson did not appear to be playing the piano in any real sense. Then he transitioned into his actual monologue, taking the stage as Travis Barker drummed to Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," announcing that his actual mother Doris Anderson would be strictly enforcing time limits on speeches.
This took, to put it lightly, an awkwardly long time. By the time Anderson launched into his second theme song, the whole enterprise took on a worrisome tone. How long was Anderson going to do this? Was it supposed to be funny? Why was any of this even happening? These questions — and the overall feeling of doom — are all too familiar. This is why awards show monologues need to be abolished, effective immediately.
Anthony Anderson's monologue wasn't great, but Jo Koy's was worse
Eight days before Anthony Anderson's well-intentioned but ultimately misguided ode to classic television, standup comedian Jo Koy embarrassed himself at the Golden Globes with a half-baked monologue that turned into a roast of his own writers. After taking the hosting job just under two weeks before the telecast aired, Koy claimed throughout his monologue that he was underprepared, although the truth of the matter seemed to just be that his jokes weren't particularly funny. Koy's highlights include complaining that "Oppenheimer" was too long and that Greta Gerwig's incisive, super-successful "Barbie" film — is about a "doll with big boobies." Once Koy started bombing, he decided to blame his writers, claiming the only jokes receiving a positive reception were the ones he wrote.
Nobody's saying it's easy to write incredible jokes in ten days, but surely one can do better than that; one could also conceivably refrain from going after their writers in the aftermath of a historic strike against greedy studios. (Koy later called that a "rookie move," but the damage was done.) Watching Koy bomb in real time was a rough experience for audiences, and just proved that if there's no host shortly before a telecast, maybe the proceedings shouldn't even have a monologue.
Montages or even brief sketches could work — but monologues need to stop opening
Sure, there has to be some lead-up to awards shows — it would be weirder and probably even worse to just launch right into presenters' bits before they announce the winners for the first category. In the past, some hosts have done sketches that have been at least a little amusing, and a talented group of editors could almost certainly put together an excellent montage of the best moments on both the big and small screen that year. Instead of a weird monologue where the host seems to hate pop culture or a bizarre musical moment themed like "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" for no particular reason, maybe just put together an actual ode to the night's nominees and the recent moments that made television and movies great.
Television and film deserve to be celebrated; they're a touchstone for people all over the world, and a great movie or a television show that brings audiences together can make actual change. As both mediums become more diverse and representative, people from all walks of life get the opportunity to see themselves onscreen. This is no small feat. Both television and film are important, and they deserve better than dumb monologues that don't do justice to their real impact. Get rid of superfluous awards show monologues and just honor the year in culture.
Oh, and one last note — it's a funny joke to say someone's mom will be enforcing the time limit on speeches. It's not funny to actually do it.