The connect with the Emmys and other big time entertainment award shows is felt much more in India now with many of the serials, web series and films having come to the audience already here and are currently viewable globally. Take Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, which is the first streaming series to win top Emmy comedy honours. It is already a hit in India. Of course, HBO’s “Game of Thrones”. which recaptured the best drama series award, had attained cult status in the country with fans eagerly awaiting its next season due in 2019.
The fact that Netflix won as many awards as the more traditional entertainment format of HBO - 23- is another factor that will be cherished in India as the Internet streaming service bringing the latest in entertainment to home screens, laptops and devices has a huge following here.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” a freshman sitcom about an unhappy 1950s homemaker liberated by stand-up comedy, earned best actress honours for star Rachel Brosnahan, who is becoming quite a well-known star for those who are votaries of Amazon streaming.
Claire Foy of “The Crown” and Matthew Rhys of “The Americans” won top drama acting Emmys, their first trophies for the roles and last chance to claim them, with Foy’s role as Queen Elizabeth II going to another actress and Rhys’ show wrapped. The Crown is another web series Indians are looking forward to as it is on a break and set to resume soon with new episodes. The field bested by Foy included last year’s winner Elisabeth Moss for “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Sandra Oh of “Killing Eve,” who would have been the first actor of Asian descent to get a top drama award.
“Game of Thrones,” which sat out last year’s Emmys because of scheduling, won its third best drama trophy despite competition from defending champ “The Handmaid’s Tale.” “Thank you for letting us take care of your people,” ?Game of Thrones” producer D.B. Weiss said to George R.R. Martin, whose novels and their characters fuel the drama.
Viewers and liberals concerned by the lack of diversity in entertainment awards and even nominations would have noted that in a ceremony that started out congratulating TV academy voters for the most historically diverse field of nominees yet, most early awards all went solely to whites. “Let’s get it trending: #EmmysSoWhite,” presenter James Corden joked at the ceremony’s midway point.
Regina King broke the string, with a best actress win in a limited series or movie for “Seven Seconds,” which tracks the fallout from a white police officer’s traffic accident involving a black teenager. “I feel like a lot of times we are so divided as a country that things are always black and white. I’m guilty of that a lot of times. I think that probably played into my assumption the chances of me winning was so small,” King said backstage.
The Emmys had a real-life dramatic moment when winning director Glenn Weiss, noting his mother had died two weeks ago, proposed to his girlfriend , Jan Svendsen. “You wonder why I don’t want to call you my girlfriend? It’s because I want to call you my wife,” Weiss said. She said yes, he put his mother’s ring on her finger and the crowd whooped and cheered.
