Crackerific Emmys Spark NAACP Protest

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Neil Patrick Harris's tuxedo was hardly the whitest thing about last weekend's Emmys, according to a new complaint by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Just check out the audience, it mentions, including a nominee base comprising a handful of minorities, three black presenters and exactly one non-white winner (Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo). Not so good, says the NAACP's man in Hollywood -- who wants changes now.

CBS was a particular target for Vic Bulluck's wrath this morning, with the executive director of the NAACP's Hollywood office seething to the L.A. Times that he "was sitting in my chair and kept sinking lower and lower" during Sunday's awardscast. He cited an in-house report from last year indicating the network's last-place ranking among employers of minority writers and producers, then singled out the Emmys themselves as demonstrating the "clear lack of creativity and vision in network television." This, on the same day CBS scored its late-night Obama coup. Ironic!

Neither CBS nor the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences responded to Bulluck's blast, which namechecked NBC legends Brandon Tartikoff and Warren Littlefield's development of The Cosby Show as a watershed that contemporary networks should emulate. I'm not sure if that's the example I would have used (the Huxtables were whiter than my family half the time), but it raises some good points: Is WGA fractiousness really all that keeps a hit like Tyler Perry's House of Payne from Emmy recognition? Should Everybody Hates Chris have received more than simply a token cinematography nod for its final season? And among issues we can actually control: Jon Cryer over Tracy Morgan? Really, Academy?

· Emmy telecast was lacking in diversity [LAT]



Comments

  • Michael Chandler says:

    Grow up. The world does not owe you anything Mr Bulluck. If you feel that there is racism in the programing schedule then stop watching. This isn't news. It is just a chance for Vic Bulluck to read his name in print. I formally request the media to stop printing these stories as they are in no way informative or useful to the public. When more African Americans do things worthy of awards, you will see more of them receiving awards.

  • SunnydaZe says:

    Let me translate the above post>
    -----------------------------------
    "Darkys need to stop smoking crack and try harder. Or maybe they should just take their pizza-pizza and go back to Africa.
    PS> I'm a racist."
    -----------------------------------

  • Gallant Patsy says:

    I'm going to guess the moment he lost it was during the nominations for Outstanding Writing in Variety, Music or Comedy. By the time they had finished panning across the staff of the Colbert Report and the Daily Show, I had some questions myself.

  • Old No.7 says:

    Yo Vic, I'm really happy for you, and Im a let you finish, but Al Sharpton has one of the most baseless racist discrimination rants of all time!

  • LizzieLemonic says:

    Crackeriffic!!! Haha. I like it and will use it.
    I didn't watch, but I knew something was amiss when the NPR commentators on "Fresh Air" were all aglow that the Emmys were celebrating television that was GREAT...if not greatly WATCHED.
    Not surprised what that ended up meaning. Ah, well.
    As a yuppie-ish, bohemian-ish, educated-liberal multiracial person, I am just going to go back to singing kumbaya at my kid's public city school and pretend there is still potential for my utopian ideals. Ha-ha....*weep*.