There are so many gosh darn Creative Arts Emmys that they have to be given out over two nights a week before the real Emmys, and that means the interesting moments are spread out over a long, boring weekend instead of a single night of thrilling television. We’ve already heard that Rick And Morty won for Outstanding Animated Program and that Megan Amram’s An Emmy For Megan tragically failed to achieve its stated goal, but the Creative Arts Emmys also made some history last night.
As noted by Variety, all four guest actor awards—actor and actress for comedy and drama—all went to black performers for the first time ever. Specifically, the winners were Ron Cephas Jones for This Is Us, Samira Wiley for The Handmaid’s Tale, Katt Williams for Atlanta, and Tiffany Haddish for her Saturday Night Live episode (she deserves this win just for establishing the running joke of her white Alexander McQueen dress).
At the risk of inferring too much from this, it does seem like the Emmys have embraced a push for more diverse representation, since last year’s Emmys saw Lena Waithe becoming the first black woman to win the comedy writing Emmy, Donald Glover becoming the first black person ever to win the comedy directing award, Riz Ahmed becoming the first man of Asian descent to ever win an acting Emmy, Sterling K. Brown becoming the first black man to win Outstanding Actor In A Drama for the first time in nearly 20 years, and Reed Morano becoming the first woman to win Outstanding Directing In A Drama Series for the first tine in 22 years.
We’ve still got plenty of Emmys to go this year, with another round of Creative Arts tonight and the real Emmys next week, so we’ll see if this trend continues.