Disagree to agree
I'd like to clarify a comment I posted yesterday. By saying that Seth Meyers (pictured) is the world's luckiest man, I meant that he has no talent except to politely read what other people have written for him, to pronounce the words correctly, and to not offend corporate America or the dominant political and media class in even the slightest way at any time. He's a man of his age in that way, and he was awful as host of the Emmys last night.
Even his fans seem to kind of agree with this assessment. Here, USA Today's venerable TV critic Robert Bianco praises Meyers' Emmy-night performance for its lameness. The man could have been funny, Bianco is arguing, but his job was to be a host. The critic elaborates to point out that Meyers' jokes were safe and predictable, and that they touched on no important topics. He asserts that the new host of NBC's once-revolutionary Late Night franchise has no particular talent, and that the fact was aptly demonstrated during the telecast. (No arguments from this corner.) None of Meyers' jokes were "mean," posits Bianco. They weren't even "pointed," which I guess would have been the type of offense that might get somebody mistakenly labeled as "mean."
Bianco is very pleased, however, that Meyers ended the show on time, and since the host was so objectively un-entertaining, we shouldn't mistake that opinion as something other than praise.
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Like Bianco, New York Magazine's Margaret Lyons condemns Jimmy Kimmel for his performance as one of the presenters on the show, and agrees with her colleague that Kimmel's key miscalculation was being funny. While Bianco believes a host should not be funny, Lyons concedes that it's in the job description. Her belief is that Kimmel overstepped his role this year by showing Meyers up. (Jimmy was last year's host.) Writes the provocative Lyons, Kimmel's "funny" riffing was "like whipping up a little something at someone else's dinner party."
So it's not enough that we're stuck with a host that the three of us agree is not funny, nobody else gets to be funny either. It's a blessing for television that funny people are allowed to be on other shows that are not the major awards show for television excellence.
posted by CM @ 10:22 PM
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