Emmys host, SNL star Colin Jost skewers awards shows

Colin Jost and Michael Che

Even though Colin Jost is one of the co-hosts for the upcoming Primetime Emmys show on NBC next month, he’s still being brutally honest when it comes to how he feels about awards show. In some ways, he’s not exactly all that much of a fan.

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jost (who is hosting alongside his fellow Saturday Night Live cast member Michael Che) made it clear that there are some problems that he has with the whole awards-show format, mostly in how seriously all of us tend to take them:

“Eh. I think most of the time they’re way too self-serious and focused on things that 99% of the country doesn’t care about. At the end of the day, it’s adults getting trophies. Why should that be taken seriously?'”

Really, we think a lot of it just has to do with ownership. So few people watch every single show nominated. With that, they have their champions and they want to root for them — it’s almost validation of their personal taste, and we think that people get connected to them because of that.

Jost did also make it clear that awards shows often do focus too much on art-house fare, which probably does mean that he would be a fan of the Oscars Popular Film category that is apparently coming:

“And remember when movies like Gladiator won best picture? Why can’t good, fun things win and not just good artsy things? They’re both good, and the fun ones are sometimes a lot harder to make.”

If you wanted to draw a comparison to TV from what Jost is saying here, all you have to do is look towards how the Drama Series category is nominated, save for This Is Us, with a number of cable / streaming shows. Many of the most-watched series are often ignored and/or under-appreciated in favor of more artsy fare. We understand the argument, but ultimately the Emmys are like any other awards show in that they are just recognition of what a specific group of people like. If your show isn’t on there, it is not an indictment of the series you choose to watch.

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