Television Awards misses big opportunity to address #MeToo movement

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Aside the colourful outfits, shock victories and brilliant speeches, one movement that the audience waited endlessly to feature during the three hour event was #MeToo, but it somehow went unmentioned or even referenced by the celebrities who took to the stage

Exactly a year ago, the 69th Emmy Awards were held just under a month before the wave of #MeToo hit disgraced movie executive, Harvey Weinstein.

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It was a feminist victory as female shows like Big Little Lies dominated and The Handmaiden's Tale won the best Outstanding drama from usually male-dominated fields, which women celebrated.

Interestingly, asides 'the Weinstein wave' to hit just under a month later, three of the six nominees for Best Outstanding Actor In A Comedy Series have been indicted in the court of public opinion under #MeToo and #TimesUp.

The three nominees are Anthony Anderson, Aziz Ansari and Jeffrey Tambor.

Accusations against Anderson were only dropped three weeks ago and Tambor has been fired from Amazon's Transparent.

Kevin Spacey has also been fired from House of Cardsafter 15 accusations over the past 15 months, led by co-star, Anthony Rapp.

Does it mean the movement is dying?

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Not necessarily. With the strong colour show-outs of celebrities wearing dark toned colours during the award season earlier in the year, it does mean it has taken a step back.

The recent cases of Avital Ronell and Asia Argento also don't help these movements. Everything the movement stands for have been dragged through the same court of public opinion that aided them.

It is safe to say that the movements hold lesser relevance than they did earlier this year. While actors like Tambor and Spacey have been cut from nominations and Colbert's live taping, Leslie Moonves was not so discussed.

Who is Leslie Moonves?

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He is the recently fired Chairman of CBS who was a voice for #MeToo and called it a "watershed moment."

He was a founding member of the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, formed in late 2017 to "tackle the broad culture of abuse and power disparity."

Over the past year, Moonves has been the subject of New Yorker exposès by Ronan Farrow.

Although he denied the accusations, he has since been fired after the September 9, 2018 article containing accusations by 6 women, dating to the 80's written by Farrow.

The first article also alleged abuse from six women. At the Emmys, he got no mention probably because CBS, the company he used to head has affiliations with the awards.

Nonetheless, it offers no solace knowing the moment passed without a mention of his discrepancies.

While we might want to believe Hollywood is now clean and the conversation needs to sleep, this is not the moment. The conversation should only be getting started covering a broader spectrum.

The Emmys may have pushed the diversity buzzword effectively all night, even though a number of questions have also being raised in that regards, a bigger moment has been missed with the silence on #MeToo and that is one upon which the 70th Emmy Awards may well be remembered for.