by Congrats to Hasan Minhaj, Issa Rae, John Oliver, and the staffs at SNL and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, for you’re all now Peabody Award winners!
Five of this year’s nine recipients came from the comedy world (six if you count Bob Odenkirk’s Better Call Saul!) The Peabody Awards will celebrate the winners May 19, 2018, in New York City, along with a first-ever career achievement award for Carol Burnett.
Here are the official Peabody Award descriptions for this year’s winners:
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Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King
Netflix, Art & Industry (Netflix)Hasan Minhaj delivers much more than a hilarious stand-up comedy special. “Homecoming King” is a deeply personal memoir—part Richard Pryor, part Spaulding Gray—that covers the struggles of the immigrant experience, encounters with stereotypes and raced expectations, and intergenerational acceptance, while using comedy to invite empathy, caring, and understanding.
Available Online:
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Insecure
HBO Entertainment in association with Issa Rae Productions, Penny For Your Thoughts Productions and 3 Arts Entertainment (HBO)Issa Rae delivers a groundbreaking series that captures the lives of everyday young black people in Los Angeles with a fresh and authentic take. Breaking away from tired and familiar representations of “diversity” on television, this series offers a fun and intimate portrayal of work, relationships, and the ordinary experiences of the two young black women at its center.
Available Online:
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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
HBO Entertainment in association with Sixteen String Jack Productions and Avalon Television (HBO)Each week, John Oliver and his team offer something completely new in the merger of comedy and reporting. While scathing in its political critique, the show is also smart and insightful in producing long-form journalism, breaking stories that others have overlooked with precision, clarity, and hilarity.
Available Online:
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Saturday Night Live: Political Satire 2017
SNL Studios in association with Universal Television and Broadway Video (NBC)Building on the strength of its election year parodies, “SNL” doubled-down this year with wicked satiric portrayals of President Trump and a clownish coterie of administration apparatchiks. Kate McKinnon and special guests Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy, in particular, produced performances that helped the American public come to terms with an unprecedented presidential administration and its daily political absurdities.
Available Online:
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Amazon Studios (Amazon)A period drama and feminist comedy, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s story of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” centers on the emergence of a 1950s female comedian who runs afoul of New York decency laws. In the process, the colorful and imaginative story also reflects on the “place” of women in public spaces, Jewishness, familial relations, classed expectations, and the importance of a woman not being “ripped right out of a catalogue” that is both impressively weighty and effortlessly light.
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