The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences—an organization that has, for several straight Emmys ceremonies, lauded Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory as the sharpest comedy on TV—demonstrated its finely honed sense of humor again last night, with a segment that nodded toward the debate over diversity and equality in the industry by putting Sofia Vergara on a rotating platform to be ogled. However, not everyone felt that this bit was hilarious satire, the kind that awards show skits are known for.
Indeed, various corners of the Internet argued that mocking the objectification of women by really, really objectifying a woman—and pretending to be high-minded while simultaneously providing lowest common denominator eye candy—wasn’t all that clever. Rather, some found it a clumsy attempt at ironic sexism that was actually just sexist, seeing as it lampooned the television industry’s perpetuation of stereotypes that it could just stop perpetuating itself, rather than lampooning them.