On Sunday, MTV hosted its Movie and TV Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on the University of Southern California campus—a fitting location, considering the network had completely overhauled the annual awards show to better accommodate the kind of hoodie-clad, socially conscious, smartphone-clutching students crowding Jefferson Boulevard that rainy afternoon. MTV’s youth-oriented makeover was so dramatic that the network even updated the ceremony’s golden popcorn statues with red Solo cups, the emblematic chalice of the twenty-something experience.
MTV also shifted major gears by expanding what was formerly known as the MTV Movie Awards to include television—crowning the Netflix hit Stranger Things and its star Millie Bobby Brown, respectively, as show of the year and best actor on a show. The new hybrid format also meant that movie and TV actors faced off in certain categories, such as best comedic performance—in which Get Out’s Lil Rel Howery bested Broad City’s Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson.
Another major change: MTV eliminated gender-based distinctions in its acting categories, meaning that men and women competed against one another. Leaning in to the historic shift, the network tapped Billions actor Asia Kate Dillon, who identifies as gender non-binary, to present the evening’s first award for best actor in a movie. Emma Watson won for her role in Beauty and the Beast, beating out Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures), Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Hugh Jackman (Logan), James McAvoy (Split), and Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of Seventeen).
Was Watson’s winning the first non-binary acting award purely coincidental, considering that she has spent the last three years speaking publicly about gender equality as a U.N. Women Goodwill Ambassador? Possibly. MTV executives and producers traditionally choose the year’s nominees, leaving fans to decide the winner with an online vote. And given the options, it makes sense that the nominee with the largest social-media footprint and furthest-reaching movie would win. But since the award was presented immediately after host Adam Devine’s elaborate Beauty and the Beast-themed opening number, there was whiff of socially-conscious staging.
But that’s the thing about the MTV Movie and TV Awards—there aren’t any crazy surprises or dramatic upsets. When a big star arrives on the red carpet, like Watson, Vin Diesel or Hugh Jackman, it is a pretty safe bet that they are going to win an award that evening. (Upon realizing that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were not in attendance, we were not surprised to find that the La La Land co-stars did not win best kiss.) But the MTV Movie and TV Awards ceremony is fun, and not really about the awards anyway—a reality confirmed by the show’s own producer Casey Patterson who told The Wrap last year, “There are an awful lot of award shows, and the truth is, we don’t need another one.” MTV general manager Amy Doyle added this year, “It’s almost like we don’t want to call it an awards show, because it really is going to feel like we’re throwing the biggest party for young Hollywood.”
And inside the Shrine Auditorium, it really did feel that way. Women wore pink fur coats, every variation of animal print, and vibrantly patterned pantsuits. Men wore man buns, fedoras, and, on some occasions, sparkly high heels. Full bars and concession stands in the mezzanine and first-floor lounge served draft beer, popcorn, and candy that guests could take inside the theater to watch the show. Instead of strict cell-phone rules, MTV encouraged Snapchatting—with a huge banner asking audience members to submit their footage to the MTV Movie and TV Award story. Selfies were abundant and cell phones were drawn at all times. When This Is Us won for best tearjerker—“That’s actually a category?” a guy in a pink suit wondered behind us—each present cast member captured Milo Ventimiglia’s trip to the stage on his or her (or their) smartphone.
It would be easy to dismiss the MTV Movie and TV Awards as a fun airtime filler. Thanks to its dramatic makeover, though, this year’s show managed to do something important that its more respected award peers haven’t yet done: celebrate diversity and encourage equality. While the Oscars have a notorious diversity problem (and all of Hollywood has a major diversity plus female problem), the MTV ceremony proved all-inclusive and woke, awarding Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome of Moonlight best kiss over straight couplings like Stone and Gosling. Congresswoman Maxine Waters joined Tracee Ellis Ross onstage to present Taraji P. Henson with the best hero award for her work in Hidden Figures. RuPaul’s Drag Race bested more mainstream fare like The Bachelor for best reality competition. Daniel Kaluuya of the $4.5 million horror movie Get Out topped Rogue One: A Star Wars Story star Riz Ahmed.
Considering the current presidential administration’s emphasis on exclusiveness, it seemed especially pointed that MTV introduced the best american story category this year, choosing Blackish, Fresh Off the Boat, Jane the Virgin, Moonlight, and Transparent as the nominees—all series about the African-American, Chinese-American, Venezuelan-American, and transgender experiences.
The evening’s host, Adam Devine, kept the tone lively and upbeat, veering far away from political drama. Though President Donald Trump is at the forefront of many people’s minds, he only made one overt cameo during the show. As The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah took the stage after winning best host, MTV displayed a screen grab from Noah’s Comedy Central series featuring a photo of Trump above the chyron “Scumbag Billionaire.” When Noah made it to the stage, he thanked “Donald J. Trump for the comedy.”
All in all, it was a night of inclusiveness and positive messaging. Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome dedicated their awards “to those who feel like the others, the misfits.” Millie Bobby Brown, at 13, thanked Stranger Things writers for giving her such a “bad-ass female iconic character” to play. Taraji P. Henson used her time onstage to to warn the young audience about “separatism,” saying, “I hate that it’s man versus woman, black versus white, gay versus straight. Whatever. We’re all human.” Watson alluded to gender equality while accepting her best Actor award, saying, “Acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and that doesn’t need to be separated into two different categories.” Vin Diesel, while accepting the generation award on behalf of the Fast and the Furious franchise cast, thanked “a generation that was willing to accept this multicultural franchise where it didn’t matter what color your skin was or what country you’re from—when you’re family, you’re family.”
The MTV Movie and TV Awards may be the younger, sillier sibling of venerable awards shows like the Oscars—but Sunday’s ceremony proved that MTV certainly has something important to teach its award elders and its audience.