For all of the readers, publicists, Kayteighs and finalists of the world, Tuesday night time (Aug. 5) was the second of tradition that made us say tradition was for us.
For the primary time, Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers‘ annual, sardonic tackle popular culture awards ceremonies — the Las Culturistas Culture Awards — was televised to the world on Bravo. What began as a bit on the pair’s hit podcast Las Culturistas, during which Yang and Rogers would spontaneously make up ridiculous awards classes for his or her viewers’s leisure — was remodeled right into a high-production worth send-up of the glitz, glamour and utter self-seriousness of exhibits just like the Grammys, Oscars and Emmys.
It definitely helped that the pair pulled in a stellar record of celebrities to return have a good time with them, together with legendary actors like Allison Janney, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jeff Goldblum; beloved pop women Reneé Rapp, Jensen McRae and Lucy Dacus; and even the principle solid of The Actual Housewives of Salt Lake Metropolis.
These stars had been there to see who would win the night’s greatest awards, starting from the Pop Crave Award for Excellence in Journalism (which went to Amelia Dimoldenberg of Rooster Store Date fame) to the Titanic Award for Monoculture (rotisserie hen received in a stacked class that included the The White Lotus, the letter “S,” Miss Piggy, and Depraved).
When it got here time for the precise festivities to start, Yang and Rogers wasted no time in skewering the award present format, proving definitively that “each podcast must also be TV,” and that “every little thing on TV ought to be a homosexual fever dream,” as they identified of their opening monologue.
With the ceremony now accessible to stream on Peacock, the query stays; which of the night’s buzzy bits managed to outshine the others? Under, Billboard seems again on the first televised Las Culturistas Tradition Awards and picks the 5 greatest moments from an evening of excellence in popular culture.
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Reneé Rapp Presents the Reneé Rapp Award for Energy in Lesbianism
Illustration issues, and pop singer Reneé Rapp showed up to characterize chaotic lesbians in all places when she offered the night’s award named after her. After the “Depart Me Alone” singer shared a listing of issues which are quintessentially lesbian — together with “hours and hours and actually so many hours of speaking after you’ve already resolved the difficulty, a lot in order that it turns into a special one” — Rapp introduced that the winner of the Energy in Lesbianism award was “In all probability Your Grandma, Even Although She Was Married To Your Grandpa For Fifty Years.” Whereas Rapp’s acceptance speech on behalf of the winner was itself hilarious, now we have to provide it as much as the producers for reducing to nominees Katie Gavin and Naomi McPherson of MUNA badly processing their loss with the chyron “MUNA — Simply Misplaced This Award.”
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Lifetime of Tradition Award Recipient Allison Janney Will get a Transferring Tribute (Actually)
No awards present is full with out an out-of-nowhere lifetime achievement award, and the Cultch Awards rightly determined to provide theirs to actress Allison Janney. Whereas her speech supplied one of many few truly real moments of the night (she referred to as the occasion “my favourite award present I’ve ever attended”), the presentation of the award itself was precisely the type of campy drama that the premise of the ceremony promised to provid
e. After a hilarious speech from SNL star Kristen Wiig, 5 performers every dressed as certainly one of Janney’s iconic characters carried out a sequence of ridiculous interpretive dances. Whether or not it was LaVona from I, Tonya making an attempt to cripple The West Wing’s C.J. Cregg, or Drop Useless Beautiful’ Loretta getting spanked by Evelyn Rollins from Palm Royale, the “shifting tribute” tickled each the viewers and Janney herself, who was proven doubled over with laughter all through the wild quantity.
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Ben Platt Transforms ‘Weight loss plan Pepsi’ Into But One other Awards Present Ballad
There’s at all times that second throughout awards ceremonies the place the momentum involves a screeching halt as an artist takes to the stage to carry out a sluggish, shifting ballad. Singer and actor Ben Platt himself has executed it a number of occasions, delivering touching odes to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim on the 2018 and 2022 Grammys, respectively. However, for the Cultch Awards, Platt was tapped to lampoon the award present ballad format by performing a slowed-down, maudlin model of Addison Rae’s viral hit “Weight loss plan Pepsi” (which was nominated on the ceremony for Document of the 12 months). Full with a full string part and a few moody lighting, Platt stored his staid expression intact, even whereas crooning out the phrases “my ass seems good in these ripped blue denims.”
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Yang & Rogers Make Magic With Their ‘Abracadabra’ Cowl
There are few ideas as foundational to music award exhibits because the high-budget efficiency of a nominated tune — however since not everybody nominated might be in attendance to ship such a efficiency, Yang and Rogers determined to supply their very own private rendition of one of many 12 months’s greatest pop songs. Shortly after their opening monologue, the pair launched into their cover of Woman Gaga’s “Abracadabra” (which later received Document of the 12 months through the ceremony), full with intense choreography, their very own dwell vocals, and comic Patti Harrison dressed because the Woman in Purple. In a ceremony designed to puncture the extreme sincerity of different awards exhibits, Yang and Rogers’ faux-earnest tackle the beloved Mayhem single felt like the proper introduction to a night of tongue-in-cheek antics.
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Lucy Dacus Helps Tribute the Artists Who Handed … on Attending the Ceremony
At almost each awards present, there comes a second the place the organizers pay tribute to the celebs we’ve misplaced, typically with a touching ballad from a headline-making star. So, when the hosts arrived on stage clad in all black and with somber seems on their faces, we knew that an “In Memoriam” section was imminent. “Whereas tonight has been a lovely celebration of tradition, we can’t overlook those we love who’ve handed,” Yang, dripping in ostrich feathers, informed the viewers, earlier than Rogers added: “Not handed away, however handed on being right here tonight.”
In what was simply the funniest second of the ceremony, Yang and Rogers carried out a genuinely wonderful rendition of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Factor” whereas black-and-white photographs of varied celebrities appeared behind them to have a good time the celebs “In Absentia,” alongside their causes for not attending the ceremony. A number of the highlights included Michelle Obama being “too good for this,” Coleman Domingo allegedly saying that he “can’t do present, however ‘open to threesome,’” and Michelle Yeoh being “trapped beneath diamonds.” However the final punchline arrived when Lucy Dacus (who “by no means adopted up” on attending, in keeping with her decrease third) joined the pair on stage in a stunning white robe to shut out the hilarious bit.