After announcing the winners in the spring, the Peabody Awards celebrated 34 honorees at a Beverly Hills event on Sunday.
Awards include television, podcast/radio and web in the categories of entertainment, news, documentary, arts, children’s/youth, public service, software and interactive/immersive media. Winners are selected by a unanimous jury vote, and are selected based on their ability to change culture. Hot competition, Multiple, the house, Andor, Rehearsal, Adolescence and Jimmy Kimmel Live! They were among the winners in Hollywood, with Kimmel having a special moment on stage after months of publicly battling Donald Trump.
Ben Affleck was on hand to honor Kimmel, saying, “He’s used his platform for years to challenge authority every night, and by authority I think we all know who he really means — one narcissist in particular named Matt Damon,” referring to Kimmel’s longtime beef with the star. Affleck continued, “When they took his show off the air, Jimmy refused to back down. What he told me was that it wasn’t for his own benefit, but because he knows that justice dies in the dark — I taught him that as Batman.”
“Comedy and sarcasm are vital parts of Democratic discourse, whether the government likes it or not,” Affleck added before Kimmel took to the stage, as the late-night host — joined by his friend Guillermo Rodriguez — admitted, “I’ve felt stupid a lot in my life but I’ve never felt stupider than I feel now,” as he stood alongside documentary filmmakers and reporters who have worked on projects about immigration, customs, abuses and wars.
“I called our president Vaticak,” Kimmel joked, before going on to list the many other Trump nicknames he’s coined over the years, “and somehow we got a Peabody out of that.” “This country has truly gone into the abyss.”
“Making jokes about the president in America shouldn’t win you an award. We have the right, guaranteed by the Constitution, to criticize and ridicule our leaders,” he continued, also speaking about the way millions of people spoke up and supported him when his show was temporarily suspended in September. “It sent a message that we care, we stand, and we will not stand idly by when comedy, journalism, and dissent are censored, regulated, and criminalized,” Kimmel added.
After thanking his staff and praising his fellow honorees, Kimmel concluded his speech by thanking Trump himself — accompanied by more epithets including “The Thief Leader” and “Abrascram Lincoln” — for “inspiring us to fight for our freedom of speech.”
Along with the competitive awards, a number of special honors were also presented throughout the ceremony, with Amy Poehler receiving the Peabody Career Achievement Award, Sterlin Harjo receiving the Peabody Trailblazer Award, James L. Brooks receiving the Industry Icon Award, and PBS Kids receiving the Industry Award. PBS Kids — whose award was accompanied by a performance from the Musyca Children’s Choir — had a special moment of meltdown when general manager Sarah DeWitt announced: “We’ve been defunded, but we’re not defeated” to thunderous applause.
