Winners, All

An extremely belated round-up of various Guild winners:

Screen Actors' Guild Awards:

Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries - Helen Mirren, Elizabeth I

Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries - Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth I

Male Actor in a Comedy Series - Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Female Actor in a Comedy Series - America Ferrera, Ugly Betty

Ensemble in a Comedy Series - The Office

Male Actor in a Supporting Role - Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Life Achievement Award - Julie Andrews

Female Actor in a Drama Series - Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy

Male Actor in a Drama Series - Hugh Laurie, House

Ensemble in a Drama Series - Grey's Anatomy

Female Actor in a Supporting Role - Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Male Actor in a Leading Role - Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Female Actor in a Leading Role - Helen Mirren, The Queen

Cast of a Motion Picture - Little Miss Sunshine

My (100% biased) thoughts: While I dig Hugh Laurie as Dr. House, having already won this award before, I'd have hoped the SAG looked elsewhere (remember Michael C. Hall?). Also, I really really love Grey's Anatomy, that show pushes my buttons, BUT a) they didn't nominate possibly the two best ensembles on TV in the category (Battlestar Galactica and The Wire) and b) even amongst the nominations, it can be argued that Grey's is one of the weaker shows, not the stronger.

I'm also loving that Chandra Wilson won for her Bailey, absolutely my favorite character on Grey's, and that Ugly Betty is receiving so many plaudits in its first season.

I don't have anything worthwhile to say about the movie awards. The less I say, the better, except: I watched Little Miss Sunshine, and color me underwhelmed. How The Departed could be overlooked for an arty road movie (excellent though the performers are, and entertaining though the film is), is beyond me.

Directors' Guild of America Award: Martin Scorsese, The Departed.

Nothing but YAY! Here's to an eventual Oscar. (Finally!)

Producers' Guild of America Award: Little Miss Sunshine.

See Above.

I'm semi-excited about the WGA Awards on Feb. 11, seeing as they were the only ones smart enough to nominate BSG for something. Well, rant or rave, it'll be on here.

TV Nanny, par excellence

So, AXN has been banned from Indian airwaves for 2 months for daring to telecast some claptrap called Sexiest TV Advertisements. Let's ignore the fact that this show would've been on late at night. Lets also ignore the limited TRPs an English-language channel gets. Forget even that AXN is possibly one of the braver TV channels on here in India, which screens [heavily censored] versions of Nip/Tuck, and some other excellent dramas, including 24, House and Numbers. To avoid any potential conflict with the government, Star World has decided to cease broadcasting Baywatch and Baywatch Hawaii immediately. None of this is important. What is important is that once again, our government feels the need to protect its citizens from the evils of Western programming. Because, of course, watching semi-nude women prance around is tantamount to incitement and leads to the wholesale degradation of moral values.

I don't understand why its obscene to see sexy adverts. I don't understand why its offensive to our politicians. I don't understand why this is not OK, but its OK to show videos of someone being hanged, and killed all over the news channels, and show them 24/7. I'm not saying that the govt should've legislated against these channels, or banned the video. But they left it to the discretion of the management, and why can't they leave this stuff to programming heads as well?

What really annoys me is how all of this interventionism passes under the radar. There will be a report in the papers, but by and large this is ignored. A few months ago, movies had to be re-edited and censored to pass inspection from the CBFC, again, before being telecast. Any films rated 'A' (Adult) was banned from being shown. HBO routinely censors its award-winning shows, like Deadwood and Rome. Then, we have situations where someone makes a jokey video about Mahatma Gandhi. The point isn't whether the video was in bad taste or not. The fact that the Ministry felt the need to get involved is the issue here. A video which would've been largely overlooked by the general populace became the you-tube hit of the moment only because the Ministry created such a big ruckus around it. When is all of this going to stop? When will our govt realise that as adults, as a functioning democracy and as a people who choose their own government, we do not need supervision in what to watch on television? Sometimes, people really are capable of making these decisions themselves. I know, shocker.

And then there are instances where political incorrectness on prime time television has been creating such a massive furor in the US and UK. I'm referring to the backstage Grey's Anatomy drama, which dates back to October, where Isaiah Washington, who essays the part of Burke, referred to his co-star as a f*****. The whole thing blew up again at the Golden Globes, where Grey's won Best Drama. IW is on record as saying it "Never Happened" and then TR Knight, whose coming out was precipitated by the October fracas, goes on Ellen to say it did, and that "Everyone heard it".The sad part is the way the whole issue has been mis-handled to this degree. With a creator who goes on about diversity on her show, both Shonda Rhimes and ABC are very responsible for the mess that exists right now. In any case, the slur is unforgivable, definitely on par with calling someone an N-word, or a P***. Which leads me nicely into the second show creating waves of the wrong kind - Celebrity Big Brother with its on-set shenanigans involving actress Shilpa Shetty and other residents of the house. Having watched a few of the videos, I can say that racially motivated or not, Shilpa was attacked, and if all it takes is a few other issues to remove the veneer of multiculturalism and descend to name-calling that utilizes racist epithets, then these people (both IW and CBB "celebrities") are in their essences homophobic, and racist.

All that remains is for the networks in question (ABC and Channel 4) to wake up and do something. Such behaviour must be marked out as unacceptable. At this point, it doesn't matter what the intent or motivation of the people using these words were. Both the situations have exploded into a comment on their respective societies, and must be addressed. The networks need to get their heads out of their asses and realise that not all publicity is good publicity. It doesn't matter if IW's insults were more about Patrick Dempsey than TR Knight. It doesn't matter if Shilpa Shetty hasn't been "overtly abused" as the channel now seems to be saying.

Oh, and the very idea that TR and Shilpa have somehow brought this upon themselves by being, I don't know, gay and Indian respectively, is outrageous. I will never look at Germaine Greer the same way again - I didn't know Germaine, that there were some forms of equality more important than others. And USA Today should take a good, long look at themselves and how they choose to portray things.