For all the readers, publicists, Kayteighs and finalists of the world, Tuesday night (Aug. 5) was the moment of culture that made us say culture was for us.
For the first time, Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers‘ annual, sardonic take on pop culture awards ceremonies — the Las Culturistas Culture Awards — was televised to the world on Bravo. What started as a bit on the pair’s hit podcast Las Culturistas, in which Yang and Rogers would spontaneously make up ridiculous awards categories for their audience’s entertainment — was transformed into a high-production value send-up of the glitz, glamour and utter self-seriousness of shows like the Grammys, Oscars and Emmys.
It certainly helped that the pair pulled in a stellar list of celebrities to come celebrate with them, including legendary actors like Allison Janney, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jeff Goldblum; beloved pop girls Reneé Rapp, Jensen McRae and Lucy Dacus; and even the main cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
Those stars were there to see who would win the evening’s biggest awards, ranging from the Pop Crave Award for Excellence in Journalism (which went to Amelia Dimoldenberg of Chicken Shop Date fame) to the Titanic Award for Monoculture (rotisserie chicken won in a stacked category that included the The White Lotus, the letter “S,” Miss Piggy, and Wicked).
When it came time for the actual festivities to begin, Yang and Rogers wasted no time in skewering the award show format, proving definitively that “every podcast should also be TV,” and that “everything on TV should be a gay fever dream,” as they pointed out in their opening monologue.
With the ceremony now available to stream on Peacock, the question remains; which of the evening’s buzzy bits managed to outshine the others? Below, Billboard looks back at the first televised Las Culturistas Culture Awards and picks the five best moments from a night of excellence in pop culture.
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Reneé Rapp Presents the Reneé Rapp Award for Power in Lesbianism
Representation matters, and pop singer Reneé Rapp showed up to represent chaotic lesbians everywhere when she presented the evening’s award named after her. After the “Leave Me Alone” singer shared a list of things that are quintessentially lesbian — including “hours and hours and literally so many hours of talking after you’ve already resolved the issue, so much so that it turns into a different one” — Rapp announced that the winner of the Power in Lesbianism award was “Probably Your Grandma, Even Though She Was Married To Your Grandpa For Fifty Years.” While Rapp’s acceptance speech on behalf of the winner was itself hilarious, we have to give it up to the producers for cutting to nominees Katie Gavin and Naomi McPherson of MUNA badly processing their loss with the chyron “MUNA — Just Lost This Award.”
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Lifetime of Culture Award Recipient Allison Janney Gets a Moving Tribute (Literally)
No awards show is complete without an out-of-nowhere lifetime achievement award, and the Cultch Awards rightly decided to give theirs to actress Allison Janney. While her speech offered one of the few actually genuine moments of the evening (she called the event “my favorite award show I have ever attended”), the presentation of the award itself was exactly the kind of campy drama that the premise of the ceremony promised to provid
e. After a hilarious speech from SNL star Kristen Wiig, five performers each dressed as one of Janney’s iconic characters performed a series of ridiculous interpretive dances. Whether it was LaVona from I, Tonya attempting to cripple The West Wing’s C.J. Cregg, or Drop Dead Gorgeous’ Loretta getting spanked by Evelyn Rollins from Palm Royale, the “moving tribute” tickled both the audience and Janney herself, who was shown doubled over with laughter throughout the wild number.
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Ben Platt Transforms ‘Diet Pepsi’ Into Yet Another Awards Show Ballad
There’s always that moment during awards ceremonies where the momentum comes to a screeching halt as an artist takes to the stage to perform a slow, moving ballad. Singer and actor Ben Platt himself has done it multiple times, delivering touching odes to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim at the 2018 and 2022 Grammys, respectively. But, for the Cultch Awards, Platt was tapped to lampoon the award show ballad format by performing a slowed-down, maudlin version of Addison Rae’s viral hit “Diet Pepsi” (which was nominated at the ceremony for Record of the Year). Complete with a full string section and some moody lighting, Platt kept his staid expression intact, even while crooning out the words “my ass looks good in these ripped blue jeans.”
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Yang & Rogers Make Magic With Their ‘Abracadabra’ Cover
There are few concepts as foundational to music award shows as the high-budget performance of a nominated song — but since not everyone nominated could be in attendance to deliver such a performance, Yang and Rogers decided to offer their own personal rendition of one of the year’s best pop songs. Shortly after their opening monologue, the pair launched into their cover of Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” (which later won Record of the Year during the ceremony), complete with intense choreography, their own live vocals, and comedian Patti Harrison dressed as the Lady in Red. In a ceremony designed to puncture the excessive sincerity of other awards shows, Yang and Rogers’ faux-earnest take on the beloved Mayhem single felt like the perfect introduction to an evening of tongue-in-cheek antics.
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Lucy Dacus Helps Tribute the Artists Who Passed … on Attending the Ceremony
At nearly every awards show, there comes a moment where the organizers pay tribute to the stars we’ve lost, often with a touching ballad from a headline-making star. So, when the hosts arrived on stage clad in all black and with somber looks on their faces, we knew that an “In Memoriam” segment was imminent. “While tonight has been a beautiful celebration of culture, we cannot forget the ones we love who have passed,” Yang, dripping in ostrich feathers, told the audience, before Rogers added: “Not passed away, but passed on being here tonight.”
In what was easily the funniest moment of the ceremony, Yang and Rogers performed a genuinely excellent rendition of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” while black-and-white photos of various celebrities appeared behind them to celebrate the stars “In Absentia,” alongside their reasons for not attending the ceremony. Some of the highlights included Michelle Obama being “too good for this,” Coleman Domingo allegedly saying that he “can’t do show, but ‘open to threesome,’” and Michelle Yeoh being “trapped under diamonds.” But the ultimate punchline arrived when Lucy Dacus (who “never followed up” on attending, according to her lower third) joined the pair on stage in a gorgeous white gown to close out the hilarious bit.
