The Peabody Awards are not like other award bodies. Established in 1940, they honor media, ranging from fiction to documentary to television to radio (and, these days, podcasts), not in specific categories, like “Best Actress” or “Best Cinematography.” Instead they do general ones. For instance, this year’s Peabody Awards for excellent in entertainment went to two different kinds of TV programs: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Ted Lasso, which is about to return. In other words, they’re hard to get, and the latter was able to nab one with its very first season.
As per Variety, the Peabodies had a lengthy appraisal of the Apple TV Plus show, which stars co-creator Jason Sudeikis as a mostly unfailingly upbeat American football coach who winds up coaching an English soccer (which is to say football) team. They praised it for offering a “charming dose of radical optimism,” and singled out Sudeikis’ portrayal as “endearing.” The fulsome praise continued:
“It turns out that more than simply a sports coach, Ted is remarkably good at honest communication with others, affecting change by being a deeply good human, one with his own quiet anxieties and pain. The Apple TV Plus series is the perfect counter to the enduring prevalence of toxic masculinity, both on-screen and off, in a moment when the nation truly needs inspiring models of kindness.”
So, mazel tov! And the same to Stephen Colbert, whose late night show was praised for reworking itself for the pandemic, yielding a “remarkably successful transformation of the late-night television model by a host inviting us into his home.” During a turbulent time, seeing a public health crisis, righteous anger over the murder of George Floyd, and a “morally contemptuous president,” Colbert, they said, provided, “kindness, gentle spirit, and deeply felt ethical nature provided a nightly salve the nation desperately needed.”
Also singled out for Peabody praise was the documentary series Asian-Americans, the incarceration documentary Time, the Katrina podcast Floodlines, two news specials — ABC15 Arizona’s “Full Disclosure” and Frontline’s “China Undercover” — and the Disney children’s show The Owl House.
You can read more about the winners and why they were chosen over at Variety.
