My Snarky 2024 Emmys Red Carpet Review

Well, I have to be honest. Last night’s Emmys took me by surprise! As everyone knows (or should know!), The Emmys come on in September when the new broadcast network TV season starts. But due to the writers’ strike it was postponed. (And if I’m honest with y’all, I didn’t even remember it didn’t happen last year.)

I was at my writers’ group vision board party yesterday and had to rush my poor friend Rina out who hadn’t even started gluing her visions so I could get this written for you. MLK Day is intended to be a day of service and I would like to say that Marley and I spent the evening of MLK Day in service to you, but I don’t think that’s exactly how the holiday was intended. (Still, I hope you know, we do this for you!) 😉

And so (in service to you), here is our 2024 Emmys Red Carpet Review.

Quinta Brunson

Charlene: I love Quinta Brunson and her Golden Globes dresss was spectacular. But this dress? This dress looks like it could be super cute (it even looks like it may have pockets!) but this wrinkled look (which, I guess was intentional?) does not work for me. Was the stylist who dressed her for the Globes sick? Did her sick stylist’s assistant roll the dress up in a ball and shove it in the trunk of her car and show up late to Quinta’s house without a steamer and because Quinta is a kind and benevolent person and promised to wear the dress (and had no other options because her sick stylist’s stupid assistant was so late) held her head high and put the damn wrinkled thing on. I really don’t know how else to explain it.

Marley: Quinta, did you oversleep in your dress before showing up for the awards tonight?

Jennifer Coolidge

Marley: I very much do not like the neckline or sleeves of this dress, and the fabric, and the pattern. I know Jennifer can do better than that.

Charlene: I don’t love the sleeves but I do like the rest of the dress. I like the way it flows and think Jennifer looks beautiful

Ayo Edebiri

Marley: Her dress looks like one of those big punching balloons that’s been deflated and had the top cut off. I think it would be so much prettier if it didn’t have such a strange shape!

Charlene: Even pockets can’t save the strange shape of this dress.

Suki Waterhouse

Charlene: I am all for being sexy when you’re pregnant (though, I certainly, was not!) but this dress is just weird. I read that this dress had to be tailored to fit her baby bump which means it was originally intended for someone who is not pregnant. Spoiler alert: I wouldn’t like it that way either. It looks like an arpon on a poofy skirt. This one is a big thumbs down for me.

Marley: I really don’t understand what’s going on, nor do I like it. 

Donald Glover

Marley: I personally love seeing men wear something more than a plain suit, but I’m not a huge fan of that jacket. 

Charlene: I also like seeing men mix it up a bit. The suit is fine but those ballet slippers are not working for me.

Ariana DeBose

Marley: I really enjoy seeing something a little different than a dress and this two piece is a stunning change. And this picture in general she just looks stunning.

Charlene: What Marley said.

Rachel Brosnahan

Marley: I love this dress, the color, the amazing corset-like top. Likely my favorite dress of the night. 

Charlene: This is not my favorite dress of the night. There is something about the metal hooks I just don’t like. There is too much going on in this dress for me.

Selena Gomez

Charlene: Love this dress. (Especially after that toy soldier debacle from the Golden Globes.) Selena looks fabulous.

Marley: Selena looks so beautiful, and I think that shade of red is the perfect color for her.

Update/Edit: Okay, Marley and I have had a conversation about this dress and decided that we don’t like it afterall. In fact, we both kind of hate it. Marley thinks it looks like a pantsuit. I think it needs a full skirt. We both think Selena looks so pretty which fooled us into thinking into thinking we liked the dress, when in fact, we do not!

Jessica Chastain

Marley: I love the color so much but I feel like this dress would be so much prettier without that tinsel hanging off, I think I saw that stuff in my 50% Christmas section at work. 

Charlene: I am the exact opposite of Marley (once again!). I love everything about this dress except the highlighter green color. The tinsel fringe at the bottom is fabulous!

Sarah Snook

Marley: Every red carpet somebody has to have a drapery-chic dress, I think she’s our culprit this time around. The waist up is great! 

Charlene: Marley is wrong. This dress is fab. I love the color and the cut.

Ellen Pompeo

Charlene: Um, I’m confused as to what’s going on here.

Marley: Obsessed with the waitress cosplay! 

Jenna Ortega

Charlene: This dress looks incredibly stiff and uncomfortable. (Look, I know no one is dress for comfort here, but this looks especiallly scratchy.) It also looks like when she sits down it’s just going to poof right up and you really are going to be able to see her underwear which you can kind of maybe almost see with the sheerness of the skirt.

Marley: I know some people are going to be obsessed with this but all I can think of is lampshade chic. 

Taraji P. Henson

Charlene: I love everything about this dress – the color, the cutout at the top, the train, and yes, even the slit. A+++

Marley: That color is beautiful on her! I also think the leg slit is the perfect height, if you’re going to do a leg slit, it needs to be a slit.

Laverne Cox

Charlene: I love the little wings in the bodice of this dress. I’m not sure I love the pleather fabric of this dress and I don’t think many people could pull this dress of but Lavern looks fab!

Marley: I do think it looks a bit like a duct tape dress we’d see in 2014 on the top, the shape is stunning and she looks drop dead gorgeous. 

Ali Wong

Charlene: Did her designer just find scraps of material from three other dresses and sew them together to create this, because that is really the only way to describe what’s going on here.

Marley: I don’t know why somebody would make her wear this dress.

Charlie Puth

Marley: Pants that go nearly to his chest and a bathrobe on top? 

Chalene: The shirt is kind of pajama-y as well! And yes, he absolutely stole those pants from Ed Grimley.

Janelle James

Charlene: Gorgeous! Ava Coleman would be obsessed with this dress!

Marley: I think the simplicity is refreshing – it might be the first time I actually like the shoulder accents on a dress. 

Hannah Waddingham

Marley: I much preferred her Golden Globes look, I abhor the bottom of this dress. I will never understand why designers ruin perfectly good garments with some weird shit below the knees. 

Charlene: While I would have preferred that the dress simply continued with the beading to the floor I still love this dress. Possibly my favorite of the night. Hannah looks stunning and sexy AF and my god, I really do want her arms!

Abby Elliott

Charlene: I HATE this neckline. It’s just weird and dumb. This one is a nope for me.

Marley: I love the neckline but I’m a little scared if she bent over a little too much she’d get impaled. 

Issa Rae

Charlene: When you watched Issa walk in this dress, it kind of flowed in this cool way but when you see her standing in it she looks like like a sheep dog. (But a beautiful sheep dog!)

Marley: Her red carpet dresses have always been, and continue to be, wildly confusing.

Reece Feldman

Charlene: I had to look up who Reece Feldman is and apparently he is some sort of TikTok star. I’ll just add this as my list of reasons to refuse to download the TikTok app.

Marley: I fear he’s going to step on his scarf and end up choking himself.

Aubrey Plaza

Marley: My Mom and I stared at this for a solid couple of minutes trying to figure out what was going on. Sadly, we never found an answer. 

Charlene: My friend Laurel texted me that she wanted an entire essay on Aubre Plaza’s dress, but as Marley said, we could not figure out what was happening with this dress, so I have no words. Marley did say the top of the dress looked like a Post-It note. But Aubrey, Post-It notes are self-adhesive. There is no need for the pin!

Tawny Cypress

Marley: This is totally something I could see myself wearing, which is very rare. It gives very much New Year’s eve party vibes, however. 

Charlene: I could see myself wearing this dress too! Stay out of my closet, Marley.

Camilla Morrone

Marley: I think this is also one of my top dresses of the night, her figure looks amazing and that dress is just perfect for her. 

Charlene: 100% agree with Marley. This dress is just stunning.

Theo James

Marley: I have no idea who this man is, but I very much would like to now. 

Charlene: You would have hated his character on White Lotus, Marley. But yes, Theo is looking very fine!

Dionne Harmon

Marley: The flowers remind me of those tissue paper flowers your kids probably gave you (and we made you) for Mother’s Day in elementary school. 

Charlene: I did not know who Dionne Harmon was but I put this dress in because I knew Marley would hate it even though I love it. I love the gray gradients and the pink poofy flowers. I think it is feminine and pretty. (BTW, Dionne Harmon is an executive producer and president of Jesse Collins Entertainment which means she is a badass!)

Alex Borstein

Marley: I think the look is insane but I’m kind of obsessed with it. It’s giving Hunger Games District 1 energy, Effie Trinket vibes if you will. 

Charlene: I also think the look is insane but I am definitely not obsessed with it. Did Moira Rose wear that to her The Crows Have Eyes premiere?

Rob McElhenney and Kaitlin Olson

Marley: I want her top ASAP, it is very much something I need in my closet. And Rob looks like such a gentleman, they’re both so cute.

Charlene: They are so cute. I’m not sure I love the black and white contrast of this outfit. I would prefer a simple black skirt.

Carol Burnett and Joan Collins

I would just like to end this post by bowing down to these two queens. These women are both 90. NINETY! (90!!!) Both women presented and they were both sharp as a tack. Carol is still a comedic genius and Joan is still a fabulous glamour-puss. BTW, Joan’s husband is 32 years her junior! (You go, Cougar Joan, you go!)

Well, that’s what we have for you, friends. What did we get right, what did we get wrong and what did we miss? We’d love to hear your comments.

Let’s Marvin Gaye and Get It On

Marley and I were running errands recently and since she won’t let me listen to country music while she’s in the car we were listening to the pop station 104.3 My FM when the song Marvin Gaye by Charlie Puth featuring Meghan Trainor came on the radio and I started singing along.

Marley scrunched up her face and said, “What are these lyrics? What does that mean?”

I smiled, glad she was making a face at the song and not at my singing. (Although who knows, it could have been both.)

If you’re unfamiliar with the song the lyrics start out with:

Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on
You got the healing that I want
Just like they say it in the song
Until the dawn, let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on

“Well,” I said, “Marvin Gaye was a soul singer in the 60’s and 70’s. He had a big hit called Let’s Get It On, that was out in the 70’s I think, and then had kind of a come back with a song called Sexual Healing in the early 80’s.

“So, when they say, Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on, what they’re saying is, ‘Let’s put on some sexy music and have sex.'”

When you have a 15 year old, you have to kind of tell it like it is.

“I would never want to lose my virginity to a song,” she said. “Because then for the rest of my life whenever I heard that song I would think of that.”

I smiled. “Hopefully when you’re older and you look back on losing your virginity, which I hope is many, many years from now, like in college, you look upon it fondly because you were with someone you loved. And if there was a song that reminded you of it, it would be a happy memory.”

“Well, I still don’t want to do it to a song,” she said.

I love the conversations I have with Marley. Her frankness with me and my ability to be frank with her.

“You know, we’ll have to check with Dad when we get home, but I think it was Marvin Gaye that-”

“Oh God, Mom. No!” she interrupted me.

“What?”

“I don’t want to know what music you and Dad were listening to the first time you had sex. Or ever!”

“Ha! No!” I laughed. “That’s not what I was going to say at all. I was going to say that Marvin Gaye was murdered by his father. At least I’m pretty sure it was Marvin Gaye. That’s what I need to ask Dad.”

“Oh thank God,” she said. “Not that Marvin Gaye was murdered by his father – that’s terrible, but that you weren’t going to tell me about you and Dad.”

“Don’t worry, Marley, I would never tell you about that.” I said I was frank with her, but there are some things that don’t need to be told.

“Thank you Mom.”

“You’re welcome, Marley.”

“You should write about this in your blog,” she said. “It’s pretty funny even though it may have scarred me for life.”

“I think maybe I will,” I told her, so glad that I could finally write a funny story about my teenage daughter with her blessing. “I think maybe I will.”