For those who don't know, the Primetime Emmy Awards is an annual show recognizing accomplishments in current American television. On September 17th, the 70th annual Emmys took place, including nominations such as best program, acting, writing, and directing, some categories dividing awards by female and male identification. To be nominated for any award, the television program had to take place between June 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018, and while the show was promised to be one of the most diverse in its running history due to its nominees of different backgrounds, the awards given were far from groundbreaking.

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To be fair, excellence awards cannot be handed out to just anyone. However, the Emmys continued with win after win granted to various white actors and actresses, even with the nominee pool containing an immense range of non-white talent. It wasn't until the seventh category that the pattern began to break with Regina King receiving the award for Best Actress in a Limited Series for her role in Netflix's Seven Seconds. The series focuses on racial tensions, following the events after a white police officer severely injuries a black teenager, Brenton Butler. On screen, King played his mother, Latrice Butler.

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In response to her Emmy win, King said that "things are always looked at as black or white ... I think that probably played into a big part of my assumption that the chances of me winning were so small. Looking at the numbers of different people in the category, the numbers do definitely weigh larger on the white population... that was one of the moments that was really sitting with me on that stage." That night, Regina King was the first Black woman to receive an award.

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As the ceremony carried on, some categories were met with even more disappointment and disapproval. Sandra Oh, best known for her role on Grey's Anatomy as Cristina Yang, became the first Asian actress to ever be nominated for Best Actress in a Drama due to her role in BBC America's Killing Eve. Oh did not win, and many Twitter users were quick to voice their dissatisfaction by using the hashtag #EmmysSoWhite. However, Oh said "change is slow and I don't want people to ever give up on it ... change does take a long time, so the more that we talk about it, the more that we have opportunities to be in front of an audience, to say, 'Hey, we're a part of culture too.'" Accompanying Oh to the Emmys were her parents, Joon-soo and Young-nam, the latter wearing a traditional hanbok in support of her daughter and Korean culture.

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Longtime drag performer RuPaul, host, mentor and judge on RuPaul's Drag Race, weighed in on the subject of diversification as well, commenting on more than just skin color. "We celebrate people who dance outside the box, and those are my favorite kind of people. Those stories need to be told, and I think there is value in those stories for everyone, not just drag queens." Among its several other wins, RuPaul's Drag Race took home the award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

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In total, the number of diverse nominees outweighed the amount of winners, suggesting that the program prided itself on diverse nominations rather than substantial wins. The Wonderful Mrs. Maisel, an American comedy series streaming on Amazon Prime Video, dominated the Emmys by taking home three wins for Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Comedy Series. Two of the actresses within the series, Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein, took home awards for Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actress respectively. While the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards certainly made history, the end results show that diversity remains a concept that is still a work in progress.

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A full list of the nominees and winners can be found on emmys.com.