After announcing its winners in the spring, the Peabody Awards celebrated the 34 honorees at a Beverly Hills event on Sunday.
The awards span television, podcasts/radio and the web in categories for entertainment, news, documentary, arts, children’s/youth, public service and interactive/immersive programming and media. Winners are chosen by a unanimous jury vote and selected for their potential to change culture. Heated Rivalry, Pluribus, The Pitt, Andor, The Rehearsal, Adolescence and Jimmy Kimmel Live! were among the Hollywood winners, with Kimmel having a standout moment on stage after months of publicly battling Donald Trump.
Ben Affleck was on hand to honor Kimmel, teasing that “for years he’s used his show to challenge authority on a nightly basis, and by authority I think we all know who that really means — one particularly credit-hogging narcissist named Matt Damon,” referencing Kimmel’s longtime on-screen beef with the star. Affleck continued, “when they pulled his show off the air, Jimmy refused to back down. What he said to me was it wasn’t for his own benefit, but because he knows justice dies in the dark — I taught him that as Batman.”
“Comedy and satire are vital parts of democratic speech, whether the government likes them or not,” Affleck added before Kimmel took the stage, as the late-night host — joined by sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez — admitted “I’ve felt pretty dumb a lot of times in my life but I’ve never felt dumber than I do right now,” while he stood beside documentarians and reporters who had worked on projects about ICE, abuse and wars.
“I called our president Fattyshack,” Kimmel joked, before going on to list the many other Trump nicknames he had coined throughout the years, “and somehow we got a Peabody out of that. This country really has gone to shit.”
He continued, “Making jokes about the president in America shouldn’t win you a prize. We have the right, guaranteed by the Constitution, to criticize and satirize our leaders,” as he reflected on how millions of people spoke out and supported him when his show was temporarily suspended in September. Kimmel added, “You sent a message that we do care and we stand up and we will not stand by when comedy and journalism and dissent are censored and regulated and criminalized.”
And after thanking his staff and paying tribute to his fellow honorees, Kimmel closed by thanking Trump himself — accompanied by more nicknames including “our commander-in-thief” and “Abrascram Lincoln” — for “inspiring us to fight for our freedom of speech.”
Along with the competitive awards, a number of special honors were also given throughout the ceremony, with Amy Poehler receiving the Peabody Career Achievement Award, Sterlin Harjo the Peabody Trailblazer Award, James L. Brooks the Industry Icon Award, and PBS Kids getting the Industry Award. PBS Kids — whose award was accompanied by a performance from the Musyca Children’s Choir — had a particular bring-the-house-down moment when general manager Sara DeWitt declared, “we were defunded, but we are not defeated” to thunderous applause.