Emmy hosts call out Hollywood’s diversity problem: “Why no Filipino nurses on ER?”

We are living through the most impactful push towards minority representation in entertainment, so it’s not surprising that jabs at Hollywood’s lack of diversity made it to this year’s Emmy Awards monologue on Monday, Sept 17.

During their monologue, co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che of Saturday Night Live made a point about the oddly homogenous casting of the hospital dramas like “ER” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Che quipped, “TV has always had a diversity problem. I mean, can you believe they did 15 seasons of ER without one Filipino nurse? Have you been to a hospital?”

The joke garnered a strong response from the audience, especially on social media where Filipinos — who know all too well about the stereotype that all Filipinos are nurses or are pressured to be nurses — circulated the joke.

One Twitter user posted a captioned screengrab and wrote, “This is the realest Filipino-American content I’ve ever seen.”

Although it’s often communicated as a joke, the nurse stereotype is based on fact. According to AJ+, Filipinos comprise of 20 percent of the nursing force in California, a state that is 4 percent Filipino.

Entertainment reporter Yong Chavez of ABS-CBN said on Twitter, “I’ve tweeted about the lack of Filipino nurses in US medical shows so many times. Glad it finally made it as an Emmy joke. Now please take it seriously now, Hollywood.”

Diversity was the theme of television’s biggest night. Filipino-American actor and Glee-alum Darren Criss won “best actor in a limited series or movie” for his role as Andrew Cunanan in the FX mini-series “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”

Korean-Canadian actress Sandra Oh was also the first Asian woman nominated for an acting award at the Emmy’s for her work in BBC’s “Killing Eve.”

Klarize Medenilla

Klarize Medenilla is a staff writer and reporter for the Asian Journal. You can reach her at [email protected].

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