The winners are in for this year’s Peabody Awards. Selected from nearly 1,300 entries and 60 nominees, this year’s recipients are described by Peabody executive director Jeffrey P. Jones as “a vibrant collective of inspiring, innovative, and powerful stories.”
Entertainment winners include Netflix’s “When They See Us” and Amazon/BBC Three’s “Fleabag.” Created by Ava DuVernay, “When They See Us” tells the story of five young men of color who were wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman in Central Park in the early ’90s. Jurors described the miniseries as “devastating and commanding,” and identfied the tragedy as “a powerful registry of the inhuman practices and degrading effects of 20th-century racial injustice and state violence.” “Fleabag” centers on a guinea pig-themed cafe owner mourning the loss of her best friend and mother. Phoebe Waller-Bridge created the dark comedy and stars. Jurors commended “Fleabag’s” “nearly unmatched ability to be playful and devastating, hilarious and poignant, at the same time.”
dream hampton’s “Surviving R. Kelly” and Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ “For Sama” were among the documentary winners. The former sees survivors of R. Kelly’s sexual abuse speaking out against the R&B superstar. Jurors praised the six-part Lifetime docuseries for its “powerful exploration of celebrity, the double standard of justice around gender and race, and how speaking truth can effect change.” Described by jurors as “painful and poetic,” “For Sama” offers a look inside life in Aleppo through five years of the Syrian revolution. “We have all seen the war in Syria in countless news reports, but we have not seen it like this,” jurors noted.
This year’s Peabody Awards ceremony has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
Head over to The Hollywood Reporter to check out all of the winners, which include sexual assault drama “Unbelievable” and “The Edge of Democracy,” Petra Costa’s doc about Brazil’s evolving political landscape. As previously reported, Cicely Tyson is the recipient of this year’s Career Achievement Award.
