The Teen Choice Awards Comedy Winners: Who’s Making Gen Z Laugh?
The Teen Choice Awards are a different kind of awards show. No, it’s not the one where people get slimed. That’s the Kids’ Choice Awards. This is a little more grown up. Although, winners do get surfboards instead of actual awards. The Teen Choice ceremony aired on Fox on Sunday night with the teens picking a mix of traditional and non-traditional comedy winners in those categories.
Who’s voting for these comedy award winners? This is the generation following the Millennials known as Generation Z, the iGeneration or Homeland Generation. These are kids with birth years that are from the late 1990s and obviously post-2000, 13 to 19 years olds were the ones encouraged to vote. In the awards show that featured Justin Bieber and One Direction taking home multiple surfboard trophies, Justin Timberlake grabbing the coveted “Decade Award”, and Ariana Grande being named Best Selfie Taker, here’s who came up big in the Teen Choice comedy categories.
When it comes to comedy films, the Teen Choice Comedy Movie award went to Kevin Hart’s “Ride Along 2” which beat out “Barbershop: The Next Cut”, “Mother’s Day”, “Mr. Right”, “The Intern” and “Zoolander 2”. Makes you wonder if someone actually had teens in mind when they came up with the nominees? This was one of two awards that went Kevin Hart’s way. He also won the Choice Summer Movie Actor award for “Central Intelligence”. He was up against some movie nominees that seemed more teen friendly, including Stephen Amell for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”, Dave Franco for “Now You See Me 2”, the Hemsworth Brothers, (Chris for “Ghostbusters” and Liam for “Independence Day: Resurgence”) and Hart’s co-star Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson for “Central Intelligence”.
Continuing in the movie categories, the voting for Choice Movie Actor: Comedy seems to have been influenced by looks a lot more than comparable comic ability. Zac Efron won the award for “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” with his co-star Seth Rogen not even being nominated. Efron grabbed the surfboard award over fellow nominees Ice Cube “Barbershop: The Next Cut” and “Ride Along 2”, both Key and Peele for “Keanu”, Kevin Hart for “Ride Along 2” and Will Ferrell for “Daddy’s Home”.
The award for Teen Choice Movie Actress: Comedy went to a fellow teen. 19 year old Chloe Grace Moretz won for “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising”, winning out over Jennifer Aniston (Mother’s Day), Anna Kendrick (Mr. Right), Anne Hathaway (The Intern), Melissa McCarthy (The Boss) and Nicki Minaj (Barbershop: The Next Cut).
As for as the teen television comedy awards go, the Gen Z’ers have a list of favorites that don’t exactly match up with the more adult Emmy Awards or other awards shows. These nominations included a couple of Disney Channel favorites. The Choice TV Show: Comedy award when to the nostalgic Netflix series 1990s spin-off, “Fuller House”, proving John Stamos and Bob Saget right when they hoped that a whole new generation would discover these characters. “Fuller House” won over other nominated shows, “Austin & Ally”, “Jane the Virgin”, “Liv and Maddie”, “Modern Family” and “Scream Queens”.
The winner of Choice TV Actor: Comedy beat out some very funny actors even though he’s more known as a singer and musician now. Disney’s Ross Lynch won for Austin & Ally, over Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Anthony Anderson (Black-ish), Jaime Camil (Jane the Virgin), Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) and Taylor Lautner (Cuckoo).The Teen Choice TV Actress: Comedy award added to the “Fuller House” domination of teen comedy TV favorites with Candace Cameron Bure winning. She beat Dove Cameron (Liv & Maddie), Emma Roberts (Scream Queens), Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin), Laura Marano (Austin & Ally) and Lea Michele (Scream Queens).
Wrapping up the television comedy awards, the Choice TV: Animated Show was awarded to “Family Guy”, winning over “Descendants: Wicked World”, “Gravity Falls”, “Over the Garden Wall”, “Steven Universe”, and “The Simpsons”.
Finally who did the teens aged 13 to 19 pick as their Choice Comedian?? That award went to Ellen DeGeneres. Her fellow nominees included Aziz Ansari, James Corden (are they allowed to stay up that late!?), Jimmy Fallon. Jordan Doww and Kevin Hart.
For anyone who still says they don’t understand teenagers these days, a good place to start might be to sit down with them and see what’s making them laugh.
A complete list of all the Teen Choice winners can be found at the Hollywood Reporter.
