Mandy Moore and More: Getting Cultured at the Las Culturistas Culture Awards
Gay icons Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers present the *most important* awards show of the season
I’m often a bit late to every party, culturally speaking. About the only piece of culture I was absolutely ready for (and counting the days down to) was the series premiere of Dawson’s Creek back in 1998. Which is why it’s not really a surprise to me that earlier this year, the year 2024, I discovered the podcast Las Culturistas hosted by writers, comedians, actors (and best friends) Bowen Yang (SNL, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens, Fire Island) and Matt Rogers (I Love That For You, Have You Heard of Christmas?, Fire Island). To be clear, this was a personal discovery; the extremely popular and successful podcast has been in existence since 2016. I was just not plugged in enough, and I will feel the shame of that for the rest of my pop-culture-loving days.
Every week, Matt and Bowen discuss popular culture, gay culture, and sometimes have guests from the comedy/entertainment spectrum. Their perspectives and hot takes are side-splitting hilarious but they balance each episode with moments of real levity and brazen honesty. Listening is like getting invited on a best friend date with two people who care about each other a lot, and love creating together too.
On June 15, the podcast hosted its third annual in-person landmark event, The Culture Awards: an awards show dedicated to hilarious moments and figures in popular culture, regardless of time and space. For example: Record of the Year nominations went both to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, released in 2024, and “Gardenia” by Mandy Moore, released in 2007. (Incidentally “Espresso” won both this award and the Titanic Award for Monoculture.) Awards categories are announced several weeks in advance, and the Las Culturistas fandom is encouraged to suggest nominees via social media in the weeks leading up to the nominees reveal.
The awards categories are the stuff of legend. There are 100 categories and these are just a smattering from the 2024 categories list:
Slack Award for Best W.F.H. Technology (winner: “Corrupting a file on purpose so you can buy some time”)
Kraft Mac and Cheese Award for Best Cheese (winner: “Feta”),
#ActuallySmart Award for Don’t Judge a Book By It’s Cover (winner: “Elle Woods”)
Best Kind of Story (winner: “Hard to digest at first, but ultimately really meaningful, and I’m happy we saw that”)
Make the Bed Award for Thing We Will Get Around to Doing, Maybe (winner: “text Rachel back, it’s literally not personal”)
“Imma Try That!” Award for Thing We’d Like to Join, Try, or Know More About (winner: “Gay volleyball!”)
Most Memorable Line in a TV Show (winner: “I do too much because you do too little.” Phaedra, The Traitors)
How Dare You Award for Betrayal (winner: “Reality Von Tease, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”)
The Tina Fey Award for Wisdom (winner: “Grandmother Willow, Pocahontas”)
Most Amazing Impact in Film (winner: “Messi, Anatomy of a Fall”)
“No, But Actually” Award for Excellence Heretofore Unrecognized By Las Cultch (winner: “Lana Del Rey”)
Bridge of the Year (winner: “‘Treacherous,’ Taylor Swift”)
Best Collection of Sounds Together (winner: “Cowboy Carter”)
Some awards were announced ahead of time in the lead up to the event, specifically Seth Meyers winning for Best Vibe, Hands Down.
This year’s awards was held at the historic King’s Theater in Brooklyn, NY, a stunning, gorgeous 3,000-person venue that sold out almost as soon as the tickets went on sale. I was one of those lucky 3,000 in attendance. The dress code? “Awards Gold.” As I arrived there was a palpable excitement in the air that this indeed was the New York event of the season, even if the Tony Awards were the next day. Attendees took the dress code very seriously, showing up in everything from gold sequined jackets to gold hued tee shirts to sparkly ball gowns. Me? I wore my favorite gold sneakers, gold nail polish, and as much gold glitter eyeshadow as I could pile on my face.
When the show finally started, the crowd was on their feet. Matt and Bowen made their grand entrances up the aisles from the back of the orchestra to the stage, each on motorized scooters. When they reached the stage, they broke into song: “Single Soon,” by Selena Gomez (naturally). The audience was pumped, and so they were all too happy to oblige Bowen and Matt when they asked everyone to rise and recite Tina Fey’s guest appearance “I Don’t Think So, Honey” monologue that ends with “authenticity is dangerous and expensive.”
And it was off to the races. Literally. RuPaul’s Drag Race former contestant Peppermint was anointed Miss Culturista, and would be handing out the awards all night. And if one literal queen wasn’t…enough, the immensely talented Loren Allred then graced the stage to sing “Never Enough” from The Greatest Showman, and brought down the house.
Comedian Heather McMahon presented the Joy Behar Award For Stand-Up Comedy, but not before making sure the audience knew she’d never been asked to be on the podcast. That award, though, went to fictional comedy icon Deborah Vance of Hacks, with comedian Hannah Einbeinder (Hacks, Everything Must Go) accepting the award for her fake boss (despite being nominated herself).
Many awards categories and their winners were read aloud in between video acceptances from celebs and special guests handing out landmark awards. The TODAY Show Award for Excellence in the Morning went to Hoda Kotb and Jenna Hager, of the TODAY Show, and they sent in a video acceptance speech. Rachel Brosnahan won the NYU Award for Can’t Believe We Went to College With Her (as Bowen and Matt indeed went to college with Mrs. Maisel herself) and sent in a video acceptance speech. Julia Fox won–and accepted in person, the Julia Fox Award for Overall Excellence!!!!! (Exclamation points are part of the category.)
The award for Best Picture (Literal Picture) was bestowed upon “Four Women on a Beach (The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City)” and accepted by RHOSLC cast member Meredith Marks. The crowd, as you can imagine, went WILD.
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Other guests included Julio Torres, Tomás Matos, Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, and George Civeris (StraightioLab podcast). Parvati Shallow and Mae Martin won the Billie Eilish Award for LGBTQ+ Announcement and appeared in separate videos, breaking up live on camera. (Though Vulture dubbed this a Loser moment for us, the audience; we really bought it and later the couple had to clarify that it was a bit for the comedy show.) And comedian Nikki Glaser sent in a video acceptance for winning the Phillipa Soo Award for Best Thing to Burn (official title of her win: “Nikki Glaser roasting everyone.”)
In one of my favorite moments of the night, the Cate Blanchett Award for Good Acting was awarded to Mary Todd Lincoln, and comedian and actor Cole Escola, writer and star of the comedy play Oh, Mary! accepted the award in the full Mary Todd Lincoln costume from the play. This was a triumphant, niche New York theater moment, as Oh, Mary! has just finished a blockbuster off-Broadway run and is about to transition to Broadway.
The most important part of The Culture Awards, for me, though, was the presentation of the Lifetime Of Culture Award to the one and only Mandy Moore.
Moore was a guest on the podcast a couple months back, and Matt and Bowen have talked about their obsession with her work and talent range over several episodes. We watched an incredible video montage of her life’s work from “Candy” to her roles in Saved!, The Princess Diaries, and A Walk to Remember, to her later albums like Wild Hope, to her epic and unforgettable role on This is Us, all interspersed with messages of love and praise from legends like Jodi Benson, Sandra Oh, and Donna Murphy. Matt and Bowen’s favorite Mandy Moore song (and mine), “Gardenia,” was performed by indie singer Waxahatchee just before the queen of the evening arrived on stage for her acceptance speech.
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In a stunning moment, the entire crowd chanted “Mandy Moore! Mandy Moore! Mandy Moore!” for a solid minute or two, and as a dedicated fan of hers since the very beginning of her career, I was chanting right along with them.
There was still one big award to hand out: Record of the Year. Every song nominated had been sung by someone throughout the night: “Single Soon” by Selena Gomez (sung by Matt and Bowen), Loren Allred’s “Never Enough” (sung by Loren herself), “Gardenia” (sung by Waxahatchie), “II Most Wanted” by Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus (sung by Matt, Bowen, Josh, and Aaron–dressed in assless chaps, sparkly tees and cowboy hats, and mashing it up with Stevie Nicks’ “L:andslide”-it was as magical and hilarious as it sounds), and “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter (sung by Tomás Matos–with a NYC accent and a team of dancers doing the music video choreo). As mentioned above, the award officially went to “Espresso,” (incidentally my choice for Song of the Summer) complete with video intro from THE Sabrina Carpenter who addressed the crowd with “Hi gays!”
A celebration of everything we collectively love about popular culture–the inspiring art, peculiar and funny moments, celebrity gossip and conversation starters–The Culture Awards truly was one of the most fun events I’ve ever been to, and I hope to attend again next year. No matter what, I’ll be listening to every episode of Las Culturistas from here on out (and also Matt and Bowen’s newly announced Olympics coverage podcast, Two Guys, Five Rings). Get on board, so next year’s Culture Awards won’t pass you by!
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