‘Queen’s Gambit’ Director Ripped For Long Acceptance Speech: “You Are Not Debbie Allen”

The Queen’s Gambit just won its first Emmy of the night, and people are not happy. That hatred has nothing to do with frustration over chess, by the way. While accepting the award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, Scott Frank waved away his sendoff music not once, not twice, but three times. Three times, people. Already you know that people on Twitter were not having it.

If you know anything about awards shows, you know that the music sendoff is a pretty big deal. Sometimes when celebrities win awards, they like to give really long speeches. It’s a fair impulse since it’s theoretically one of the biggest nights of their life. And since the Emmys are broadcast on television, a medium defined by time constraints, those long speeches pose a problem. Often when a star, writer, or director goes on and on the powers that be will play loud music over them, the universal cue to wrap it up, bud. Scott heard that cue repeatedly and decided no.

It’s a power move that Debbie Allen made earlier in the night when she was accepting the 2021 Governor’s Award. Soon after she started her speech, she waved off the time constraints, saying that she saw the clock but she wasn’t going to pay attention to it. It was a lovely diva move from a living legend worthy of the word. From Fame and A Different World to Grey’s Anatomy, Allen has changed Hollywood for the better.

Scott Frank is not Debbie Allen. As such, he does not possess this superpower. Twitter was quick to point that out:

In case the world needs a refresher, if you’re a living legend everyone adores and has created a non-profit Dance Academy, you can tell the Emmys to go screw themselves. That’s the joy of transcending fame. If you’re the chess show dude, then sorry. We’ll listen to Debbie Allen all day, but not your three sheets of printer paper. Those are just the rules.

But while we’re on the topic, there’s something we need to address. Did you know that you could just ignore the music sendoff? And literally nothing will happen to you? Not to downplay the social shaming of Twitter, but there were seemingly no repercussions for Scott Frank’s “should have been an email” speech. No one ran on stage and bodily removed him. No frowning suits snatched away his Emmy. There wasn’t even a finger wag. I’m just saying the music sendoff, like most things in life, is actually toothless. Future Emmy winners who aren’t Scott Frank, use that information as you will.

Watch The Queen's Gambit on Netflix