The Best and Worst Celebrity Speeches of the DNC's Second Night

"The DNC is going to be So. Fucking. Boring." Several colleagues expressed that sentiment to me late last week, when the last-20-minutes-of-The House of the Devil-esque Republican National Convention was winding down.

The sentiment was understandable: Yes, pivoting from a week-long parade of race-baiting and fear-mongering to something more closely approaching sanity would provide sweet relief, but there was a very real possibility that the Democratic Party would take a dull, middle-of-the-road approach while laying out its agenda this week. The RNC resembled what would happen if you filled your racist grandfather with fireworks and threw a match down his throat, and who could compete with such a spectacle as that?

And yet—people are watching the DNC. Not only that, but more people are watching the DNC so far than they did the RNC. This is, on one level, hopeful—partially because it presents the notion that there's another purpose to this election cycle besides watching the firmament of democracy burn to ash.

But also because there's been some truly inspiring moments to come from this week so far: Besides Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Warren's powerful first-night moments, the second night of the DNC featured the Mothers of the Movement urging the party and America to make meaningful strides toward police and gun reform for the sake of black lives and the future of humanity. "This isn't about being politically correct," said Sybrina Fulton, mother of slain black teenager Trayvon Martin. "This is about saving our children." (If only Fox News viewers got the message.)

Less effective was Elizabeth Banks, whose Trump-parodying entrance fell about as flat as, well, the rest of her speech. Political humor is always a risk, even for the most seasoned of comedians—and make no mistake, Banks is typically a capable and funny presence. But perhaps it wasn't a shock that her jabs about The Hunger Games and wolfing down cheesesteaks were met with a "please clap" level of enthusiasm.

I previously mentioned how musical performances similarly stand on a wobbly precipice at events like this, but the DNC's second night featured some strong performances by R&B newcomer Andra Day and Alicia Keys, the latter of which dropped a hot one-two punch by performing the immortal As I Am track "Superwoman" and her extremely sick trop-house single "In Common." Perhaps less effective was the Brady Bunch-meets-Pomplamoose rendition of Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," the type of viral video that actually stands to make viewers sick to their stomaches with cloying sweetness.

Making memes is something that Hillary Clinton and Democrats have struggled with in this election cycle, perhaps to the point where one wishes they'd just stop trying and become the physical manifestation of a stack of New Yorker back issues that we all know they are. So it was surprising that the DNC's second night was loaded with potent viral moments, from Howard Dean's sorta-recreation of the famous "scream" (watch it above), to Meryl Streep's extremely dope flag dress, to Lena Dunham and America Ferrera's concise, withering arrows fired directly at Trump's campaign. (It was relieving not to see Dunham, a smart and talented artist who is nonetheless responsible for one of the worst tweets of all time, step in it while speaking out—Lord knows she certainly could have.)

And of course, there was Bill Clinton's epic poem of a speech, a 42-minute marathon that made Forrest Gump's bus-stop pontificating seem like the length of a Vine by comparison. Perhaps the strangest revelation, tucked within Clinton's warm blanket of an oration, was the fact that he and daughter Chelsea had watched all six movies in the risible Police Academy franchise in one day—an impressive-enough feat that caused "Police Academy" to briefly trend on Twitter.

But the most bizarre viral moment came after Alicia Keys's performance, when a montage of US Presidents were shown on screen before Hillary appeared amidst shattered fragments, a literal representation of breaking the glass ceiling by being the first woman nominated for president by a major political party. The visual effect landed somewhere between a Dril Tweet and a Scientology-orientation video, but the message was resounding and clear: This is history being made, and it's, as Joe Biden would put it, a big fucking deal. There's hope that the country recognizes that too—but with that comes unfortunate reminders that progress is, above all else, slow.

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