Emmy Aftermath: The Repetitions, The Rules, The Fixes.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014 at 1:29PM Well hear we are the day after the 66th Emmy Awards... or was it the 65th? or 62nd? or 60? It gets so hard to tell what with their refusal to spread the wealth. This number may not be 100% accurate but from my rough calculations anyone/anything who won Emmys last night had, on average, two previous statues.
No matter how great any one performance or show is, is it seems downright criminal to only honor that one thing. Think of how many people couldn't have Emmys for acting because of, say, Bryan Cranston's 5 statues for Walter White. I wish more voters would think of it that way. There's no argument among anybody who has watched it, even off and on like myself, that he didn't do great work but is his work 5 times greater than Jon Hamm's best work as Don Draper? 3 times greater than Michael C Hall's work as Dexter? And so on. He would have also prevented Kyle Chandler from that awesome tearjerking Friday Night Lights win had he been eligible that year. You just can't tell me his work is more valuable than all of those men combined and his Emmy run blocked so many gifted actors from winning television's top honor. Same with Aaron Paul (3 statues) and Allison Janney (6 statues, 4 from one role). Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a slightly different case. She's a stellar performer (great in every series she's been in) but three statues is more than enough for the same performance especially when it means Amy Poehler's genius continues to go unrewarded. Yet at least Julia's 5 statues are distributed across 3 roles.
When you obsessively award one person over and over for the same performance you're really saying that nobody else in town is remotely of their calibre which is a depressing way to judge artistry, which is so subjective and has room for multiple conceptions of "Best". But perhaps the problem is in the voting process. (According to Gold Derby at least, voters rank the performances and whoever has the lowest score (i.e. you want first and second finishes, means that if you're everyone's second favorite you will probably win each and every year since the slightly more divisive series won't stand a chance. This could also explain why Modern Family just continues to hog Emmys though most critics think its glory days are long behind it. Maybe it's everyone's #2 and their number #1s are all over the place.)
"LESBIAN REQUEST DENIED" - Jodie & Laverne and several other OITNB nominees lost their categories.Though Emmy night wasn't at all interesting (I am reminded why I have never watched it religiously) the Emmy season was with all the controversies. For months there's been heated divisive arguments about Broadcast vs. Cable and whether they should be in direct competition. Official word is "we're not going to go there," that they'll never split up the categories. But couldn't some of the results in part have been about network TV actors finally rallying and saying 'enough with online and cable!' HBO still led in actual wins but it had very few televised wins so most of its triumphs were in the non-marquee categories. And Netflix, which has brought so much energy to the TV game, tanked. Orange is the New Black, easily one of the best and most-obsessed-over shows on TV, only managed two wins, neither of them televised.
Herewith my proposal on how to fix the Emmys, to prevent all the controversial gaming of the system and the relentless repetition which does no service to an industry enjoying a lot of Golden Age goodwill. Every week on the internet you read about some new great achievement in television and everyone's top tens look different and people are just so excited with all that's on offer and every year at the Emmys the picture they present to the world is. 'We only make a few good shows. Sorry bout it.'
Proposed Rule Fixes
- No category hopping. Once you've submitted one way, you can't pretend you've become something else.
- Seriously consider best half hour series and best hour series instead of Drama vs. Comedy because nearly all the best work in any artform has both dramatic substance and a sense of humor. Orange is the New Black is hilarious but people kept being mad that it was placed in comedy because its drama is so effective.
- If your name is in the opening credits you MAY NOT submit as a "guest" -- this is supposedly the guideline right now but very few actors follow it if they think they have a better shot at "guest." If you are in every episode, even if you're not in the opening credits, you MAY NOT submit as a "guest."
- Cap of three wins for any performance of the same role.
- Strict rules on number of episodes you must produce to qualify as anything other than a miniseries. I personally think the rule should be 10. How are shows with only 7 episodes competing in series?
Emmy really needs to lock down some rules about anthology series. Are they miniseries like AMERICAN HORROR STORY or regular series like TRUE DETECTIVE. It shouldn't be either or.
What do you think would help fix the Emmys?
P.S. Here are my personal awards for last night's show
Best Duo: Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Bryan Cranston
Best Sports: The Mad Men actors who will complete this historic series with none of them ever having won for their terrific complex creations. And yet they show every year and smile and even endure the jokes about it now.
Classier Than It Often Is: In Memoriam
Dependably Funny Person Who Was Amazingly Funny: Amy Poehler
Dependably Funny Person Who Was Not at all Funny: Sarah Silverman
Most Ubiquitous Color: Orange (skin) vs Red (dresses)
Most Awesome Loser Reaction: Julia Roberts
Most Depressing Loser Reaction: Cicely Tyson
Best Dressed: Lizzy Caplan
Hottest Arm Candy: Julianna Marguiles husband. In perpetuity.
Most Annoying Emmy Obsession: Seriously why even have a Reality category if you consistently ignore the really creative ones (hello RuPaul's Drag Race) and just hand The Amazing Race the prize ever year. 10 wins! Ridiculous
Most Satisfying Win: None. The closest would be The Normal Heart which I liked (but didn't love)
Happy Realization: There is room for at least a smidgeon of movement in next year's Best Drama races since Breaking Bad will be gone from all categories.
Bitter Realization: That won't help the repetitive factor in Comedy since Modern Family is still with us and still winning... and not just in the top category.
New EGOTs: None. And people we thought might edge closer (Julia, Cicely & Matthew) did not.
Photo that perfectly sums up Emmy night via Lena Dunham & Instagram
Reader Comments (65)
Margaret -- that's not what I meant. I wasn't talking about shows but number of wins by people. And only on the broadcast itself. By my calculation even when you factor in the newbies, they're offset by the people who've won 3 to 11 Emmys so the average is 3.
Arkaan -- god, why does everyone make this about my feelings for Mad Men? My feelings for Mad Men are irrelevant. I believe in these rules fixes ALSO applying to Mad Men. I am not a hypocrite. I've already said I don't think Mad Men should have been eligible this year (I think split seasons are gaming the system and it's going to get worse if we don't stop it.
and I genuinely think it's a problem that things can win so many times. It makes people lazy, it makes the awards mean less, and it sends the message that there just isn't that much good television out there. A frankly TERRIBLE message to be sending out at this point in the game. It's like when the Oscars look at an aamzing year like 1999 and nominated a really uninspiring list of films. That is the image of your industry you want to promote?
The thing is, I don't think they split the seasons because of Awards. As much as I'm sure AMC loves their trophies, I just feel they the decision to do drag out the ends of MM and BB weren't purely award-oriented. Those shows are the staples of the network. The Walking Dead was still somewhat popular in numbers last time I checked, but it never created internet frenzy and became reference in popular culture. And AMC doesn't have anything that special going on right now, while HBO has Game of Thrones and Netflix came out with OITNB, and I think they wanted to hang on to their really relevant players for as long as possible.
Personally, I'm opposed to capping wins or even nominations, even if seeing Modern Family win year after year drives me up the walls. I think it look punishing to the winners, instead of addressing the real issue, which are the voters and the voting system, and how even as things change and get more diverse and they try to catch up, they still don't vote that outside that box at all. It still takes that little aura of prestige for different shows to break in, and there is such a gap between what's great and what's awards-material.
Tee, while I agree with you that splitting seasons is not just about awards--it's about MONEY--I think you are way off about The Walking Dead, internet frenzy and pop culture. (And its ratings remain phenomenal; the season 4 premiere was the most watched broadcast in basic cable history.)
THE NORMAL HEART winning as Best TV Movie was my Best Moment of the evening, even if I was disappointed that both Kramer both Bomer left empty-handed
Ah, no one should feel bad for Julia Roberts losing to Kathy Bates. Kathy deserved the Oscar win in 1990 and Julia Roberts only had to wait ten more years to win hers.
So maybe she wins an Emmy in ten years. *lol*
If we're going to be fair, award shows (all of them) should be done every 5 years, giving out 5 trophies for each category resulting in 5 different winners (if there's more than one great nominee from the same year there won't be trouble, just as if there is a lacking year of greatness). But how odd that would be?
Sonja: Not only did Bates beat Roberts for the Emmy–Anjelica Huston's brother had to witness it while seated behind Bates on her right hand side.
Paul - I admit I really don't know what's going on with TWD these days. "I'm the one who knocks" was a big fever all over the world, though. Even in my country it was easy to find all sorts of clothes and stuff with the quote stamped on it, even from people who didn't watch the show. And it's so rare I see anything attached to TWD at all. I just thought it had died down a little, but I'm probably just not paying attention
Here's the part I don't get. What makes something a season split in two as opposed to two separate, shorter seasons? Why are these last eight episodes the second half of Season 5 as opposed to Season 6, and why are next year's episodes of Mad Men not Season 8? Season 5 of Breaking Bad feels like two separate seasons, what makes them the same season? This is something that never ceases to confuse me (I would say the same thing about the last 9 episodes of The Sopranos, why aren't they Season 7?)...
@Richter: Simply stated, contract negotiations (talent, advertising, network, DVD) are based on the number of seasons. One example: An actor's agent may want to go for a salary bump between seasons 6 and 7. That is hindered by splitting season 6 into two installments.
Arkaan -- god, why does everyone make this about my feelings for Mad Men? My feelings for Mad Men are irrelevant. I believe in these rules fixes ALSO applying to Mad Men. I am not a hypocrite.
Not to my observation on this subject. At this point, I feel like if I debate with you on television, I'm trolling you. If you feel that to be the case, I apologize and won't engage (seriously, it's your website and I'm a guest). But briefly speaking
Your rule change ("Cap of three wins for any performance of the same role.") would never have hurt Mad Men as it hasn't won anything for performers repeatedly. I don't understand how having a show win repeatedly is inherently less problematic than an individual; I don't believe that honoring Bryan Cranston four times out of six is lazier than honoring Modern Family five times out of five (understanding that I'm more okay with MF than Bryan Cranston). That you think the show was the best show on television for six years in a row seems to be the deciding factor there.
Do you see why I hold the opinion I do?
Arkaan -- i never said I'd give Mad Men the win six times. But maybe. I'd have to think about it and remember what was showing in the same season against it as not all seasons are equal. There might have been a year I'd have handed it to the brilliant Friday Night Lights instead. The only reason I cited this season is because it's fresh in the memory and I think Masters of Sex outdid them. I don't think of you as trolling me but I do believe that you have predisposition to get nitpicky when I talk television (which i understand - we all do that when we find someone we disagree with regularly) which results in you assuming I'm saying things that I'm not saying or extrapolating until I'm saying something I'm not really saying but something that would annoy you even more ;) . which is frustrating.
For what it's worth I felt this way before Mad Men existed. When I was young I was super aggravated that Rhea Perlman on Cheers and Candice Bergen on Murphy Brown hogged the female comedy awards for so many years. In the 90s I got sick of Doris Roberts winning for doing her same shtick (hilarious as it was) on Everybody Loves Raymond each year. Bergen finally bowed out for the last seasons of Murphy Brown, after winning five but most actors are too desperately in need of validation to be that gracious and realize it really ought to be someone else's turn.
Anyway, a show is not a person. It's like that whole "corporations are people" thing. No, they are not. That's the reason I didn't suggest capping shows. But I guess you could make an argument for that if you wanted and I would probably support it just because When In Doubt, Share the Wealth.
I absolutely believe what I'm saying that the Emmys are sending the exact opposite message to the world than the one everyone who loves TV is constantly stating "the golden age the golden age"... you simply can't have a golden age with just one or two golden things, you know? golden ages are about a wide reach of great stuff like the late 30s early 40s in movies. not one or two highlights.
Paul -- those contracts must be crazy specific... in that I guess they're locked into a certain amount of episodes period rather than time frames. so they can mess with season designations all they want really, within those confines I suppose.
Nat, I don't know all the ins and out of those various contracts, but some of the talent-related ones are union-mandated, others are just about wringing the most revenue possible out a given show.
a) I am more Nick than Nathaniel here. I love ties in critics derbies. I don't have strict rules of no-documentaries-or-shorts in my top ten. I don't have limits on the number of nominees I allow (I had 15 supporting actors in a drama nominated in the 06/07 season, and have no issue with that). I think the Emmys right now are TOO restrictive (they don't allow television that is solely foreign-funded, for example).
b) A Golden Age by definition celebrates as much as humanly possible, which the Emmys have failed totally at. But at the same time - yes, I think James Gandolfini deserved six emmys for The Sopranos (though I would have him tie for a couple of them). I'm hoping Modern Family wins a record breaking sixth emmy for best comedy next year. Why? Because I think you have to take all these things with a sea of salt. I would rather Cranston gets five emmys for Breaking Bad than Jeff Daniels gets once - the former did truly excellent work in brilliance, the latter did solid work in mediocrity. I'd argue that the nominations were pretty horrible so default choices were fine by me.
The people in Hollywood will vote for whom they want. We can rant and rave over what was the best show or who gave the best performance. In the end, it's all subjective.