Thursday
Jun172021
Dorian TV Award Nominations
Thursday, June 17, 2021 at 7:00PM by Nathaniel R
Pose leads the nominations
The Society for LGBTQ+ Entertainment Journalists, previously known as GALECA, has announced their annual TV nominations ahead of Emmy balloting. A handful of us here at TFE are part of that organization so we had a chance to vote on this. The third season of FX's Pose and Disney+ & Marvel Studio's limited series WandaVision lead the nominations though curiously the latter is not up for the main award in its category. I May Destroy You, It's a Sin, and Mare of Easttown also secured plentiful nominations.
Without further ado the nominees...
BEST TV DRAMA
Bridgerton
The Crown
Lovecraft Country
P-Valley
Pose
BEST TV COMEDY
The Flight Attendant
Girls5eva
Hacks
PEN15
Ted Lasso
BEST LGBTQ SHOW
I May Destroy You
It's A Sin
Love, Victor
Pose
Veneno
Happy to see Love, Victor here since it was just barely released and I assumed it would miss. The second season is stronger than the first with character arcs I've personally never seen investigated with such care and screentime before (parent's reacting to their child's coming out). Usually that sort of thing gets one scene or one episode, tops. Ana Ortiz and James Martinez have really risen to the challenge.
BEST TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES
I May Destroy You
It’s a Sin
Mare of Easttown
Small Axe
The Queen’s Gambit
What a list right? Any one of them would make an excellent winner.
BEST UNSUNG SHOW
A Black Lady Sketch
Show
Girls5eva
Love, Victor
Search Party
Veneno
We Are Who We Are
BEST TV PERFORMANCE
Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You
Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant
Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You
Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant
Thuso Mbedu, The Underground Railroad
Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision
Billy Porter, Pose
Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision
Billy Porter, Pose
MJ Rodriguez, Pose
Jean Smart, Hacks
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
Jean Smart, Hacks
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
Anya Taylor-Joy, The Queen's Gambit
Kate Winslet, Mare of Easttown
We've just switched to gender neutral categories which is why there are 10 nominees. Billy Porter and Jason Sudeikis are the only men nominated.
BEST SUPPORTING TV PERFORMANCE
Gillian Anderson, The Crown
John Boyega, Small Axe
Pappa Essiedu, I May Destroy You
Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision
Marielle Heller, The Queen's Gambit
Callum Scott Howells, It’s a Sin
Dominique Jackson, Pose
Julianne Nicholson, Mare of Easttown
Jean Smart, Mare of Easttown
Bowen Yang, Saturday Night Live
Very pleasantly surprised to see Callum Scott Howells here for It's a Sin. Though I personally thought him a standout but I did not actually vote for him (we only had three votes per category which makes it tough!) and assumed the quiet reserved nature of his role would leave him without honors this year.
BEST TV MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Lady Gaga, "The Star-Spangled Banner," Biden-Harris Inauguration
Jonathan Groff, "You’ll Be Back," Hamilton
Kathryn Hahn, "Agatha All Along,” WandaVision
Elton John & Years & Years, "It’s a Sin,” BRIT Awards 2021
Punkie Johnson, Anya-Taylor Joy, Lil Nas X, Kate McKinnon, Bowen Yang, "Pride Month Song," Saturday Night Live
Bowen Yang (as The Iceberg That Sank the Titanic), “Loverboy,” Saturday Night Live
Not pleased with 3/5ths of this category as there were better options, but all of the nominees are fun!
BEST TV DOCUMENTARY OR DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Framing Britney Spears
I'll Be Gone in the Dark
Pretend It’s a City
Pride
Tina
BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS SHOW
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The Amber Ruffin Show
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Ziwe
BEST ANIMATED SHOW
Big Mouth
Bob’s Burgers
Harley Quinn
Invincible
South Park: The Pandemic Special
BEST REALITY SHOW
Legendary
Nailed It
Queer Eye
RuPaul’s Drag Race
The Great British Bake Off
MOST VISUALLY STRIKING SHOW
Bridgerton
The Crown
Lovecraft Country
Pose
Small Axe
The Mandalorian
WandaVision
I do not know why this category has 7 nominations while the others have 5; one would assume ties unlikely given ranked voting. Curious.
CAMPIEST TV SHOW
At Home with Amy Sedaris
Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square
Eurovision Song Contest
Ratched
WandaVision
I personally always abstain from this category as nobody agrees on the definition of "camp" and I can never get behind a whole category of it.
WILDE WIT AWARD
(
To a performer, writer or commentator whose observations both challenge and amuse)
Michaela Coel
Kathryn Hahn
Fran Lebowitz
Randy Rainbow
Bowen Yang
What do you think of these nominations?
tagged Dorian Awards, Emmys, I May Destroy You, LGBTQ+, Pose, TV, WandaVision, precursor awards
Dorian Awards, Emmys, I May Destroy You, LGBTQ+, Pose, TV, WandaVision, precursor awards
Reader Comments (17)
2 for Jean Smart!! :)
Snubbing Kominski is pure ageism. Guess what? You're all gonna get old and you're all going to look ridiculous with those haircuts.
Bev -- what haircut? I'm bald ;0)
I hate gender neutral categories! You miss the opportunity to reward more artists! I hate that!
angel -- i also hate it for that reason.
Mare of Easttown is Kate Winslet's best way to show the Academy that she was unfairly ignored and deserved a nomination for Ammonite. She's showing them! Really! How to watch that movie and don't nominate her? I'm sure they'll nominate her as compensation for a minor work.
Winslet gives the best performance by an actress in the past year in Mare of Easttown, but that doesn't mean she deserved an Oscar nomination for the very wet Ammonite. It does mean she should be cast more often as a modern woman; it's so refreshing to see her play one.
If not even the gays can respect the holiness of the words "Best Actress" it means we're lost as a species.
To increase artists being honored, what if they gave performances awards by genre/format like they do for the shows overall? Why compare Pappa Essiedu's work to Kathryn Hahn's? And Bowen Yang's job is completely different than anyone else's on that list, which is almost entirely from miniseries.
Great nominees overall! And you're absolutely right about camp, no one agrees on what it means, but Dolly must be the only thing on that list to even come close: musical spectacle + the most earnest sentimentality.
Very happy to see VENENO nominations.
Boooo for the combined acting categories. And since they decided to do it, they should nominate only 5 actors just like in any other category, not 10. It's hypocritical since they want to gain both the hype from such a decision and the star power with many well known hames in their nominations.
Continue to love the love for Jean Smart. And Marielle Heller. And good to see We Are Who We Are hasn't been forgotten.
Absolutely baffled by all the praise for It's A Sin, which felt so pedestrian and was saddled with a truly dreadful leading performance in Olly Alexander. Its refusal to really engage with the politics of the time, or to give so many of its supporting players actual characters to play beyond 'saintly' or whatever we were supposed to take away from Roscoe's storyline with Stephen Fry...And to top it off with maybe the only bad performance I've ever seen Keeley Hawes give? It just wasn't for me, I guess!
ben1283 --- i loved iT'S A SIN but my two qualms about it were 1) the leading performance which was the weakest (and that's always so unfortunate) and 2) that it felt so rushed. I later heard that they originally had a higher episode count which would explain that rushed quality.
i'm just now realizing that GENERA+ION was snubbed and that's so upsetting. such a good show.
Am I the only one who thought the last season of Pose was a little overwrought with speechy/preachy dialogue that no one would actually say to another person? And why do I feel bad just mentioning this? I just think the writers felt like they had to get 40+ minutes of dialogue in, but couldn't quite flesh everyone out, knowing it was their last season. Dominique was the MVP though.
Also, Black Lady Sketch Show is one of the most consistently funny things on TV. While the second season dipped a little, that first season cannot be beat.
Lastly, any love for Michaela Coel and I May Destroy You is welcomed. Such a great Miniseries (or whatever it is being categorized as).
Veneno is great. If more people dared to watch shows in foreign languages, they'd be so rewarded.