Emmy Balloting Obsessiveness

As you're no doubt aware, given our ongoing Emmy FYCs, the Television Academy is voting this week on the nominations for the 67th annual Primetime Emmy Awards (Sept 20th, 2015). Apologies to the small screen averse among you but as the lines blur between all the performing arts, so must we! We'll be back to a heavier movie focus in July but you know how June is: Tony Season climaxes and then Emmy voting happens. Consider Elisabeth Moss your new bridge mascot since she was just a nominee at the Tonys and she's in an Oscar-hopeful movies this year (Truth with Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett) and could be up for a final Emmy for her signature role Peggy Olson (Mad Men).

Ack!

It's so easy to get distracted when awards of any kind are the topic. Here are a few observations about the ballots after the jump but first...  please to enjoy this NEW CATEGORY PROPOSAL (We need 2 more nominees for this category so that's your job in the comments)

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The Toughest Emmy Quandary: Supporting Actress in a Drama Series?

We begin an Emmy FYC series tomorrow (Daily at Noon) since voting commences this month for nominations for the 67th Annual Emmy Awards. Emmy rules allow for 6 acting nominees per category. Though I shudder when any pundit suggests expanding lineups in any awards show -- it reduces the meaning if it's easy to get nominated -- if there were ever a convincing argument against honoring twice as many actors as usual, isn't it the 2015 Supporting Actress in a Drama Series field? 

THE FACTS
For the past three years the category has been almost exclusively dominated by five women. The 2012, 2013 and 2014 seasons saw a nominated shortlist that always included Christine Baranski (5 nominations for The Good Wife, 7 previous nominations with 1 win), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men, 5 nominations), Maggie Smith (4 nominations and 2 wins for Downton Abbey, 4 previous nominations with another win) and Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad, 3 nominations and 2 wins). Joanna Froggatt (Downton Abbey, 2 nominations) was usually in the lineup as well leaving very little wiggle room for other fine actresses. Essentially voters had one free spot each year that they were then quite fickle with. All but one of these five women are still eligible (Breaking Bad is finally off the air) which begs the question of how Emmy will deal with so many new and valuable players from freshman series or players who've been coalescing fans and momentum towards nominations without quite breaking in for other series.

Unless Emmy is willing to ditch one of their four beloveds (and it better not be Hendricks who had such a great sendoff in Mad Men and has been robbed in the past) there's only room for two newbies or returning players and there are a couple dozen of them (at least) to consider after the jump...

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Emmy's New Rulings Are Game-Changers

After years of gripes about tv shows "gaming" the system to get more nominations - like Downton Abbey pretending it was a miniseries before it was a series and True Detective pretending it was a regular series instead of a miniseries or Joan Cusack pretending she was a "guest" on Shameless for years on while starring in every episode - suddenly things have changed. Next year's Emmy races in both Drama and Comedy will be forced to look very different. And I'm not just talking about Breaking Bad finally being out of the way (thank God!)

The big changes and the one show most affected after the jump...

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Red Carpet Lineup: The 21st Annual SAG Awards

Greetings, fashion followers and actress admirers! Anne Marie and Margaret here with the Screen Actors Guild Awards edition of Red Carpet Lineup. We're carrying on without Nathaniel this time, since he's over at Sundance walking some red carpets of his own.

Anne Marie:  Last night held few surprises awards-wise, but the red carpet looks were as wide-ranging as Tatiana Maslany's clones in Orphan Black. Without further ado, let's talk fashion!

Margaret: Color-wise, it was a subdued red carpet, so let's start with some of the ladies in black and white: our queen Viola (VIOLAAAAAA), it-girl Emma Stone, the Supreme Sarah Paulson, and proud "complicated woman" Maggie Gyllenhaal. Which neutral getup is your favorite?

Anne Marie:  VIOLAAAAAA! Damn, she looked good. She sounded good, too. That speech was wonderful, and almost made me forgive How To Get Away With Murder for its grievous faults. Sarah Paulson, queen of my heart and the master of photobombs, is also rocking that black and white dress. I don't, as a general rule, like two-piece separate dresses like this, but she is... dare I say... bewitching. (Groan all you like but it's true.)

Margaret: I have to say, all four of these ladies' makeup artists deserve a serious bonus. Their faces look magnificent.

Anne Marie: True. Although, what the heck is going on with Emma Stone's dress? She looks like she's wearing an oversized suit jacket with a gauze skirt stapled on.

Margaret: Perhaps it's an avant-garde nod to her Birdman role, an abstracted fashion cape?

Anne Marie:  Sort of a Lois-Lane-by-way-of-Morticia-Addams kind of thing?

Margaret: Sure looks like it. If I'm honest, I hope her people pull her something twice as kooky for the Oscars. Liven things up a smidge.

Anne Marie: Any final thoughts on our first 4 ladies in white-and-black?

Margaret: Just that Maggie Gyllenhaal's cleavage keyhole amuses me, and that I'm almost sorry that Frances McDormand beat her last night because after the glorious stoneface Ms. McDormand produced after losing at the Golden Globes, I can't help but mourn for the gifs that might have been.

Now, on to our second lineup, the theme of which is WINNERS. 

Maternity couture, OITNB, and casting ideas for a gritty Little Mermaid reboot after the jump...

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Lesbian Request Accepted

Manuel here to share a rather beautiful coming out story from the Orange is the New Black set that has been spanning salacious headlines for the past twenty-four hours.

The short version: Lauren Morelli, a writer on the hit Netflix series has come out as a lesbian, and is now dating Samira Wiley (Poussey on the show, because, I mean, wouldn't you?)

The longer version: Morelli, who had married her longtime boyfriend months before starting work on Orange's first season, found, in writing Piper and Alex's relationship, "a mouthpiece for my own desires and a glimmer of what my future could look like." It was in working on the show that she came to terms with her sexuality and is no happily dating Wiley. What I love about these news is that in true Orange fashion, it comes armed with a fascinating take on sexuality and the power of artistic expression. In a piece for Mic published in May (ahead of the show's second season), Morelli wrote a heartfelt essay where she explored the nuances that "I'm getting divorced because I'm gay" didn't quite allow for. I can't help but have flashbacks to Cynthia Nixon's public coming out in 2004 which came equally loaded with fascinating and thoughtful conversations about lesbian identities in the public eye.

This got me thinking, with its female cast, its no-holds-barred take on sexuality, and its use of New York as both backdrop and character, is Orange is the New Black an unassuming heir to Sex and the City? More importantly, though, are you not totally thrilled about Poussey finding love? Does this news keep you sated as we continue to wait until next year for more stories of the Litchfield inmates?