Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Emmys Slightly More Diverse than Oscars

After #Oscarssowhite light on the lack of diversity of nominees, eyes were on the Emmy Awards this year. The 2016 Emmys were more diverse, although comedies outpaced dramas in representation.The nominees for best lead actor in a drama series are all white (except for one nominee), while more minority actors in comedy series were nominated. In all, 20 percent of all acting nominees were racial or ethnic minorities.
10 years of mostly white lead actors in drama
See our chart of actor nominees
Rami Malek, who comes from Egyptian descent,  is only non-white actor who has been nominated for or won an Emmy since 2006. In fact, he is the first non-white actor to win best lead actor in a drama series in 18 years for Mr. Robot.
Comedy is more diverse
Since 2006, the nominees for best lead actor in a comedy are still mostly white. Nevertheless, the nominees are move diverse than their drama series counterparts.
This year, the nominees for best actor in a comedy included Aziz Ansari and Anthony Anderson, two non-white actors. In a different kind of diversity, Jeffrey Tambor won the Emmy for his character Maura Pfefferman, a transgender woman in Transparent.
For the full list of Emmy winners and nominees, visit http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominees-winners

By Caroline Miller

Political satire seems unstoppable for Emmy variety honors

No Emmy award in history has been as dominated as the award for Outstanding Variety Series has in the past 14 years. Jon Stewart and his family tree of political satirists have won the last 14 Emmys in this category as well as 13 of the last 14 for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series (Emmys). Their brand of political satire showed such a firm grip on the category that in 2015 the Academy split it into two awards to give other shows a chance, according to the LA Times.

The Stewart Streak
            After being nominated in 2001 and 2002, The Daily Show won its first Outstanding Variety Series Emmy in 2003 (it won Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 2001). For the next decade, eleven other shows received nominations, but The Daily Show never lost. The streak is the longest winning streak for a television show in Emmy Award history (Emmys).

The Colbert Report
            Of the eleven shows that challenged The Daily Show from 2003-2012 only two were political (Real Time with Bill Maher and The Colbert Report). Late night entertainment shows like those of Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien took a healthy share of the nominations (52 percent during Stewart’s run).
When Stewart finally relinquished his hold on the Award, it was to his former Daily Show correspondent  Stephen Colbert. Despite a playful on-screen rivalry over the award, Stewart was an executive producer of The Colbert Report and the award stayed in the Comedy Central family. Colbert would win back-to-back Emmys before conceding to Stewart in 2015, the final year of both of their shows.

Talk vs. Sketch
            Starting in 2015, after more than a decade of political satire ion, the Academy decided to split it in two. According to the LA Times, “the variety series was split in two so ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ didn’t have to compete with ‘Drunk History.’” With two new categories

·      “Outstanding Variety Talk Series”
·      “Outstanding Variety Sketch Series”

shows like “Inside Amy Schumer” (2015 sketch winner) and “Key and Peele” (2016) could compete with more similar peers for recognition.

Post-Stewart/Colbert
With the two shows that owned the Emmy gone, the others were looking at their best chance this century of taking home a trophy. But, it should come as no surprise that the award stayed in the Stewart family of satire. The award went to “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on HBO. Oliver, like Colbert, is a former Daily Show correspondent. Oliver also hosted the Daily Show for eight weeks during the summer of 2013 while Jon Stewart directed his film “Rosewater.”
            While the Comedy Central run may be over, and it looks that way with Trevor Noah being snubbed and Larry Wilmore getting canceled, there’s no doubt that political satire is the variety show of choice for the academy.

Learn More:
LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-st-emmys-live-updates-the-variety-series-emmy-was-split-into-1474097457-htmlstory.html

By Cal Mincer

It's Déjà Vu All Over Again at the Emmys: Julia Louis-Dreyfus Wins Again

The 68th annual Emmys took place on Sunday September 18th, and lead comedy actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus took honors again. The award ceremony celebrates excellence in the television world, nominating the best in TV including actors, actresses, producers, the shows themselves and more. 
So What… 
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ win followed on the previous year, and the four years before that. With five consecutive wins for lead actress in a comedy series – and six in that category in total – Louis-Dreyfus made Emmy history. 
In 2006 Louis-Dreyfus won best lead actress in a comedy series for her role as Christine Campbell in “The New Adventures of Old Christine,”. 
Continuing her winning streak that night, Louis-Dreyfus won another Emmy for producer of “Veep”. Making it the second year in a row that “Veep” has won for best comedy series. 
Will Louis-Dreyfus Beat The Competition? 
Louis-Dreyfus is not far from breaking the record of most Emmys won by a single actor. She is only two away from beating out Cloris Leachman – who currently holds this record with eight Emmy wins strictly as a performer. 
In total, Louis-Dreyfus has received nine Emmys (seven for acting and two for producing) and 22 nominations. Personally, by next year, I will still be an avid “Veep” watcher, rooting for Louis-Dreyfus yet again.
Learn more 
LA Times on Louis-Dreyfus 

Emmy stats analysis

See all the nominees and winners 

By Sarah Richardson

High-Quality Comedy Shows Move Away from Financial Fantasies

Because of shows like Friends, many of us thought we’d be living in massive loft-style apartments by our mid-twenties. Television shows in the early 2000s often had characters with implausable lifestyles. New research reveals that Emmy comedy nominations are increasingly depicting average homes and likely living spaces.
A transition in television
A quick survey each nominated comedy show considered if the characters could afford their living spaces. Between 2006 and 2010, an average of 39 percent of the shows nominated had realistic production sets. In contrast, between 2011 and 2016, an average of 71 percent of the Emmy nominations had authentic living spaces.

Over the past few years, television shows have made an effort to portray characters’ lifestyles accurately. For example, after escaping a doomsday cult, Kimmy Schimdt from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt sleeps in the closet of her friend Titus’ small New York City apartment. Titus is a struggling actor and enhances his apartment with frugal, makeshift furniture pieces.
In reality, Ted Mosby, from the 2009 Emmy nominated show How I Met Your Mother, should be drowning in debt because of his spacious apartment. The 2016 Emmy nomination Master of None portrays a more accurate lifestyle of a struggling young, single millennial.

Win if the price is right
Five-time Emmy winner Modern Family created homes to fit the characters’ means. The writers depict the Dunphy family as an everyday family, decorating the home with catalog furnishings and personality pieces. For the past 10 years, 90 percent of the winning comedy shows have reasonable living spaces.
“Finally, TV characters are financially relatable,” Refinery29 said. It will be interesting to see if television continues to move away from shows with financial fantasies.

By Katrine Ryan

Miniseries topics reflect what’s on the audience’s mind


Miniseries are neat little windows into peoples’ current areas of interest. Because of their limited-episode format, they serve as bite-sized pieces of a bigger culture showing both what people want to seeand what’s going on in the world around them. 
The Los Angeles Times reports "visceral and at times frightening narratives ... running through our popular culture," and miniseries are just the place to find those narratives. According to the Emmys website, “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” won the Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series this year.  Other nominees included
  • ·      “The Night Manager,”
  • ·      “Roots,”
  • ·      “Fargo”
  • ·      “American Crime”

were the other nominees. Interestingly enough, out of the five miniseries listed, four are crime-based – mirroring the fact that police brutality and the unrest surrounding it are currently at the forefront of news.
In 2008, the Emmy nominees  were
  • ·      “John Adams”
  • ·      “The Andromeda Strain”
  • ·      “Cranford”
  • ·      “The Tin Man”

with “John Adams” taking home the award. Two of these were sci-fi, while two were historical dramas. Sci-fi especially is often considered “escapist fiction,” and 2008, not coincidentally, was when the U.S. recession got particularly ugly – according to The State of Working America, the U.S. labor market lost 8.4 million jobs between 2008 and 2009.
Going back a bit farther, nominees in 2000 were
  • ·      “Arabian Nights,”
  • ·      “Jesus,”
  • ·      “P.T. Barnum,”
  • ·      “The Beach Boys: An American Family”
  • ·      and the winner “The Corner.”


Post-9/11, winners became more military-focused, such as “Band of Brothers” in 2002 and “Steven Spielberg Presents Taken” in 2003.
These obviously aren't the only examples - or the only years where national interest was reflected in the Emmy winner. But it's interesting to see how trends change as national attitudes shift.

by Megan Garnache