By Todd VanDerWerff
There's been a lot of complaining about the Emmys this year, and with good reason. The Emmy nominations have often ranged from puzzling to incomprehensible, but this year's crop seems worse than usual, featuring numerous examples of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater (nominating, for example, House the show, but not its star Hugh Laurie, who holds even mediocre episodes of that show together through sheer force of acting will).
A quick look at Emmy history shows that unless you're a massive, out-of-the-box hit in one of Emmy's favorite genres (cop show, medical drama or workplace sitcom, please), you're doomed to never gain recognition (which would put you in league with several critically acclaimed series that could only muster a writing nomination at best, including The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Wire) or to gain recognition several years after you broke through (it took three seasons of critical badgering and ratings improvement for Everybody Loves Raymond to break through -- and by then, the show was starting to slip).
But if, perchance, a show manages to crack the Emmys, it's likely to stay in the game as long as it's on the air (For instance, Raymond and Will and Grace, the most recent example of egregious Emmy over-rewarding). Emmy even hangs on to shows that are legitimately entertaining, groundbreaking and interesting for far too long -- in the late 90s, it seemed that it would take an act of God to get the Academy to ditch NYPD Blue and ER, much less their performers.
Moviegoers spend a lot of time complaining about the Oscars, but the Oscars at least make a halfhearted stab at credibility. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominates respectable, middle-of-the-road movies far too often, but there's often least one film in the Best Picture lineup that's worthy of discussion by passionate cineastes. In this last year, the Oscars nominated such hotly debated titles as Munich, Brokeback Mountain and (yes) Crash, which probably provoked the most discussion of all. But in an age when people passionately debate what, exactly, the numbers mean in Lost or which political parallels are being drawn in an episode of Battlestar Galactica, what does it benefit anyone to nominate The West Wing yet again for doing the same old thing it has every year? The West Wing is a thoughtfully written, handsomely-produced show, but in the past few years, what, if anything, has it added to discourse on either politics or television?
To answer these rhetorical questions, let's back up a bit and consider the mechanics that result in these nominations.
For decades, the Emmys relied on blue-ribbon panels. These panels, mostly composed of people in the television industry who had the time to sit and spend a weekend screening various episodes of television -- read, the retired -- would dutifully watch the submitted episodes for the various categories, then vote for what they found to be the best. The winner was chosen in this manner. 
This was how people like Candace Bergen (Murphy Brown) and Helen Hunt (Mad About You) won year after year after year, even though their performances rarely varied. The panelists knew what they liked, and they were loathe to ditch it. To some degree, these wins had to be blamed on the Academy as a whole, since it nominated these people year after year (this is an unfortunate motif throughout Emmy history). But after the mass outcry when Dennis Franz beat James Gandolfini and The Practice beat The Sopranos in 1999, the bigwigs at ATAS decided to do something about it: they opened up the voting for winners to anyone with a VCR who would watch the submitted tapes in a given category.
The result was gratifying, if only for one year. Unexpected programs and stars took home statuettes. Will and Grace and Raymond, two mainstream shows that seemed fresh at the time, began to rake in awards. The Sopranos won acting trophy after acting trophy, only to see The West Wing win the series trophy two years running. Even Michael Chiklis won for The Shield, something that never would have happened under the old system.
But then, it seems, new favorites were chosen. Allison Janney triumphed twice in the supporting category for The West Wing, then won in the show's third season in the lead category for a 10-minute, largely supporting performance. Edie Falco won for the Sopranos finale "Whitecaps" -- an episode where she got to scream a lot -- but then quickly succumbed to Janney yet again. 
Both of Janney's lead wins were upsets, which suggests that when push came to shove, voters were more comfortable with Janney. (Parenthetical shout-out: I'm grateful to the people at The Backstage for their copious amounts of awards data, including which episodes of which shows were submitted to win awards, without which this article would have been almost impossible to write.) Gradually, however, the new system seemed to settle in. Shows that never would have won under the old Emmy system, like Arrested Development and Lost, won series trophies. Indeed, Frasier won the last of its five consecutive best comedy series trophies in 1998, and then six consecutive shows that had never previously claimed the series trophy before won before Everybody Loves Raymond finally broke the streak last year with its second series win. And while the home-based voting system had its quirks and blind spots in the acting races (Janney, James Spader for The Practice and Boston Legal, Doris Roberts and Brad Garrett), 
it did allow actors to play parts that were essentially unsympathetic (Gandolfini, Chiklis). But the problem remained that the same people and series kept getting nominated over and over and over (just like Helen Hunt), often well after their performances had ceased being noteworthy (Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally, nominated yet again for Will & Grace, are the most recent beneficiaries). What's more, actors and series the critics loved were getting ignored as well -- Lauren Graham, Kristen Bell, Battlestar Galactica and Rescue Me, to name a few.
So the Emmys decided to shake up the nominating process. The initial stage would stay the same -- ATAS members would watch For Your Consideration tapes at home and fill out nominating ballots based on that (or they would vote for friends). But then, the academy would cull the top 10 series and the top 15 lead acting candidates and one representative sample for the series or performance in question would be screened for...a blue ribbon panel.
So the Academy went from having the retired and unemployed decide who would win Emmys to having them decide who would be nominated for Emmys. No wonder many of this year's acting nominees were on much more popular shows in the 90s, when the panels last ruled.
So, how does one fix the Emmys, exactly? Tom O'Neil, the resident awards guru for The Los Angeles Times and the operator of Goldderby, one of the first awards-centric Web sites out there, has some ideas.
To wit:
(1.) Extend the lists of series and actors from 10 and 15 to 20;
(2.) make series and actors up for consideration submit more than one episode;
(3.) allow voters to evalute the candidates at home, via screener DVDs.
I think O'Neil is on the right track, and if ATAS implemented these rules next year, it would surely shake up the categories once again, fixing some of this year's more egregious snubs (which run, in order of TV fan anger, Hugh Laurie, Lost, James Gandolfini and Edie Falco), and letting in some fun and fresh new stuff.
But the biggest problem with O'Neil's plan is that it relies completely, once again, on the television academy. And people who work in TV rarely, if ever, have time to watch TV. This is getting better with the advent of TiVo (a quick perusal of longtime writer Jane Espenson's blog reveals that she watches nearly everything with an ounce of critical acclaim under the sun from Project Runway to Veronica Mars -- but she has a TiVo and is a writer who needs to keep up with hot or critically acclaimed series in order to have spec scripts ready). But most people who make TV for a living openly admit they only have time to watch the very biggest shows that happen to be airing at the moment. Want to know why West Wing won those four years in a row? Because everyone was watching it and knew what was going on. Once a show goes in the rotation, TV industry employees, like all other viewers, tend to stick with it until it becomes absolutely awful or something better comes along in its time slot, though that can take a long time. (ER still draws well over 10 million viewers a week.)
There have been other proposals through the years for series and actors having "term limits" or even for TV critics to get involved with the process, but maybe there's a better way.
Just leave the Emmys be.
Occasionally, the Academy members get something right, and when they do, it's a cause for excitement. But most of the time, they don't. And in the end, it's better to just let them do their own weird thing.
Because, you know what? Any serious TV fan is going to know that awarding the best of TV is going to be impossible. The most that dedicated TV critics and fans can hope to follow maybe 40 series in a given year (and that's not to mention made-for-TV movies and miniseries). And that level of involvement virtually requires getting paid to watch TV. Even serious TV fans who have day jobs and families can seriously follow maybe 15 series each series, if they have a TiVo. The fact is, "the best of television" is a nebulous concept anyway. Your set brings you dramas, sitcoms, unscripted series, the nightly news, talk shows, football games, infomercials and countless other options. The Emmys try to combat this by forcing incompatible programs into categories together, but who really thinks that the aims of The Daily Show and The Tonight Show are at all similar? Or, for that matter, CSI and Deadwood?
The only way to accurately grade the best of television would be to pay an army of people to watch every show on every network, then have them vote on what they liked best. And that's just logistically impossible. Even the Parents Television Council, with its phalanx of employees dedicated to seeking out content it deems reprehensible, spends much of its time covering the five broadcast networks.
It's a dirty little secret, to be sure, but TV critics are offering up a very limited set of opinions, based on a very limited number of shows, often ones that other critics have praised or that had excellent pilots that reeled critics in. In contrast, a film critic, even in a movie-saturated city like New York City or Los Angeles, could conceivably see every new film released that year (even if it meant to going to three or four per day). But TV is a medium that never sleeps. How do you know that the best show of all time isn't airing on BBC America at 3 a.m.? Even those with TiVos have to sleep sometime.
So let the Emmys be. They're trying to pin a ribbon on the best science fair project, but the fair they're trying to judge covers an area the size of Alaska. The assumption behind the Emmys -- that they're identifying and rewarding the best of this or that, based on a broad and deep study of the entire medium -- is specious at best. Which leaves regular viewers with just two choices: play along or opt out. Better to recognize that the Emmys themselves are a bogus response to an impossible challenge. 
To some degree, that's hard to do for the most hardcore TV fans. We form weird relationships with our favorite shows, puzzling them out, living and growing with the characters, bidding them a fond farewell at the end of the season or the series. You can, of course, passionately love a film or novel, but even if that film or novel is a flop, you can own a copy eventually, return to it whenever you need its nourishment. With good TV, even in the age of DVD, so much of it is ephemeral, disappearing immediately out into space. We often have only memories of the program to keep us company, so cling to them, perhaps too tightly, and take personal offense when they're denigrated, whether by a fellow TV fan or by an awards-giving body.
But if the traditional Aristotelian methods of criticism don't quite apply to TV, then neither do other methods used to quantify other media. And that includes awards. I would hope--even though I know this will never be the case--that someday we'll all be able to laugh at the Emmy nominations and then move on. It'd be nice to see the best of TV recognized, but the merits of the medium's various offerings are so hard to pin down that we can't fault a bunch of folks sequestered in a Beverly Hills hotel room for liking what makes them feel comfortable.
Besides, half the fun of having award shows is violently disagreeing with them. Isn't it?
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Todd VanDerWerff is the publisher of the pop culture blog South Dakota Dark. The 58th Annual Emmy Awards telecast airs Sunday, August 27 at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC.
Friday, August 25, 2006
The Emmys: What are they good for?
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19 comments:
The whole question of "What are awards good for?" is, "Not much," because even the most thoughtful and far-thinking awards-givers often make shortsighted, of-the-moment choices. That's why, for years, I compiled year-end best lists only because refusal to do so would have been a make-or-break gesture for my employers; so under duress, I'd make up a top nine or top 13, and rank them alphabetically instead of numerically. (Not real rebellion, I know, but a man's got to keep his job somehow.)
Over time, however, I gradually warmed to the idea that Top Ten lists could be good for something: they could give comfort, and in some cases a bit of much-needed clout, to artists whose work I admire.
The reality is, a slot on a Top Ten list, or for that matter an Emmy or Oscar nod, is good for X number of financing dollars, or a returned phone call from a potential collaborator who might not otherwise pick up the phone. (Acclaim is the next best thing to big ratings or big box office; it's better to have option two, since it means you get to do more work, and have more control over it, but barring that, kudos are currency.) So awards are useful mainly as a means of encouraging people who have either given you pleasure or whose artistry might have long-term impact, if in fact they continue to work at a level that demands the public and the media pay attention (the only level the industry cares about). When I root for, say, "The Wire" to get some Emmy nominations, I'm not hoping ATAS will validate my preference; I'm hoping HBO will be so excited they'll give David Simon money for a fourth season. In short, awards aren't about merit or posterity, they're about the next five years of someone's employment -- whether their show gets picked up for another year or canceled, whether a particular actor gets to work for Scorsese or has to take the first CW pilot that comes along.
The power of awards to promote specific art or artists is the only reason I pay any attention to the Emmys.
But they still couldn't help Arrested Development. I think that show was built on an indian burial ground or fell prey to some other ridiculous voodoo. Or the only reason to care isn't much of a reason when all is said and done.
Just to throw another armchair theory out there, why can't the voters be assigned to categories like the nominees are. Then they'd vote on a limited offering and might just sit through each show. They could be assigned randomly, or according to their forte, actors on acting, comedy writers on comedy etc. They don't let people from other academies vote, why let a writer vote on best sound.
Yeah, it probably wouldn't fix anything, but it'd be funny when they'd make Jay Leno vote on drama or Mariska Hargitay on comedy. Or if they aren't academy voters, their octogenarian equivalents.
If an Emmy came with a piece of TP, at least you'd be able to wipe your ass with it ... I don't even bother to tune in because my favorite shows - Scrubs, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars - get no love whatsoever
why are you even talking about this? what a waste of time and blog space....its the Emmys for god's sake. Didn't GOLDEN GIRLS get nominated for Emmys? I think one or more of the actresses on that show actually won. Maybe I'm hallucinating but I think Tony Danza might have even been nominated for an Emmy...
quite frankly if I had to pick one thing about this blog that mitigates its interest for me it is the neverending burnishing of crap. The insistent claims of brilliance for movies and shows that have pretenses of quality at best (and some that never even pretended). If this were my blog, Mr. Seitz, I'd ask my associate bloggers to make their points a little more succinctly and avoid all the exaggerated and pointless expressions of reverence. Maybe ask some of them to learn the difference between crap that is interesting and crap that is crap. All this reflexive post-Marxist, quality-is-dead, post-irony love of the popular is getting kinda old.
Paul: If you mean Ed Copeland's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" piece (above), Wagstaff's piece on "The Bad News Bears," Kenji's piece on "Die Hard," I can see your point, though I naturally disagree with it. This blog is not just dedicated to acknowledged and new masterpieces, but movies and TV programs which, for whatever reason, strike a chord, positive or negative.
Not everything that's good is popular, and not everything that's popular is good. We know that and make allowances for it, without attempting to artificially tamp down enthusiasm or scorn in order to seem more measured. That may be a turnoff for some, but we tend to take a subjective approach to things, incorporating personal response and circumstances.
But if you're talking about Aaron Aradillas' piece on the first half of Oliver Stone's career, the writing on "Deadwood" and "The Sopranos," Kenji's piece on Wong Kar-Wai's "Fallen Angels," the writing on Terrence Malick, the running arguments about David Cronenberg and Michael Mann, the Robert Altman blog-a-thon, the upcoming week on "The Wire" or my survey of the works of Okinawan filmmaker Takamine Go, I'd have to disagree.
The Emmys are mostly absurd (so are the Oscars) but people care how they turn out, and the verdicts have a huge effect on what television programs get made and seen. Thus Todd's piece.
Mr. Seitz,
Its not a question of popularity. I too do not want to see the same canonical pieces dealt with again and again. And I have no problem with differences of opinion. I come to your blog precisely because it is fresh and interesting and applies serious thought to a variety of projects. I'm just tired of cultural discourse that makes excessive insistent claims of brilliance based on a film's obscurity, trash-status, or mediocrity. Perhaps I should have been more clear. While I have no problem with your contributors' epic articles about DEADWOOD, BAD NEWS BEARS, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE II, or DIE HARD, to name a few (hate the first, love the 2nd, never saw the 3rd, love the last), I wish they would just discuss them and not make defensive cases alleging that they are underappreciated masterpieces. It seems like I'm reading one thesis proposal after another, all begging the teacher to notice how hip the student is, look! I've moved past Bergman to John Tiernan! As experimental filmmaker Phil Solomon said in an interview recently (I'm paraphrasing), "if everything provokes the response "awesome," what word do we use to describe the Grand Canyon?" I think it is incumbent on those exploring more mainstream television and films to think about this question carefully as they brim over with enthusiasm at every clever camera angle and line reading.
And the Emmys -- I mean, c'mon. There's a trade association called the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. They came up with an industry promotion awards show ripped from the Oscars in the 1950s. Every year they give out a lot of little statues called "Emmys" to flack the medium in order to promote ad sales. People with nothing better to do and a morbid interest in celebrity watch. Whoever "wins" them gets their agent to hold that fact over the heads of the production companies who hire them when their contracts come up for renewal. End of story. Your initial comment after the blog entry is polite while gently pointing out its core absurdity, and by seeking common ground in your criticism you demonstrate why you are an excellent host for your many associates; but that post is, in my opinion, silly.
Mr Roth, I have two questions. Why do hate Deadwood? Just very curious.
And, will you have absolutely no interest in who wins the Emmys?
Paul: Fair enough. Thanks, sincerely, for stopping by.
BTW, all four Golden Girls actresses won Emmys, Tony Danza was never nominated for an Emmy and the director's name is John McTiernan, not Tiernan.
I was so tired when I posted my comment this morning, I forgot to make my point about Todd's great post itself. Myself, I'm usually always hyped about award shows. Perhaps it's just the year I have, but with the bizarre slate of nominees the Academy came up with this year, I find myself less than enthusiastic about tonight's outcome. In fact, I've given serious though to skipping the middle hour of the Emmys to watch the Deadwood finale and just finding out who won while I wasn't watching later.
Hi -
To nspector -- sincerely, I have no interest whatsoever in the Emmys. Every year I have a bit of residual interest in the Oscars, but it diminishes with each passing year. Hard to get interested when you remember Mira Sorvino won Best Actress once. And that Hitchcock never won Best Director. Hard to take it all seriously. Makes me think of that line in the Woody Allen movie (is it ANNIE HALL?) about award shows ("Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler!")
My main objection to DEADWOOD is that I can't reconcile its Grand Guignol theatricality with its pretense of high realism. Maybe its just not my bag, but I find it equal parts silly and pretentious, like a small town western-theme melodrama infiltrated by Brechtians. However, many people I respect like it very much so I'm going to give myself another chance to understand it better -- will borrow the first two seasons on DVD and start watching again...
sorry about the John McTiernan. should have checked that out before writing. but I guess I'd rather get his name wrong than Wong Kar-Wai's (or even Don Siegal's, for that matter).
sadly not surprised that all four of the Golden Girls were "honored" at one time or another with resplendant Emmy statuettes...and while I wish I could believe you about Tony Danza, both Wikipedia and IMDB say he was nominated for an Emmy for a guest star on THE PRACTICE in the late 1990s...
Well I think it's about time I write that Golden Girls appreciation. NOBODY disses my Miami matrons! :-)
You are correct about Danza -- forgot about his guest spot, but then again if you show up on The Practice/Boston Legal in a guest spot, you seem guaranteed to get a nomination. Also, Mira won supporting actress.
Mr. Roth,
Ok, I believe you. And your disgust with the Emmys is justified and reasonable. Though I suppose I don't see them as significantly different from any other awards awarded in any field. That is, that the process of choosing ranges from flawed to outright corrupt, and that the awarding of awards is inherently and always unfair.
And yet .. . . well, I am clearly a person with nothing better to and a morbid curiosity in celebrity.
Now to what really matters. I am extremely curious to see whether your opinion of Deadwood changes. For me, the mixture of the theatricality with the realism is a strange and almost magical thing, a kind of alchemy that should not work but does. When I say realism, though, I don't mean it in the more controversial literal ways, but rather an emotional realism having little to do with "did they really curse that much?" or "would a whore really do such and such?"
The above can make the whole thing sound like a successful gimmick. No. Deadwood is so profoundly moving not because it pulls off several bizarre juxtapositions, as exciting as that is, but because of its extraordinarily compelling character development and richly layered complex plot. All this notwithstanding its flaws (flaws which Matt discussed in his second to last review).
OK, have to go watch the red carpet coverage of the Emmys now ;).
Take care,
Nomi
Paul Roth: “I guess I'd rather get his name wrong than Wong Kar-Wai's (or even Don Siegal's, for that matter).”
Siegel.
While I share your indifference to attention being paid the Emmys, even in an article as entertaining as Todd’s (while also agreeing with Matt’s point of the economic benefits of such rituals), I’m glad articles like this and the appreciations you mention can be found on this site. A common feature of too many film sites I’ve visited is the repulsive tendency to dismiss the majority of the nation’s moviegoers as insensate clods for their failure to rally around the writer’s current favorite film. This disdain becomes the default explanation for the state of movies as much at sites dedicated to capital-A art as those that celebrate the geeky and grotesque. I’m as fond of greatness and great schlock as the next guy, and agree the movie world would be a much more interesting place if TROPICAL MALADY and SLITHER had managed to become huge hits; but such elitist vitriol sets my hackles right up, and has caused me to stop visiting many film sites I otherwise enjoy.
The House Next Door manages to avoid this nastiness for the most part, and I’m sure the catholic inclusiveness of the posts is a large reason why. The films discussed are so wide-ranging that their only shared, defining characteristic is the fondness with which they are discussed. And if a rumination on Looney Tunes vs. Disney can sit chock-a-block with the rhapsodic exegeses on Malick, it’s harder for anyone to sneer at the supposed failings of a hypothetical mainstream moviegoer. For a movie blog, hell, for the internet, the tone is refreshingly genial and respectful of the audience.
Needless to say, Paul, I’m neither defending this site (no need to) nor claiming your dissatisfaction stems from such petulance—your arguments are well-reasoned and worth considering. (Though on that note most of the appreciations I’ve read seem measured, and hardly as pretentiously academic as you imply.) Only suggesting that the very aspect you decry is what makes this site worth visiting.
And while I like DEADWOOD just fine, I agree it’s hardly all that and chips, for pretty much the reason you give.
Mr. Roth, Hey, that anonymous post for you is supposed to be from me, in case that wasn't clear.
Thanks,
Nomi
Mr. Roth, I actually agree with you on many points, but the Emmys ARE an integral cog of what counts as entertainment "journalism." And because there hasn't been anything that adequately responds to them (as the varied critics awards, the Golden Globes and the Broadcast Film Critics Awards vaguely mirror and try to predict the Oscars), the winners of the Emmys are often held up as the "best" of television.
Put it this way: If you're a kid in the middle of Alberta, Canada, and you want to watch the best films in history, if you watch all of the films nominated for Best Picture that you can get your hands on, you'll see a lot of interesting stuff. Your cinematic education won't be complete, but you'll have hit enough of the highpoints to know what the broad strokes were all about. It's not the same with the Emmys -- if you watch every series nominated for a best series award, not only will you even begin to scratch the best of television, but you'll be dreadfully limited in your choices (if you can even get a hold of these series, that is).
I don't doubt that the economic realities of awards are important (and I'm happy that The Office should see a nice ratings boost from its win -- I don't think 24 can really benefit all that much, and that was more of a coronation of a long-running hit, probably chosen because the other choices were too divisive in many ways), but the Emmys have done so many ridiculous things that we need to move the "The Emmys aren't worth much -- occasionally fun to watch, but mostly bizarre" talk from the Internet into the mainstream.
I hope some of that makes sense.
Also, to the commentor above who suggested that people get assigned to certain categories, that's exactly what happens. You're sent the tapes in four random categories, then you vote on those four categories (the only qualification is that you can't be in the same category's voting pool two years in a row).
This is why the Emmys so often feel very, very disjointed.
Alan Sepinwall on the Emmys: "If the Emmy officials couldn't apologize for this year's nominees, then at least the winners could. For virtually the entire three-hour telecast -- really, up until "24" and "The Office" became first-time winners in the drama and comedy series awards, respectively -- winner after winner greeted news of their victory with some combination of astonishment and shame."
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