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The Five: Reasons why I don't care about the Emmys
by Joel Keller, posted Aug 24th 2006 8:03PM
I'll be perfectly honest with you folks: the Emmys have never done anything for me. From the nominees to the ceremony to the overall importance of the event, the Emmys pale in comparison to almost every other awards show, including the Grammys, the Oscars, the MTV VMAs, and even the Golden Globes. Heck, even the Tonys come close in the essential department, falling just short (Broadway shows aren't really my thing).If it seems weird that I'm such a TV buff, but couldn't care less about the Emmys, you're right. But I've thought about this over the years, and there are five big reasons why I'm not one of those Emmy obssessives bitching to Matt Roush or other TV critics about why my favorite show got the shaft. Part of it has to do with the ineptness of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, but most of it has to do with the nature of the television beast:
1. The nominations are a joke - The Academy has never been able to properly arrange the nomination process to avoid nominating the same shows and actors year after year. I think it's because there's so much to view, that the Academy membership doesn't have time to see everything and just marks down the names of familiar shows and actors. For instance, there is no way that Will & Grace and The West Wing should have received so many nominations in their final years, considering the quality the shows had in their peak seasons. And as much as I love Julia-Louis Dreyfus, her performance on Old Christine wasn't Emmy-worthy at all. Oh, and Allison Janney was more of a supporting actor on WW this year, but for some reason, she's been nominated in the Lead Actor category this year. Go figure.
Meanwhile, shows that have deserved attention year after year (Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars are two examples) are ignored, mainly because they air on networks that no one in Hollywood seems to give a rat's ass about. I mean, come on, would GG have been a better choice for Outstanding Comedy Series than, say, Two and a Half Men? Without a doubt (and I like Two and a Half Men).
2. Familiarity breeds contempt - Not only does the Academy seem to repeat the same nominees every year, but it seems like their lack of creativity has extended to giving out the awards themselves. Kelsey Grammer won four times for Frasier -- and was nominated six other times -- even though the show had its ups and downs during it's later years. John Larroquette won four times in a row for Night Court. It gets to the point where people wonder if the other actors being nominated are any good, if they were just put on the ballot to make it look like there was some sort of competition.
One of the great things about the Oscars and Grammys is that we're continuously guessing who's going to win from year to year. That guessing game makes things interesting for viewers and fans. The Emmys are way too predictable. I mean, when was the last time you entered an Emmy pool at the office? Didn't think so.
3. Television audiences are very fragmented - Say House wins Outstanding Drama this year. Do you think it's going to get anyone new to watch? Maybe. But the show's going on its third season, and it's one of those shows that normally gets a lot of buzz and critical praise. But if you don't like medical dramas, or watched the show once and hated it, or you just don't like Hugh Laurie's stubble, no amount of Emmys are going to persuade you to tune the show back in. Usually winners of other big awards receive some sort of bump after the ceremony, even if in the case of a Crash or a Jay-Z CD, the bump isn't as big as it used to be in the past. But you rarely see any kind of ratings bump due to an Emmy win, which leads me to my next point...
4. Winning an Emmy doesn't keep your favorite show from getting cancelled - How many Emmys has Arrested Development won? Seems like a couple of dozen, right? But it couldn't save the show from eventually getting the ax due to low ratings (though, granted, its wins in 2004 and 2005 probably did buy a third season). It also seems like a bunch of quality shows don't get recognized by the Academy until they go off the air. For example, one of the best comedies of all time, Barney Miller, didn't win an Outstanding Comedy Series award until 1982, the year it ended after seven seasons.
5. No one remembers who wins - That statement can be made about every award show, but it does seem like people forget the Emmy winners more quickly than they forget other award winners. This is especially shocking given all the complaining about the nominees people do in the weeks leading up to the ceremony. But when was the last time you saw the honorific "Emmy Award Winner" used in front of actor or show names in commercials? I didn't think so. You hear "Tony Award Winner," "Grammy Award Winner," and "Academy Award Winner" (heck, you even hear "Academy Award Nominee") all the time, but you almost never hear "Emmy Award Winner." Not sure why that is, beyond the fact that no one seems to care once the statuettes are given out. But it does lessen the value of the award in my eyes.
Am I on the right track or full of crap? Is there something I'm missing that will make me hunker down and watch this coming Sunday? Let me know in the comments.
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