As those of you who have been following my column over the years are aware, one of my biggest bugbears with the Emmys has always been the fact that year after year, they always seem to nominate the same people and more often those same people and series win year after year. This complaint predates Julia-Louis Dreyfus by a considerable margin; one of my earliest published articles was my frustration that Helen Hunt was winning every year for increasingly inferior work in Mad About You.
For a long time, one of the reasons I actually preferred the Golden Globes TV nominations was that, for the most part, the HFPA tended to work around this rule. At the time, I liked the idea of seeing new faces every years, something that the Emmys (and to an extent, the SAG awards) had decided would not be a factor when it came to nominations. I’ve already spent my previous two columns praising the Globes for the results of that process. But in hindsight, this may have been one of the Golden Globes biggest flaws. With rare exceptions the HFPA didn’t acknowledge continued excellence by a series over a period of time, but rather what series were bigger critical (and more importantly, popular) successes.
I’m not saying this was always a flawed process – sometimes this led to discoveries of some genuinely brilliant series that many would otherwise ignore. To state a recent example Homecoming, Amazon’s exceptional half-hour drama series is one of the most exceptional shows to come out in recent years. It may only have been recognized because of the presence of Julia Roberts, but that doesn’t mean in didn’t deserve recognition, and I think overlooking was one the Emmys biggest mistakes.
But with few exceptions, continued excellence always seemed to be a hard thing to be considered by the Golden Globes, and in a lot of cases, they were late to the party. To state one of their biggest errors, they completely ignored Breaking Bad and Bryan Cranston the first three seasons it was on the air. During its first three years of eligibility, the Best Actor prize would go to, respectively Gabriel Byrne for In Treatment (one of their most questionable decisions) Michael C. Hall for Dexter (a pretty good choice) and Steve Buscemi for Boardwalk Empire (also questionable). I will admit, a fairly big part of the reason I ignored Breaking Bad the first three years it was on the air was because the HFPA did the same. It was only after Cranston’s third consecutive Emmy that he and series started getting nominated; even then, neither he nor the series would triumph until the final season when it would have been impossible to ignore its place in television history.
Another flaw that has frankly bothered me a lot more over the years has been the HFPAs collective decision to put all Supporting Actors in Drama, Comedy/Musical or Movie or Limited Series in a single category. This no doubt came from the decision to do basically the same thing with all Supporting Actor/Actress awards in the Movie category (which doesn’t really make any sense either; either split all the winners or none at all). And over the years, it has been one of the biggest flaws in the Golden Globes. I don’t think it makes any sense to have actors in a drama, comedy or TV movies competing against each other. It may have been a practice during the early years of the Emmys, but they had gotten rid of it by the late 1960s. What the hell is the HFPAs excuse?
Leaving aside that having dramatic and comic actors competing against each other is fundamentally unfair, the fact is over the past twenty years, the lion’s share of the Supporting Acting awards have gone to performers in TV Movies or Limited Series. Essentially, the HFPA has been saying that the best performances are in TV Movies or Limited Series with nearly no exceptions. And frankly, some of the times they have made exceptions have been the oddest choices the HFPA has ever made. Joanne Frogatt for Downton Abbey? Jon Voight for Ray Donavan? I’ll admit there have been some pretty decent selections as well – Chloe Sevigny more than deserved some recognition from the Emmys for Big Love, as did Chris Colfer for his sterling work on Glee. But usually these awards don’t give any insight into the Emmys because, well, it’s already a confusing field, and it’s hard to tell if anybody among will get nominated.
And don’t get me started on the unbelievable fetish the Golden Globes for the entire cast of Will & Grace. Year after year, the entire cast would be nominated and never win. It was a ridiculous move that even fifteen years after the fact, I just don’t get.
I realize the HFPA has a lot of other, smaller problems that they have to deal with now but at the very least, they could separate the Supporting Actor and Actress awards into categories for Series television and Movie/Limited Series. It’d probably add another five or ten minutes to the ceremony, but frankly I’d rather have that another stilted routine or Ricky Gervais’ headwaiter routines.
In my final article, I decide whether the Golden Globes should be saved and if it isn’t, what award show should take its place (at least for this year.)
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