MagneticMediaFed

As editor of a TV-blog, I should probably address the Emmy nominations that were announced today. Should. The problem is, after looking at the very predictable, very tired, and very flawed nominations for television’s highest honor (sidebar: I wonder how much money you could get for a cable Ace award on eBay?) I simply don’t have the stomach for it.

Take for example the fact that a series universally loved by critics (and by those people who take the time to actually tune in) can rake in a grand total of ZERO nominations. Yes, the Emmy voting community apparently thinks that Boston Legal, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes (!!!) and House are all more worthy of being named “Best Drama” than The Wire (The Sopranos was also named, but at least that show is on the same playing field). The Wire’s snub (their fourth snub) is the sticking point for my hatred of this small-screen-dog-and-pony-show. More after the break…

The easy argument would be to blame The Wire’s lack of recognition on the institutional racism ever-present within the Emmy voting populace. It also happens to be right argument. Denying a series this significant (and ultimately this socially important) the simple pleasure of being nominated is in its lightest assessment short-sighted and at its most, criminally irresponsible. And why? Because the show is filmed on location in Baltimore and not on a stage in New York or L.A.? Because the cast doesn’t have any recognizable faces and that most of those faces happen to be black? It’s baffling to think about. After all, it can’t be the show’s low profile as even Arrested Development was able to pull out an Emmy win after its first, much-ignored, season.

Don’t even get me started on the seemingly millions of union-obliging categories like “Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries or Movie,” or the fact that one actor can continue to win the same award in the same category year after year for playing the same character (was James Gandolfini really any better at playing Tony Soprano this time around as he was during any of the previous six seasons?). It all just seems so arcane and old-timey. So why lose sleep over it?

As the show date gets closer I’ll have to decide if I’m going to live-blog the event like I did last year. Though today, as I continue to skim an epic list of “televisions best” and fail to see not only The Wire, but any significant presence from Friday Night Lights or The Riches or The Shield or hell, even It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (which is a far better comedy than the uber-sucky Entourage), I can’t help but just look the other way and hope it all disappears.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 8:05 pm and is filed under The Emmy Awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.