The Emmys have a strange sense of humor.
In its 76th year, the awards show’s frontrunner in nearly every comedy category belongs to a dramatic grease trap brimming with dysfunctional sandwich shop workers on the brink of a mental breakdown. We’re talking about The Bear, of course, the fast-paced FX/Hulu series that follows a group of back-of-house chefs trying to transform a family-owned Chicago beef spot. The show racked up plenty of hardware in its first season, scoring actor, series, and supporting actor wins when the Emmys aired its rescheduled ceremony earlier in the year. And, just a few months later, the Christopher Storer created breakout is poised to do it again. This time around, it’s the show’s second season that’s enjoying the spotlight, a frenetic fever-dream that whipped fans back and forth through time, space, and Copenhagen to plot the Berzatto clan’s personal and professional turmoil. With 23 nominations – the most ever in a single year for a comedy series – The Bear broke an awards show record previously held by NBC’s gag-a-minute sitcom, 30 Rock, and in doing so, it might’ve just spotlighted one of the Emmys’ biggest problems … it takes comedy too seriously.
It’s true that humor is subjective, so naturally, nailing down a set of rules that clearly define what’s funny and what’s not is always going to be an exercise in imperfection. But the Academy has tried. Currently, the Emmys define a comedy as a program “where the majority of the running time of at least six episodes are primarily comedic.” That standard has changed over the years – at one point, a show’s runtime had the final say in which category it belonged – and because of it, nominees have see-sawed between comedy and drama designations. During Orange Is The New Black’s run, the Netflix prison dramedy bounced from a comedy to a drama after a panel of experts decided it was too heavy to hang with shows like Veep, Parks and Rec, and Modern Family. But if a show filled with jokes about mythical chickens and prison pageants, inmates-turned influencers and panty-selling-Ponzi-schemes was deemed too dramatic, what does that mean for a show like The Bear where every episode feels like the viewing equivalent of the boiling frog experiment? Normally comedy is a form of escapism, not something you try to escape from.
But even if judging a show on it’s whole instead of its parts feels too limiting, slapping The Bear with a comedy label is still unfair to a majority of its cast.
This year, 10 of the show’s stars were nominated for their comedic contributions to season two’s storyline. Coming off a win in the same category earlier this year, Jeremy Allen White scored a Best Actor in a Comedy nod for his work as Carmy, the tormented-yet-talented head chef in charge of resurrecting his family’s business. Ayo Edibiri’s performance as his promising sous chef, Sydney, earned her another nod in the Best Actress category (she lost last year to Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson). Lionel Boyce and Liza Colon-Zayas received some supporting love for their roles as Marcus and Tina, two chefs challenged to level up their culinary skills for the good of the restaurant in season two while a host of guest stars – Jon Bernthal, Bob Odenkirk, Will Poulter, Olivia Colman, and Jamie Lee Curtis – enjoyed recognition for their turns in lone episodes. The problem though is that, as deserving of praise as these actors and their performances are, most of them are burdened by the wrong designation. When judged against the larger pool, it seems almost ridiculous to expect voters (and audiences) to compare what White does as Carmy, what Curtis does as his chaotic mom, Donna, what Boyce does as a promising young pastry chef shouldering unimaginable burdens, and what Colon-Zayas does as a woman experiencing a second chance in life, to the actors and characters they’re up against. These are one-liner maestros like WWDITS’ Matt Berry, SNL alumni like Maya Rudolph and Bown Yang, sketch legends like Carol Burnett, and Meryl Streep in her funny girl era. It’s not apples and oranges, it’s Italian beef sandwiches and whatever beige monstrosity tyrant Joel McHale had Carmy serving in his Michelin-starred New York hellhole.
But they’re nominated that way because of another confusing Emmy rule, the one that states that “placement of a program automatically directs the placement of all individual achievement entries,” i.e. if the Emmys say The Bear is a comedy, then every performance in it is also comedic. It’s a head scratching stereotype, especially considering the awards show has seemingly loosened its definition of what a comedy is to include shows like The Bear and later seasons of Barry while excluding OITNB and HBO’s The White Lotus. Just because an actor’s performance exists within a show doesn’t necessarily mean it matches the tone of that show. Look at what Curtis and Bernthal did in “Fishes,” a wild, emotionally-charged half-hour fueled by toxic familial ties, the side effects of addiction, and years of pent-up resentments (for which they both won comedy awards). Or what Jennifer Coolidge accomplished in season two of Mike White’s sharply funny eat-the-rich satire with a shoot-out on-board a yacht belonging to a couple of Gays trying to murder her. Are we really arguing claiming last year’s most memefied TV moment resonated with audiences because of its dramaturgical leanings? Have we strayed this far from Jeremy Strong’s internet?
In reality, the only performance from season two of The Bear that deserves to be classified as comedic is Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s coming-of-age maturity moment as Richie, an aimless holdover from the shop’s before times who finds purpose and passion with a little help from Taylor Swift. Moss-Bachrach should win, and likely will, for his work, but the rest of his TV family should have the opportunity to submit their own definition of what’s funny and what’s not. If the Emmys can alter category requirements, if they introduce more gender-neutral nomination language, can’t they allow artists to qualify their own work? If White sees his turn as an anxiety-ridden culinary genius doomed to never achieve a work-life balance as dramatic, shouldn’t he have a say in how it’s judged? Politics aside, wouldn’t it be nice to put a bit of power back in the hands of performers? Maybe they’d make a different choice, maybe not, but part of the audience (and critics’) ire when it comes to how these awards shows label the series we love is how arbitrary and nonsensical it all seems. Who’s really deciding and why are common gripes whenever nominations are released, and with voting bodies constantly chasing better viewership, wouldn’t it make sense to test some fixes that could make the Emmys easier to follow and more enjoyable to watch?
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