The 2020 Emmy nominations are in and, as you can probably expect, the Internet is freaking out.
We spoke about the nominees on today’s episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem And Madness got a nomination for Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series, Jennifer Lopez And Shakira got nominations for their captivating efforts at this year’s Super Bowl and Quibi, despite being a disaster, was able to rack up 10 nominations. What utter chaos.
Let’s get into the nominees….
Outstanding Drama Series
This category saw the nominees: Better Call Saul, The Crown, The Handmaid’s Tale, Killing Eve, The Mandalorian, Ozark, Stranger Things and Succession. The biggest surprise? The Mandalorian. The biggest snub? The Morning Show! Apple TV’s staple show has heaps of nominations in acting categories but was, for some reason, subbed in the main one.
Outstanding Comedy Series
This category saw the nominees: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dead To Me, The Good Place, Insecure, The Kominsky Method, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Schitt’s Creek and What We Do In The Shadows. The biggest surprise? Insecure. Biggest snub? Never Have I Ever. Mindy Kaling’s incredibly relatable Nexflix series was sadly forgotten this year…
We spoke about the latest in entertainment on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
Outstanding Limited Series
This category saw the nominees: Little Fires Everywhere, Mrs America, Unbelievable, Unorthodox and Watchmen. The biggest surprise? Mrs America. The biggest snub? Hollywood. Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood was absolutely groundbreaking and definitely deserved a mention. It’s not all sad though, as some of the actors from that show have been individually nominated.
Outstanding Television Movie
This category saw the nominees: American Son, Bad Education, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings: These Old Bones, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend. Biggest surprise? Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings: These Old Bones! No snubs here, they did good with this one.
But, perhaps more notably than all of this, was the Television Academy’s record number of Black actors in the full nominations list. The 2020 Emmy nominations mark a new high for people of colour in the entertainment industry, with 34.3% of the acting nominees going to Black people.
To put that into context, there are 102 acting nominations in total (including lead, supporting and guest categories in all of the genres). 35 of these nominations went to Black people including Billy Porter for his work in Pose, Zendaya for her work in Euphoria and Tracee Ellis Ross for her role in black-ish. All of whom, deserve to win (side note).
Not to mention, Maya Rudolph was nominated for two slots the Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series category, for her role as the Judge in The Good Place and her improv skills on Saturday Night Live. We stan a queen who must compete against herself.
In addition to these aforementioned actors and actresses, Sterling K. Brown, Anthony Anderson, Don Cheadle, Issa Rae, Regina King, Jeremy Pope, Octavia Spencer and Kerry Washington were all nominated for their work in a drama, comedy or limited series/TV movie.
It should be noted that this is a sizable increase from last year, as the numbers in 2019 showed Black people only making up 19.8% of the nominations. But, we simply have to ask ourselves, is this enough?
In 2018, Black actors in the nominee pool made up 27.7%, which was even higher than last years. While we may have reached a peak now, it is worrying that the Emmys are not on an upward trend. We’re hoping that the Internet’s celebration of the number of people of colour in the nomination pool is noticed and thus is reinforced in the years following because really, we’re not even close to that 50% mark.
Frank Scherma, the chairman and CEO of the Television Academy, said: “2020 isn’t just about the global health crisis. This year we are also bearing witness to one of the greatest fights for social justice in history, and it is our duty to use this medium for change. That is the power and responsibility of television — not only delivering a multitude of services or a little escapism but also amplifying the voices that must be heard and telling the stories that must be told. Because television, by its very nature, connects us all.”
We couldn’t agree more, so we suggest that Scherma keep this up in the years to come because we’ll be eagerly anticipating more people of colour.
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