All award shows are trivial by nature.
We treat them with the utmost seriousness, but really they’re cringe parades in which networks go overboard celebrating hot entertainers — the same people we celebrate every single day of the year.
Yet they serve a practical purpose, too.
The Oscars can still reliably boost the Best Picture winner’s box office grosses if the film is running in theaters — not to the heights it once did, but a lift is a lift. Ticket-buyers appreciate knowing what to drop $20 on.
The same is generally true of the Tony Awards and whatever show takes home Best Musical. The 2024 victor “The Outsiders” has done boffo business all summer.
And the Grammys, with its vast and eclectic array of music categories, introduces viewers to talent they’ve never heard of.
But what about the Emmys?
What good are they? Who — that isn’t nominated anyway — cares about them?
The award show honoring TV, which airs Sunday, Sept. 15 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC, has always been peculiar. And a snooze.
Lest we forget, “Modern Family” won Outstanding Comedy Series five mind-numbing times in a row. Julia Louis-Dreyfus gave six acceptance speeches for “Veep.” Good for them, dull for us.
The categories barely make sense anymore.
In the era of Netflix forgoing theatrical runs of Oscar-nominated movies such as Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” Amazon’s film “Uncle Frank” and Roku’s “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” were crammed into Outstanding TV Movie at the Emmys.
How, in 2024, is anything deemed a “TV movie”?
Frequently, it’s hard to tell what episodes are even up for awards. On Sunday, for instance, the second season of “The Bear” is competing in the comedy categories. Season 3 aired on FX back in June.
Perhaps the show’s greatest contradiction of all is that television is undoubtedly the entertainment medium Americans are most passionate about, but so few people watch TV’s so-called biggest night.
Even though we’re only just coming out of television’s “Golden Age,” and it’s the background noise of our lives, the Emmy Awards are a total afterthought.
The last telecast, which was only eight months ago due to the Hollywood strikes, was seen by just 4.3 million. Broadway is far more niche, but the Tonys still managed 3.5 million. The Oscars blows them all away at 19.5 million.
These days, the public is too many steps ahead of the Emmys. Series don’t have 25 episodes per season that air for half the year anymore.
Everybody watched nominated miniseries “Baby Reindeer” in one sitting back in April, and swiftly moved onto the next thing.
Viewers have also never been more keenly aware of what’s on TV. They don’t need the Emmys to tell them to watch “Hacks.”
Who ever rolled into work on Monday morning and proclaimed, “I’m so happy ‘Succession’ won Best Drama!”?
OK, you’re right. Jeremy Strong probably did.
I guarantee you that the best part of Sunday night’s ceremony will be the onstage reunions for “The West Wing” and “Happy Days,” shows that ended their respective runs 18 and 40 years ago.
Now that’s what I call relevance!