Programs such as “San Junipero” are placed in an uncomfortable position. They are neither able to fully capture the beauty of film or the longform intrigue of television. That is not to condemn the episode model of “Black Mirror” (“San Junipero” is one self-contained episode in its anthology structure, in which each episode takes place in a new world with different characters) but it is to note that is it difficult to produce consistently good television in a television-movie format. The show as a whole is occasionally truly brilliant (“The National Anthem,” “Be Right Back,” “White Christmas,” and occasionally, “Fifteen Million Merits”). But it is, without a doubt, inconsistent.
Outstanding Comedy Series: ‘Veep’
If anything, this year’s comedy nominees are defined by a lack of recognition of some of the more ambitious comedy series on television. HBO’s “Girls” quietly produced one of the best seasons of television across all genres. “Better Things,” “Insecure,” and “The Good Place” are all subtly wonderful shows. But with that said, this year’s nominees are by in large both ambitious and well done (the exception being “Modern Family”). Their quality, by in large, outstrips their more serious counterparts.
This year’s winner is, as it has always been, absolutely fantastic. The 2017 Emmys were marked by a shift in gender representation in the winning shows—each winning show from the three major categories—Comedy, Drama, and Limited Series—were, among other things, fascinating explorations of femininity helmed by female leads. Within this context, “Veep” still manages to stand out—it is a show that is rarely explicitly about gender, and yet always, in every moment, is implicitly about the politics of gender.
Every component of Selina Meyer—the Senator turned Vice President turned President turned Ex-President—is carefully crafted with an eye towards the public’s eye. The essence of her personality is crafted by the Frankensteinian demands of the public. Some of those demands are reflective of what the public expects from women. Thus Selena becomes, in her carefully woven fabric of narcissism, incompetence, and vanity, the embodiment of the pain of societal expectation. She physically embodies and carries the weight of the bundle of contradictions that the American public places on women—especially women in public office. But “Veep” never needs to make its point explicitly; its commentary is deeply incisive because it is implicitly embedded into the nature of the show. It subconsciously works to show the sins of America—to laugh at Ex-President Meyer is to laugh at the delicate relationship America has with gender.
Yet I would be hesitant to indicate that this is part of a large paradigm shift in representation on television. An examination of the nominees indicates a decidedly male slant in television. If the nominated “Silicon Valley” has anything to say about gender—like its real-world counterpart—I shudder to think what it would be. The same must be said, unfortunately, of “Master of None,” occasionally a laughably un-self-aware portrayal of creepy misogyny.
Perhaps it is unfair to pigeonhole this year’s nominees and winners for Outstanding Comedy Series into a narrative about representation. With that said, and if I am allowed to play the reductionist for a moment, the relative success of comedy compared to drama on television in 2017 seems due to two main factors. First, in comedies, cruelty is not expected but it is largely present. Second, cruelty can be transformed into more than a fact of the world due to the baseline of expectation placed onto comedies. Note that these axioms should not be applied to all comedies and dramas with reckless aplomb—they are derived from an examination of the best that comedy and drama currently has to offer on the small screen. The best comedies, particularly this year's nominated bunch, are willing to delve into the depths of the dramatic and the cruel.
Those cruel aspects of modern comedies—Ex-President Meyer’s fall from grace, for example—become in and of themselves radical interventions on the nature of genre, radical because they transcend the line between comedy and drama. The expectation for comedies is imbedded within its name. Every act of cruelty seems to transgress the comedic boundary. Yet, unlike dramas—or more specifically, dramas that take themselves deathly seriously—comedies are able to refashion the cruel into laughter, to modulate the depths of human baseness into a multivariate exploration of the nature of humanity.
In short, it is a problem of expectation—comedies are able to utilize cruelty effectively because the expectation of a comedy is comedy (that expectation inherently refashions what is inherently horrid: cruelty). Dramas must work harder to produce a distinct sense that the cruelty produced onscreen is more than network-sanctioned voyeurism of cruelty. “The Handmaid’s Tale” not only lacks the cruelty that would make it consistent with its fictional world—its genre is inherently limited in its ability to fully capitalize on and actualize the artistic effect of cruelty. And, most sinful of all, it takes itself deathly seriously.
Perhaps the future of television is a welding of the best features of genre and form: the limited series comedy. But, in an act of unintentional parody, I have droned on for the length of the Emmys award show. I can only hope that my words are not as self-congratulatory as theirs.
—Staff writer Aziz B. Yakub can be reached at aziz.yakub@thecrimson.com.
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