The 2021 Emmy Awards have named their winners, but this year’s show has highlighted how confusing the categories have become in the modern age of streaming. In years past, when traditional TV programming fell into more rigidly defined genres and forms, the award show’s breakup of nominees made sense. But the 2021 Emmys were filled with baffling nominations in a number of categories, making the whole thing feel messy and in desperate need of a revamp.
There are a few key categories used by the Emmys to split up the nominees into more uniform groupings; drama series, comedy series, and variety series are three of the main ones, each of which has its one awards for writing, acting, directing, and so on. Limited series, anthology series, and movies are generally grouped together for their awards, leading to some more disparate pairings. Obviously, all awards shows have their problems, but the Emmy categories have at least retained a more sensible and respectable order than some other shows like the Golden Globes.
However, the 2021 Emmys featured a few curious nominations that have once again shone a light on how the award categories may need to be updated for the modern era. For instance, the nominees for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie” included Ewan McGregor for the Netflix miniseries Halston, Hugh Grant for HBO Max’s The Undoing, Paul Bettany for WandaVision, and two different actors – Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. – for the Disney+ recording of Broadway’s Hamilton. There’s a massive diversity of content across those nominations, ranging from live musical performances, to a major Hollywood superhero franchise, to a couple more traditional limited series.
Bafflingly, Hamilton was also nominated for the "Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)" category, where it competed against the likes of Bo Burnham’s Inside and the Friends reunion special – again, three entirely different kinds of material. Cobra Kai and The Flight Attendant were nominated as comedies, Mare of Easttown competed against Hamilton and WandaVision, and the list goes on. While these oddities don’t have to detract from the significance of the awards themselves, they do spark some important questions about how shows like the Emmys can do better in the future.
In large part, the messiness of the 2021 Emmys’ nominations is due to the rapidly changing TV landscape. Streaming has become the dominant platform for serialized content, and it’s a platform with significantly less predetermined structure than broadcast television. The Queen’s Gambit could easily get another season at Netflix despite its title of limited series, and WandaVision stars characters who’ve existed in the MCU for years, but both of them wound up competing against the likes of recorded live musical performances and proper miniseries. Short-form content and limited series are more popular and varied than ever. Length, genre and content are less rigid on streaming as well, and that might eventually demand a change in how shows like the Emmy Awards approach their categories.