{"id":6904,"date":"2021-12-15T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T14:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6904"},"modified":"2025-08-24T11:19:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:19:19","slug":"record-year-for-diversity-in-emmy-nominees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2021\/12\/15\/record-year-for-diversity-in-emmy-nominees\/","title":{"rendered":"Record Year for Diversity in Emmy Nominees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This year\u2019s Emmy Award nominations are the most diverse ever. Half of the lead drama actor nominees are people of color. And 44 percent of all acting nominees are non-white.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first transgender woman, M.J. Rodriguez, was nominated for lead actress.\u00a0 If she wins, she would be the first transgender person to ever win an Emmy. This was unheard of even three years ago. A transgender woman leading a mostly transgender cast on an Emmy nominated TV show, \u201cPose,\u201d was equally unheard of.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Emmy Statue.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of her nomination, Rodriguez said, \u201cI do believe this is a pivotal moment. There\u2019s never been a trans woman who has been nominated as a leading outstanding actress and I feel like that pushes the needle forward so much for the door to be knocked down for so many people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LaTasha Bishop couldn\u2019t agree more. She\u2019s also a transgender woman. She never thought we\u2019d be at this point. For her, it\u2019s more than just representation. \u201cIt\u2019s about being humanized. It\u2019s survival. The world doesn\u2019t fully accept trans women. Especially black trans women. But it\u2019s definitely getting better. This show has opened some eyes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So, the television landscape is changing. More women and people of color than ever are leading TV shows. This means that more diverse actors are being hired. Nielsen\u2019s report \u201cBeing Seen on Screen: Diverse Representation and Inclusion on TV,\u201d tracks this data. And according to them, diversity on screen has increased every year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What this also means is that more people get to see themselves represented on TV. That fully\u00a0 matters to Marla Abbas. She\u2019s a client services representative. She and her daughter Bailey love to watch awards shows. \u201cI love that she gets to see more possibilities of what she can be. I didn\u2019t see that growing up. I don\u2019t remember many black people winning TV awards when I was young.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But these increased roles have been slower to garner recognition. Awards shows have routinely overlooked black and LGBTQ actors: shows that can catapult a career to new heights.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All that began to change after 2015. That year, during the Academy Awards broadcast, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite began to trend on social media. All 20 acting awards went to white actors. Then #TimesUp began to trend because no female directors had even been nominated. At the time, 96 percent of top film directors were men and 86 percent of lead film rolls were white.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This started a social justice movement across film and television to demand change. And slowly but surely, the people we see on our television screens have indeed become more diverse. Afraid of bad publicity, awards shows began to make an effort to level the playing field with nominations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But not the Golden Globes. In February 2021, the Golden Globes Awards nearly fell apart. Again, their nominations\u2019 lack of diversity caused an uproar. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) picks its nominees. The L.A. Times revealed that there were no black HFPA members. Charges of prior racism, sexism and homophobia followed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then came the backlash. NBC canceled the 2022 broadcast. Netflix and Amazon refused to work with them until real changes are made. Tom Cruise returned his awards. The HFPA has been left scrambling to clean up its act.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Soon, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences looked at its own organization. It hired a consulting firm, ReadySet. ReadySet reviewed the diversity initiatives. It surveyed inside and out to see where change could be made. The Academy has now set a mandate to increase visibility.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This year\u2019s Emmy Award nominations are the most diverse ever. Half of the lead drama actor nominees are people of color. And 44 percent of all acting nominees are non-white.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first transgender woman, M.J. Rodriguez, was nominated for lead actress.\u00a0 If she wins, she would be the first transgender person to ever win an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8220,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6904\/revisions\/8220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}