Embracing diversity: A new era for the Emmys

Celebrating inclusivity in the acting categories

This Emmy cycle has set a striking new standard for inclusivity. Across the acting categories, LGBTQIA performers have been honored by the Television Academy. Past nominees like Bowen Yang from “Saturday Night Live,” Hannah Einbinder from “Hacks,” and Ayo Edebiri from “The Bear” are joined by first-timers like Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer from “Fellow Travelers,” Andrew Scott from “Ripley,” and Lily Gladstone from “Under the Bridge.” Notably, three stars of “Baby Reindeer” — Richard Gadd, a bisexual; Jessica Gunning, a lesbian; and Nava Mau, a trans woman — were nominated. Gunning and Mau join Gladstone, who uses she/they pronouns, and “True Detective: Night Country” star Kali Reis, who identifies as two-spirit, in the best supporting actress in a limited series category. Reis’ co-star Jodie Foster is nominated too, as are real-life couple Holland Taylor from “The Morning Show” and Sarah Paulson from “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

The significance of these nominations

The list of nominees could go on, but what’s more intriguing are the conditions that made this happen. Several of these performers are nominated not merely as out queer actors but for roles that embrace and lean into their identity and into queer storytelling. For instance, Einbinder, a bisexual woman, plays a bisexual woman in “Hacks.” Her character, Ava, spent the third season figuring out what she wanted in love and professionally. Her liaison with a politically conservative golfer, played by Christina Hendricks, made for one of the season’s outright funniest set pieces, as Ava realizes there are some places she isn’t willing to go for lust.

Yang’s sensibility as a gay consumer of culture colors every one of his “Weekend Update” desk bits. Both “Fellow Travelers” — explicitly about the journey of gay men through midcentury American history — and “Ripley” — obliquely addressing the complicated sexuality of a far more withdrawn midcentury American — draw friction and heat from the actors at their center. The confessional, first-person “Baby Reindeer” is directly about Gadd’s real-life journey in discovering his feelings about his sexuality.

A long way from past milestones

We’re a long way from, say, “Will & Grace” or “Angels in America,” for which Eric McCormack and then Al Pacino and Jeffrey Wright won acting Emmys in 2001 and 2004, respectively. It takes nothing away from those memorable and terrific performances — justly Emmy-winning in their moments, and both projects very powerful in shifting culture toward widespread acceptance of queer people — to note that a show like “Baby Reindeer” or “Hacks” gets an added dose of power from showing a perspective from someone who’s lived something like it.

Though those older shows were breakthroughs, there have been other signature moments that marked progress for the Academy — like out gay actor Billy Porter winning a trophy for “Pose” in 2019, or that show’s trans lead Michaela Jaé Rodriguez getting a nomination in 2021. This year didn’t change everything: Yang, Edebiri, and Einbinder have been here before. So has Paulson, for various (at times deliriously campy) Ryan Murphy projects.

Diverse tones and genres

What’s striking this year is how many different tones the queer nominated performers are able to strike in series across genre and TV landscape. It’s a bit funny to lump together “Baby Reindeer” and “Hacks,” which share little more than performers playing off of their real-life sexuality to tell stories. The former plays Gadd’s personal story as a painful, fraught drama, eventually shot through with redemption, while Ava’s explorations in dating start from a place of humor and find their way somewhere heartfelt. While Ripley isn’t out (or necessarily queer — his sexuality is tortured, to say the least), Scott finds his way inside; Bailey and Bomer build out a believable, compelling romance. All of these represent what’s possible when you let queer people tell their own stories.

Progress and representation

Progress makes itself known another way at this year’s Emmys, too. Taylor’s real-life identity doesn’t enter her character on “The Morning Show” so much as her authoritative bearing does, her crispness of diction, her clear and delicious comfort in inhabiting her own skin. Taylor is an Emmy favorite, dating back to her 1999 win for supporting actress on “The Practice”; she was later nominated four times for her work on “Two and a Half Men.” Most of her nominations came before she came out in 2015. Taylor was a queer actor picking up Emmy nominations and a win without any viewers at home realizing.

Her presence as an out queer woman, with so many other performers like her, may inspire more and more actors in the future to live openly as themselves. As this year’s Emmy nominations prove, there will be room for them at the table.

Explore more

For those interested in diving deeper into these shows, here are some direct links to their trailers and information pages:

This year’s Emmy nominations are a testament to the evolving landscape of television, where diverse voices and stories are not just included but celebrated.