Via Alyssa Rosenberg comes this explanation from Film Crit Hulk about Jeff Daniels' winning outstanding lead actor in a drama series at the Emmys on Sunday, easily the biggest upset of the evening. Writes Film Crit Hulk in his invariably annoying all caps style:
THE NETWORKS / SHOWS WITH THE BIGGEST STAFFS / CREWS, ETC. HAVE A HUGE, HUGE ADVANTAGE WHEN IT COMES TO EMMY VOTING. THEY SIMPLY HAVE THE MOST PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR THEIR STUFF.
FOR INSTANCE, WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT HBO PUTS OUT SOME TRULY WONDERFUL TELEVISION, BUT DID YOU KNOW THEY EMPLOY THE MOST PEOPLE BY FAR? THEIR NUMBERS QUADRUPLE OTHER NETWORKS BECAUSE OF THEIR UNIQUE MODEL. SO, YES, THEY HAVE THE BIGGEST SINGLE CHUNK OF EMMY VOTERS TOO. WHICH MEANS IT'S NOT AN ACCIDENT WHEN JEFF DANIELS (AN INCREDIBLE ACTOR OF COURSE) WALKS AWAY WITH EMMY GOLD INSTEAD OF BRYAN CRANSTON OR JON HAMM.
So, this is a very interesting theory and it may even be true. But I'm not at all convinced. And I'm not at all convinced because HBO, which apparently has this huge structural advantage and can crush the little guys at AMC and FX, hadn't won a lead acting Emmy in a decade before Sunday.
Seriously! Go look at Wikipedia's list of winners. The last time a HBO actor won best male lead in a dramatic series was 2002-2003, when James Gandolfini took home the gold. 2002-2003 was also the last time a HBO actress won best lead actress in a dramatic series. On the male side of things, at least, it's not as if HBO has had any shortage of chances to win: with the exception of 2009-2010, HBO has had an actor nominated in the category. And they went a decade between wins.*
Meanwhile, little ole AMC managed to dredge up three wins for Bryan Cranston's work on Breaking Bad in the decade between HBO wins. Color me a little bit skeptical that a massive structural advantage is the reason why Jeff Daniels managed to win an Emmy for his work on The Newsroom.
No, I'll stick with the theory that makes the most sense: The Newsroom is middlebrow, liberal pap that made Emmy voters, many of whom likely reflect the sensibility of doddering old fool Dan Rather, feel good and smug about the state of the media and the awfulness of the American people. They then chose to reward this middlebrow liberal pap for making them feel good about their own middlebrow, liberal sensibilities. And who better embodied the middlebrow, liberal gestalt of the show than its middlebrow, liberal news anchor daring to tell the news how it should be told a year after the fact.
The Newsroom may have gotten a boost because HBO has a ton of extra Emmy voters. But I seriously doubt that's why Daniels won on Sunday.
*It's also worth noting that HBO has won just two Emmys for best drama in the last decade, both of them for The Sopranos. I'm just saying: It's not exactly an unstoppable juggernaut, y'all.