This Emmy cycle has set a remarkable new standard for inclusivity.
LGBTQIA actors were honored in every acting category by the Television Academy. Previous nominees such as Bowen Yang (“Saturday Night Live”), Hannah Einbinder (“Hacks”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”) are joined by newcomers such as Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer (“Fellow Travelers”), Andrew Scott (“Ripley”) and Lily Gladstone (“Under the Bridge”). Three stars from “Baby Reindeer” — bisexual Richard Gadd, lesbian Jessica Gunning and transgender Nava Mau — were nominated. And Gunning and Mau join Gladstone, who uses they/them pronouns, and “True Detective: Night Country” star Kali Reis, who describes herself as a “two-spirit,” in the Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries category. Reis’ co-star Jodie Foster is also nominated, as are real-life couple Holland Taylor (“The Morning Show”) and Sarah Paulson (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”). Clayton Davis of Variety notes that Taylor and Paulson are the first queer couple to be nominated for an acting Emmy in the same year.
The list goes on—and yet it’s less interesting in and of itself than the circumstances that made it possible. Several of these performers were nominated not only as openly queer actors, but also for roles that embrace and emphasize their identities and queer storytelling. Einbinder, for example, is a bisexual woman playing a bisexual woman—and her “Hacks” character Ava spent season three figuring out what she wanted both in love and professionally. (Her liaison with a politically conservative golfer, played by Christina Hendricks, made for one of the season’s absolutely funniest scenes, as Ava realizes there are some places she doesn’t want to go for her lust.)
Yang’s sensibilities as a gay consumer of culture inform each of his “Weekend Update” desk posts, while both “Fellow Travelers” – explicitly about gay men’s journey through mid-century American history – and “Ripley” – obliquely about the complicated sexuality of a far more closeted mid-century American – generate friction and heat from the actors at their center. And the confessional, first-person “Baby Reindeer” deals directly with Gadd’s real-life journey in discovering his feelings about his sexuality.
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 Best Actor Emmys in 2001 and 2004 respectively. These memorable and great performances – which, in their moments, deservedly won Emmys, and both projects were very effective in shifting the culture toward widespread acceptance of queer people – are not taken away from the fact that a show like “Baby Reindeer” or “Hacks” gets an extra dose of power when it shows the perspective of someone who has experienced it.
Although those older shows were breakthroughs, there were also other signature moments that marked the Academy’s progress — like openly gay actor Billy Porter winning a trophy for “Pose” in 2019, or that show’s transgender lead, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, earning a nomination in 2021. Not everything has changed this year: Yang, Edebiri and Einbinder have been here before. The same goes for Paulson for various (sometimes insanely cheesy) Ryan Murphy projects.
What’s striking this year, though, is how many different tones the nominated queer actors can strike in series across genres and TV landscapes. It’s a little weird to lump together “Baby Reindeer” and “Hacks,” which have little more in common than the cast playing up their real-life sexuality to tell stories: The former plays Gadd’s personal story as a painful, fraught drama that’s eventually laced with redemption, while Ava’s explorations in dating start from a humorous perspective and find their way to something heartfelt. While Ripley isn’t out (or, to put it mildly, isn’t queer—his sexuality is tortured), Scott finds his way in; Bailey and Bomer build a believable, compelling romance. All of these films show what’s possible when you let queer people tell their own stories.
Progress is evident in other ways at this year’s Emmys, too. Taylor’s true identity is less evident in her role on “The Morning Show” than her authoritative demeanor, clear-spokenness and clear and delicious comfort in her own skin. Taylor has been an Emmy favorite since she won supporting actress in 1999’s “The Practice.” She was later nominated four times for her work in “Two and a Half Men.” And she received most of her nominations before she came out in 2015. Taylor was a queer actress who received Emmy nominations and an award without viewers at home knowing.
Her presence as an openly queer woman, along with so many other actors like her, could inspire more and more actors to be openly themselves in the future. As this year’s Emmy nominations prove, there will be a seat at the table for them, too.
