Yesterday’s Golden Globe nominations were met with controversy for their many snubs, but one in particular stood out in the television section: HBO’s I May Destroy You. The critically acclaimed show was omitted, and to the surprise of many, shows like Ratched and Emily in Paris were nominated instead. Also shocked by this was writer Deborah Copaken, who works on Emily in Paris. She wrote an op-ed for The Guardian expressing her shock at the decision making process.
“How anyone can watch I May Destroy You and not call it a brilliant work of art or Michaela Coel a genius is beyond my capacity to understand how these decisions are made,” Copaken says.
Throughout her op-ed, she highlights that she understood the controversy around her own series, especially considering the climate that it was released in. Watching a white woman vagabond across France in the complete absence of POC is not exactly the televised nourishment some needed at the time.
“Did I take the criticism of the show personally? Of course. Who wouldn’t? But also not,” Copaken explained. “Emily in Paris aired a few months after I’d spent June and July marching for racial justice through the streets of New York with my kids. I could definitely see how a show about a white American selling luxury whiteness, in a pre-pandemic Paris scrubbed free of its vibrant African and Muslim communities, might rankle.”
And rankle it did. But at the same time, I know people hate-watched it and made content about it, even here at The Mary Sue, and that just reinforces that hate-watching has consequences.
“Now, am I excited that Emily in Paris was nominated? Yes. Of course. I’ve never been remotely close to seeing a Golden Globe statue up close, let alone being nominated for one. But that excitement is now unfortunately tempered by my rage over Coel’s snub. That I May Destroy You did not get one Golden Globe nod is not only wrong, it’s what is wrong with everything.”
When I raged about the Golden Globes to a friend of mine, they responded that if you were looking to the Golden Globes to get television noms right, you were looking to be disappointed. To a degree, I know they are correct. Almost every year we have a reason to be disappointed in nominations for every major award ceremony. But it stills stings. We can know that truth and still be disappointed to see talent get overlooked. To see people pour their whole heart and soul into something objectively excellent and be passed over for mediocrity.
That isn’t shade to just Emily in Paris, mind you; there are lots of mediocre choices to go around. That is embittering both as a critical viewer and as someone who just loves television.
(via The Guardian, image: Netflix)
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