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By Movieguide® Staff
The Television Academy revealed its nominations for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards Wednesday morning in Los Angeles, with HBO Max’s medical drama THE PITT leading the field with 25 nods, its network-mate HACKS pulling 24 and Apple TV+ newcomers WIDOW’S BAY and PLURIBUS landing 19 and 18, respectively.
Actors Liza Colón-Zayas and Jeff Hiller, both recent Emmy winners, announced the nominations at the Television Academy’s Los Angeles headquarters. The ceremony airs live on NBC and streams on Peacock Sunday, Sept. 14, hosted by LAW & ORDER: SVU star Mariska Hargitay.
Virtually none of these shows appeal to families at large and instead emphasize yet again that the elite of Hollywood have no idea what appeals to the masses. Why does the industry continue to promote content that disgusts the average viewer?
Movieguide® asked almost this exact question back in 2014, when HOUSE OF CARDS, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK and BREAKING BAD dominated that year’s nominations — three shows unified by nothing but an MA rating and a body count. Twelve years later, the pattern hasn’t budged much.
PLURIBUS carries an extra bit of irony. It’s the newest series from Vince Gilligan, the same writer-producer behind BREAKING BAD, the very show Movieguide® singled out back in 2014 for glamorizing a life of crime and violence. A decade later, Gilligan’s specialty is still winning nominations, this time for a post-apocalyptic thriller starring BETTER CALL SAUL’s Rhea Seehorn.
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Movieguide®’s own review of THE PITT’s pilot praised its authentic writing and camera work but also flagged its “grim, humanistic worldview” and “heavy gore” alongside storylines about grief, drug overdose, and workplace harassment. HACKS and WIDOW’S BAY carry TV-MA ratings too, joining THE BEAR’s latest comedy nomination in a genre Movieguide® has already flagged for its profanity-heavy scripts.
It’s not just the shows aimed at adults, either.
“Within the last decade, TV content rated as appropriate for children has become much more violent, and much more profane,” Tim Winter, then-president of the Parents Television Council, said after the group’s decade-long study found violence on TV-14 shows had jumped 150 percent and profanity on TV-PG shows had climbed 43.5 percent.
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY, also nominated for Best Comedy Series, is one of the rare TV-PG titles in the mix this year, but the show often promotes homosexuality.
None of this means Christian viewers should swear off television, or that every TV-MA drama lacks merit. THE PITT’s writers clearly know their craft, and Movieguide’s® own review said as much. But discernment starts with noticing the pattern: an industry that keeps rewarding the most graphic option on the shelf, whether or not that’s what most families are actually looking for on a Friday night.
So when the Emmys crown their bloodiest, bawdiest nominees again this September, don’t expect Christian households to be shocked. Most of us will just keep scrolling for something we can watch together — and hope Hollywood eventually notices how many of us are looking.
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