The Emmys sound the death knell of TV’s Difficult Man obsession
There was a major contradiction in the statement made by the voters at this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards: on the one hand, performing categories of the ‘Supporting’ variety were designated for older character actors renowned within the industry: John Lithgow (71) fended off younger contenders, Ann Dowd (61) was a shock (but wonderful) win in her category, defeating Stranger Things’ prodigious Millie Bobby Brown (who — young, English and totally overconfident — fits the bill of Emmy Favourite) and Laura Dern and Alec Baldwin both added to their trophy collections. But those were all for Supporting performances. What of the Leads?
In this area, the outcome this year was fascinating, especially in male categories: Lead Actor in a Drama, Lead Actor in a Comedy and Lead Actor in a Limited Series were all won by actors of colour under the age of 41, all playing very different roles than what the Emmys and their ilk usually recognise as the ‘best Leading performances’. Think of the men who have dominated these awards over the past decade or more — Walter White, Don Draper — and even the other men nominated this year — Frank Underwood, Ray Donovan, Mr. American from The Americans (okay okay, I don’t watch that show). They’re all fairly stereotypical ‘Difficult Men’, a term coined to describe the sort of brooding middle-aged male antihero who became intrinsically linked with the dawn of ‘Peak TV’. We’re talking both the cantankerous post-Scorsese hitmen types, and the eroticised Working Men, and they’re all certainly lying to their wives about pretty much everything they’re doing on the show.
This year’s three Lead Actor winners are completely different. There’s Sterling K. Brown, who has rapidly become one of the most well-liked men in the industry after a sparkling turn in The People vs O.J. Simpson, now a winner for This is Us. Now I don’t watch This is Us, but I’ve seen enough episodes to know that Brown’s character isn’t really a Difficult Man. He plays a black member of an adoptive white family who seeks out his birth father in the show’s pilot and — I assume — develop a complex emotional relationship with this man. It’s a role that’s almost totally reliant on Brown’s emphatic warmth, and a rare one for a black actor of his generation. To see Brown, even for a show I don’t particularly like, defeat wholly tokenish nominees like Anthony Hopkins (who was actually pretty rubbish on Westworld if you ask me) and Kevin Spacey (great actor on a godawful show), was very exciting.
The same happened in the other Lead Actor categories. Donald Glover, one of the most talented renaissance men in America today, beat old favourites like Jeffrey Tambor (who, two seasons into Transparent, I feared would become a Julia Louis-Dreyfus type Constant Winner) for a performance that was mysterious, sensitive and incredibly funny. And, best of all, Riz Ahmed won Lead Actor in a Limited Series for his work on The Night Of. Yup, a 31-year old British Muslim actor beat Robert Fucking DeNiro.
It was perfect: Ahmed’s work on the superb miniseries was incredibly reminiscent of DeNiro’s most famous transformative performances: Ahmed’s character Naz was part Travis Bickle, part Jake LaMotta (who died today, RIP), visibly goes from shy college nerd to bulked-up jailbird in a matter of hours; I think even DeNiro (who was originally slated for John Turturro’s role on the show) would’ve been pretty proud to see him win. Of these three winning Lead Actor roles, Ahmed’s is the most Difficult Man-y, but the parts of the character’s faith and cultural background, and how he’s treated in jail as a result of his skin colour, adds a whole other level to the part.
Ray Donovan is, perhaps more than any other show on TV (except maybe Ozark), singularly representative of the Difficult Man fatigue experienced by audiences. It simply isn’t a show I will ever be motivated to watch. An angry white guy being threatened by mean men does not appeal to me. Fresh, organic stories like those told on Atlanta and The Night Of, and even the schmaltzy silliness of This is Us, are much more interesting.
