By all appearances, “The Bear” has swept the board at the 2024 Emmys.
The FX series broke its own record for most wins for a comedy, earning 11 wins in acting, writing and directing categories in its second season.
“Hacks”, on the other hand, was awarded as the most outstanding comedy series.
The show’s winning streak also reignited a debate from the series’ first Emmy Awards: Is “The Bear” even a comedy?
The tense series is set in the kitchen of a Chicago sandwich shop that has been converted into a fine-dining restaurant. The characters struggle with everything from childhood trauma to substance abuse. “Fishes,” which won best director at the Emmys, has been called chaotic; there are rankings of the show’s most stressful episodes.
In their opening monologue, moderators Dan and Eugene Levy poked fun at the evening’s debate.
“I love the show,” Eugene Levy said at the launch of “The Bear.” “And I know some of you might be expecting us to make a joke about whether ‘The Bear’ is really a comedy. But in the true spirit of ‘The Bear,’ we’re not going to make any jokes.”
On the Internet, viewers made fun of the categorization and criticized it.
Comedian Laraine Newman wrote: “Every time I think about The Bear being nominated for comedy at the Emmys, I get an ulcer.”
“The bear is committing voter fraud and stealing the election,” said one tweet. Another compared it to “category fraud.”
“The bear joke may be because the show is ultimately categorized as a comedy series,” wrote another.
Viewers felt that this categorization excluded other, more authentic comedies such as “Abbott Elementary” or “Only Murders in the Building.”
“Jeremy Allen White is a great actor on a great show…who hasn’t said a single funny line in three seasons. The #Emmys are broken. Martin Short, Steve Martin and Larry David are three of the funniest people ever. Comedy needs to be considered when voting for Best Actor in a COMEDY Series,” wrote one X-user.
Others defended the show. “Let’s not pretend this wasn’t one of the best TV episodes of the year,” one X-user wrote about “Fishes,” for which Christopher Storer won an Emmy for directing.
The cast also commented on the debate on the red carpet.
“These are conversations that other people should be having. Our conversation is in progress,” Ayo Edebiri said in a Variety interview.
“I think the show is really funny. Comedy, drama… who cares, man?” said Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who won Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for the second year in a row.
“I think it’s an important conversation. But I think the show is funny and the work is good … so I’m really not interested in a discourse that offends anyone,” she said.
FX has not clarified why “The Bear” was submitted as a comedy.
However, FX chairman John Landgraf addressed the debate in an interview with Variety, essentially saying that he leaves categorization up to the Academy.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’m in my 60s and I’ve been doing this my entire adult life. And I’ve never seen a better season of a television series, let alone a comedy, than the second season of ‘The Bear.’ That’s the best season of television I’ve ever seen. And there are parts of that season that are very, very funny. We’re letting the voters decide the answers to those questions,” he said.
This isn’t the first time a show that’s both a comedy and a drama has been submitted to the Emmys as a comedy. “Barry” swept the Emmys’ comedy category year after year and was an often brutal show about a hitman suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
In this evolving, cross-genre television landscape, the Television Academy’s rules for what constitutes a drama and what constitutes a comedy have changed. In 2022, the Emmys eliminated the program length that determined whether a show was a comedy or a drama.
The debate will likely continue. The third season of The Bear just aired and was just as exhausting and heartbreaking, meaning next year’s Emmys will continue the controversy.
