For years now, major awards shows like the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Golden Globes have had a reputation for showing a preference towards more highbrow, artsy dramas over more popular genre fiction. Sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero movies tend to be relegated to technical awards, while the major awards are swept by more down-to-earth works with less mainstream appeal.
This isn’t a universal rule, of course: occasionally, a genre film will break the mold and receive major awards season attention. Black Panther and Mad Max: Fury Road were both nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture, and even managed to win a few as well. And of course, director Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water managed to pull a major upset in 2018 by winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, making it only the second fantasy film in Oscars history to do so — after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, of course.
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While this year’s Oscars didn’t feature any major nominations for genre films, the upcoming Emmy Awards tell a very different story. Fantasy and sci-fi series like The Mandalorian, WandaVision, and Lovecraft Country are all nominated for several major awards, with The Boys and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier being represented as well. Even The Handmaid’s Tale, another prominent nominee, qualifies as a genre series due to its dystopian future setting. Not only are genre series represented at this year’s Emmys, they’re leading the pack.
While the Emmys have historically been friendlier to genre fiction than the Oscars — just look at Game of Thrones with its 160 nominations and 59 wins — there’s still a popular notion of what “prestige TV” looks like, even in the streaming age. Shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, and of course Breaking Bad all redefined what TV was capable of in the 2000s, pushing boundaries with their complex characters and gritty drama. But in 2021, the Emmy nomination list is dominated not by crime lords and shady businessmen, but superheroes and spacefaring bounty hunters.
Clearly, this isn’t a case of more traditional TV dramas dying out in the 2020s: the presence of shows like The Crown, Bridgerton, and Pose in the list of nominees proves that much. Rather, it’s more likely that the shift comes from which shows are now pushing boundaries. These days, realistic drama series are nothing new, while it’s big-budget genre series that are providing unique TV experiences. The Mandalorian brings movie-level special effects to the small screen, recapturing the magic of the original Star Wars with its episodic adventure story. WandaVision experiments with genre, creating a never before-seen blend of sitcom, horror, mystery, and superhero storytelling that still manages to have a compelling emotional core. Meanwhile, The Boys has gained plenty of attention for how it combines hard-hitting satire of celebrity culture and modern politics with shocking, over-the-top violence.
Moreover, many of the genre shows nominated for the 2021 Emmys have another common thread: ambitious storytelling. In particular, The Mandalorian and WandaVision manage to stand out from recent films in their respective franchises due to how they handle their stories differently. The MCU and Star Wars are both frequently criticized for being too formulaic, relying on the same tropes over and over again without trying anything new.
The extent to which these complaints are accurate is debatable — and it has indeed been hotly debated by fans for years now — but it’s impossible to deny that WandaVision and The Mandalorian are trying something new. Not only do they bring added worldbuilding and a fresh new story structure to their own universes, they do so in a way that still allows for the characters to feel real and nuanced. Not only do these shows have a compelling plot, they allow actors like Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Pedro Pascal, and Giancarlo Esposito to flex their acting talent in a way that the limited run time of an action-adventure movie might not allow.
With this, it’s easy to see a common thread between the 2021 Emmy nominees and other works of genre fiction that have received major awards attention. Mad Max: Fury Road was the rare action movie that managed to balance thrilling, stylish fight scenes with nuanced characters, engaging themes, and detailed worldbuilding. The Shape of Water isn’t just an homage to classic monster movies, it’s a love story in which a group of outsiders find companionship and belonging with each other, allowing them to band together against the oppressive establishment trying to control them.
In regards to superhero movies, both Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix won Oscars portraying the Joker, bringing a level of intensity to the role that’s rarely seen in supervillain performances. Black Panther didn’t just bring some much-needed diversity into mainstream cinema, it did so with plenty of compelling characters brought to life by an all-star cast.
And of course, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature thanks to its heartfelt story, lovable characters, and one-of-a-kind aesthetic. Over the past few years, the genre films and TV shows that have gotten recognition at major awards shows have been the ones that tried something new, challenging the common notion of what their genre was capable of. And with their newfound focus on TV, it seems that Star Wars and the MCU have done just that, earning them no shortage of Emmy nominations. There’s certainly an argument to be had about whether these awards shows even matter at all — but as long as they exist, fans probably won’t complain about their favorite shows and movies getting nominated for a change.
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