Awards Don’t Matter But Also They Do

On Monday night, the 75th Emmy Awards aired on a mostly positive note, with records being broken on multiple fronts, including Quinta Brunson’s win for Lead Actress in a Comedy, marking only the second time a Black actress has garnered the award since Isabel Sanford won for her role in The Jeffersons more than 40 years ago. It’s an important milestone, and one that is worthy of comment considering that, of the many brilliant lead comedic performances brought to our screens by Black women, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has seen fit to recognize 2 of them in all this time.

For years now, “awards don’t matter” has been a maxim repeated by a substantial segment of the population, journalists and critics included. There’s an element of iconoclasm involved, but there’s a legitimate argument to be made, especially in the wake of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association scandal revolving around blatant bribery and racist practices. The problem is in no way limited to the HFPA, either; each year there’s deflating anonymous confessions from voters who don’t actually watch nominated materials, controversial wins emerging from split votes and the ever-present recency bias. Too often there’s little fairness actually applied in award season, forgotten in favor of each ceremony’s pomp and glamour.

Sure, awards don’t matter, but also they do. In practice they may not substantially move the needle when it comes to cultural relevance (quickly: off the top of your head, name the broadly appealing, inspirational family film that won the Best Picture Academy Award in 2022), but being formally acknowledged by your industry isn’t without meaning either. The desire and flattery of being awarded falls squarely between ego and artistic gratification, which explains both why it’s easy to mock Bradley Cooper’s desperate Oscar campaign while also understanding that giving the performance of your life in A Star is Born only to lose to the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody can push a person over the edge.

Awards may not matter in the grand scheme of things, but your hard work rewarded in front of colleagues, family, and friends is touching, as evidenced by the tears frequently shed by award winners. These effusive reactions are swiftly logged in entertainment history—as I write this, Sally Field’s famous cry, “You like me! You really like me!” (which is, in fact, a misquote, as she actually said, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!”) during her 1985 Oscar acceptance speech loops in my head—and now eagerly shared on social media by those who find inspiration in someone else’s triumph.

Which is why it rankles that a show like Better Call Saul, a tremendous work that defied every imaginable expectation for a spin-off series, is heading off into the sunset without a single Emmy win to its name. Season after season nominations came and went but none came to fruition; hell, Rhea Seehorn’s earth-shattering performance as lawyer/accomplice Kim Wexler was never so much as nominated until its final season, a blatant oversight that angered fans each year prior. With the last season ending in the summer of 2023—nearly a lifetime ago in the entertainment world, especially with the Emmys, typically held in September, pushed to the new year due to the WGA/SAG strikes—it was nice to imagine that, at the very least, Bob Odenkirk’s magnificent performance as antihero Jimmy McGill would be awarded in what could have been perceived as a catch-all acknowledgement for the years’ worth of previous nominations. Alas, the show was up against the behemoth known as Succession, the only fellow nominee who is equal in quality, whose run also came to an end this past year. Like a criminal lawyer on the lam randomly spotted working at an Omaha Cinnabon, it comes down to just plain old bad luck.

Internet searches are now festooned with a variety of headlines reading, “Better Call Saul sets record for most losses,” and “0-for-53 in Emmy nominations,” which may seem like an ignoble closing chapter on one of the finest television dramas in history. But as much as I think awards do matter, I also believe that there is nothing that can ever take away from the extraordinary accomplishment achieved through the massive group effort of co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, a murderer’s row of actors the likes of Michael McKean, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, editors such as Skip Macdonald and Kelley Dixon, and hundreds more. The tale of sly con artist Jimmy McGill’s evolution into the notorious Saul Goodman is astounding in scope, particularly when one considers how much drama was inserted using cannula-sized plot devices (who would have ever thought transposed numbers in a bank address could be so gripping?); sure, an Emmy would be nice, but Odenkirk will simply have to make do with brilliantly executing the role of a lifetime instead. Awards do matter. The work matters more.

Better Call Saul is in fine company on the awards front. HBO’s The Wire, frequently cited as one of the greatest shows of all time by countless critics, never garnered an Emmy win, or even a fraction of the nominations (hat tip to Vulture TV Critic Roxana Hadadi for that reminder). For performances, arguably tv’s most consistently brilliant actor who’s yet to be recognized by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is Glenn Howerton despite an impressive 16 seasons (and counting) of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s too simplistic to say awards don’t matter, but they certainly don’t endure the way that good writing or a performance can. Awards are for the creators, but the work is for all of us; an Emmy is but one way to honor what’s made. A statue is all well and good, but being forever held in high regard is a whole lot weightier.

Kaleena Rivera is the TV Editor for Pajiba. When she isn’t arguing that Better Call Saul surpassed its predecessor, Breaking Bad, she can be found on Bluesky here.