FISCHER – The awards go to not enough people

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

For as much media as I consume, I generally don’t pay too much attention to award shows, but I did check out the results of this weekend’s Emmy Awards cause I wanted to see if “X-Men ‘97” would come into its second season as the “Emmy Award Winning X-Men ’97.”

Alas, no. The shockingly good continuation of the 90’s Saturday Morning Cartoon was snubbed out of an award by Netflix’s “Blue Eye Samurai.”

Okay, snub may be too strong a word. From what I hear, “Blue Eye Samurai” was well deserving of its Emmy win. I haven’t seen it yet myself, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it from people whose opinions I value.

But even if it didn’t win best animated program, surely some of the voice actors received recognition for putting out some truly stellar performances. After all, the episode that earned the show’s nomination in the first place was carried by Lenore Zann and Matthew Waterson’s performances as Rogue and Magneto, respectively.

Nope. They didn’t even get a nomination. Partially, I suspect, because the entire animation voiceover industry is restricted to a single category.

In an awards program that has a distinct award for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie,” voice actors are all lumped into the single box of “Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance,” which I’m not sure is even announced during the program. You won’t find it on any of the “winners list” articles circulating the internet. I had to go to the Emmy’s website to find out that the category even existed, tucked between the award for “Music Supervision” and “Narrator.”

This year, Sterling K. Brown was nominated for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for his villainous role in “Invincible,” but lost out to “Big Mouth’s” Maya Rudolph. Were these two in a live action program, they would each be in different categories, but all voice acting is apparently the same.

As an aside, Maya Rudolph has won this award four times out of the last five years, which, considering this award apparently encompasses the entire voiceover industry, is a suspiciously high success rate. Either she is consistently delivering an all-time industry shaking performance as Connie the Hormone Monstress, or something else is going on.

Her only loss was in 2022 to a posthumous performance from Chadwick Boseman for an episode of “What If…?” which, was fine, sure. But Boseman wasn’t even the best voice actor in that show much less the entire animation industry.

And don’t even get me started on the number of nominated voice actors in the category over the years whose primary qualification seems to have been “has been in movies.” As though coming down from on high to lend your voice (and your name) to a lowly animated project makes you inherently better than the people who do voice work professionally.

I don’t know who needs to hear this… wait, no. Actually, I do. It’s Warner Bros., who are absolutely addicted to stunt-casting celebrities for animated projects who, more often than not, put in the weakest performance.

Anyway, that’s a whole other tangent.

The whole thing highlights a huge disparity in how the Emmys treat animated programming. Across the board the Emmys segregate and diminish animated TV shows, perpetuating the idea that “cartoons” are a lesser form of television.

I’m not saying that voice actors should be competing in the same categories as their live-action counterparts, but if you’re going to have a “Best Lead Actress In A Comedy,” you can have a “Best Lead Voice Actress In A Comedy” as well without putting them up against every other person in their industry so maybe somebody other than Maya Rudolph can get an award.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and should just make up his own awards.