The Atlantic

The Emmys Don’t Get Modern TV

The Television Academy still define shows as comedies or dramas. Creators and networks don’t.
Source: FX

In July, the comedian and Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” anchor Michael Che took to Instagram Stories with some opinions. First of all, Che explained, he hadn’t watched , Hannah Gadsby’s about (among other things) the limitations of comedy as a vehicle for exploring trauma. Second, despite having not seen , Che firmly believed that it and similar shows should not, in fact, be classified as comedy. This was all of a piece with Che’s Instagram about “anti-comedy comedy,” or a kind of art he creatively labeled “standup tragedy.” “I dont [sic] wanna have to ‘survive’ a comedy special,” Che wrote. “I wanna laugh. lets not make this what its [sic] not.”

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