Small Screen Has Lots of Room for Character

Members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences are in the process of deciding who will walk away with Emmy Awards next month, and while it’s premature to start speculating about winners, it’s a pretty safe bet some of them will be kind of, well, unattractive.

OK, it’s rude and shallow, but I said it--perhaps because, along with some of those being considered, I happen to carry a few extra pounds in the midsection and have yet to meet a doughnut I didn’t like.

The two actors generally considered the best on television, after all, are “The Sopranos” star James Gandolfini and “NYPD Blue’s” Dennis Franz--guys who don’t exactly cause wholesale swooning each time they strip down to an undershirt. In fact, their brilliance as performers has gone a long way toward giving the overweight and balding a better self-image than they have enjoyed in years.

The supporting categories, meanwhile, include four co-stars from “The West Wing”--Allison Janney, John Spencer, Richard Schiff and Bradley Whitford--who recently negotiated fat raises of a different kind, as well as Dominic Chianese and Aida Turturro from “The Sopranos.” While this is a uniformly talented bunch, let’s face it: Few of them seem destined to spend oodles of hours posing for Maxim or GQ magazine covers.

In this respect, television would appear more open-minded and democratic than the world of feature films, where the stars--in keeping, perhaps, with the size of the screen--tend to come in bright, shiny packages. Just consider this year’s Academy Awards, which bestowed lead acting honors to what are arguably two of the more physically blessed performers on the planet, Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe.

Gandolfini’s big-screen role last year, by way of comparison, cast him as a second banana to Roberts and Brad Pitt in “The Mexican.” Now, while Gandolfini would probably finish behind Pitt in a beauty pageant, it’s hard to imagine Pitt delivering a performance that could rival the ferocity of Gandolfini’s “Sopranos” work. In similar fashion, Janney--already an Emmy winner for “West Wing”--has largely been limited to fairly nondescript film roles, among them the zombified wife in “American Beauty,” in which Annette Bening--the face that inspired Warren Beatty to say “I do”--occupied the lead.

This isn’t to say that television doesn’t put a premium on pretty people or physical beauty. Romance of any kind, in fact, still leans heavily toward the thin and the beautiful as well as the young and the restless, from the central couple (and assorted ex-spouses, for that matter) in ABC’s “Once and Again” to the lawyers/runway models who populate David E. Kelley’s “The Practice” and “Ally McBeal.”

Moreover, youth-oriented series, in particular, stock their shelves with gorgeous pimple-free faces--apparently working from the premise proffered by the new movie “Legally Blonde,” which seeks to prove that being beautiful can be, like, a really, really big hassle.

Even the National Organization for Women--hardly a proponent of bimbo-ism--recently found itself criticized for anointing programs such as the WB’s “Felicity” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” among a list of positive female role models on television, inspiring one critic to point out that obsessing about guys (alive or dead) and cavorting in bare midriffs doesn’t quite amount to progress from a feminist point of view.

From that perspective, it’s undeniably true that women adhere to a higher standard looks-wise than their male counterparts, in everything from sitcoms to news, where anchors such as Hal Fishman, Jerry Dunphy and Harold Greene regularly find themselves sitting alongside perky young females who weren’t even a dirty thought when Dunphy first began reading that night’s headlines “from the desert to the sea to all of California.”

Nevertheless, the theory does appear to hold true that there is more room for ordinary-looking people--and particularly average-looking men--within television series, from “The King of Queens”’ Kevin James to Drew Carey to new sitcoms built around Jason Alexander and Jim Belushi.(At least one female co-worker did groan, by the way, after seeing Belushi snuggling with his new sitcom wife, Courtney Thorne-Smith, in the ABC comedy “According to Jim.”)

By contrast, a quick survey of current movie listings finds former underwear poster boy Mark Wahlberg playing opposite a model (who, mercifully, seldom speaks) in “Planet of the Apes,” Roberts as the overlooked sister to Catherine Zeta-Jones in “America’s Sweethearts,” Tea Leoni and Sam Neill ducking dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park,” and even Angelina Jolie swashbuckling and pouting her way through “Tomb Raider.” Granted, Shrek is an ogre, but the cuddly animated type who makes a swell plush toy.

Perhaps that’s because television, at its core, relies on character actors in the truest sense and provides enough time for viewers to get to know them. Franz’s Det. Andy Sipowicz has become a compelling personality to watch evolve through the years with all his warts, emotional and otherwise, just as Tony Soprano continues to fascinate even when sitting at the kitchen table with his gut hanging out. It’s a reality as old as Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker or Dan Blocker’s lovable behemoth on “Bonanza,” though the latter never had to squeeze into a tuxedo in order to accept an Emmy.

Even so-called “reality” shows would be well-advised to recognize this three-dimensional aspect of television. Because sure, while it may be fun to ogle the beautiful--especially for the men-in-prison demographic to which some of these shows cater--most would agree the blow-dried wannabes of “Survivor: The Australian Outback” were inherently less identifiable than the first edition’s group precisely because they seemed less “real.” Pretty much anyone, after all, can theoretically eat a rat or bug larva if they absolutely have to, but posing for Playboy isn’t an option for most folks under even the best of circumstances.

While it’s doubtful anyone is clamoring to see Franz or Gandolfini with a staple in any part of them, it certainly remains a pleasure to watch them work--so much so that when the Emmy ceremony rolls around and they begin doling out those winged statuettes, one suspects that once again an average-looking, middle-aged guy might actually get to go home with the girl.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at https://brian.lowry@latimes.com.