Emmy’s White Collar

It is subtle and inadvertent, but a different sort of class struggle has been playing out on broadcast television all year long, seeping in between the laugh tracks of prime time. Sunday night at the Shrine Auditorium viewers of the 53rd Emmy Awards will see its didactic conclusion as some lucky sitcom producer accepts a gold statuette for Outstanding Comedy Series.

Year in and year out, the community of entertainment types who qualify to be Emmy judges have shown exactly what kind of humor they relate to. The shows that resonate with them aren’t about flannel-shirt fathers and overweight mothers. They are about well-spoken, worldly characters who greet the world with their feet planted firmly in Pradas.

A look at the last decade of both nominees and winners reveals a subtext on what it takes to win--a qualification that has nothing to do with humor and everything to do with money and social standing.

Judges from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which awards the Emmys, have consistently endorsed those sitcoms that are stocked with highly educated, affluent characters. In 1995 and again 1996 they managed to nominate the same group of highbrow series--HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show” and NBC’s “Frasier,” “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” and “Mad About You.” In addition to the white, wealthy and college-educated characters, the shows were set in spacious apartments in big metropolitan areas.

“Frasier” won both years (and three other years, as well). The comedy revolves around a successful psychiatrist living in a Seattle high rise with his father, an ex-police officer who is the perfect contrast to his pretentious son. Attending to most of Frasier and father’s needs is Daphne, the beautiful, foreign cook-housekeeper. “Our entire media structure is people at the top communicating to people at the bottom,” said Robert McChesney, professor of communications at the University of Illinois and author of “Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times” (2000 New Press). “The world of the upper middle class is seen by this community as America. In this scenario, you’re going to have a world of doctors and lawyers and affluent families. That’s more the norm for them than single moms out of work trying to piece it together.”

“Maybe the sets--nice surroundings--are more in tune with Academy voters,” opined Phil Rosenthal, creator and executive producer of CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond,” which has been nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series for the third year. Rosenthal said his show doesn’t have the “cachet” that appeals to the Emmy judges, and he’s sure someone else’s name will be called Sunday night.

He’s competing against “Frasier,” “Will & Grace” (NBC’s show about an interior decorator and her best friend, a Manhattan attorney, which won last year), “Malcolm in the Middle” (Fox’s hit about growing up in a family of four brothers in which one is a genius) and “Sex and the City” (HBO’s illuminating look at the dating escapades of four upper-middle-class sophisticates in Manhattan).

“There’s nothing particularly sexy about our show,” sighed Rosenthal. “Everybody Loves Raymond” is based in the chaotic, very middle-class home of Long Island sportswriter Ray Barone (played by Ray Romano). His homemaker wife takes care of their three children and tries to handle Ray’s retired parents, who live next door with his simple-minded brother--a police officer.

“Maybe it seems too ordinary for an award,” Rosenthal said.

Maybe he’s right. “Home Improvement,” which had a distinctly working-man sensibility and some of the highest ratings on prime time television, was nominated in 1992, 1993 and 1994. It never won.

“Roseanne” had even less luck. Actress Roseanne won Outstanding Lead Actress in 1993, and her co-stars were nominated several times, but the show about a self-described “white trash” family failed to receive one nomination.

A few years later and a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder, the judges cheered in 1999 for “Ally McBeal,” a comedy about lawyers at a Boston firm who drink cocktails and listen to live music.

According to the TV Academy’s vice president, John Leverence, the 850 volunteer judges were selected from a pool of 10,000 Academy members who have had “primary work” in the entertainment industry in the past two years and do not have a vested interest in any show.

“The people who are judges have reached a level of experience and have accumulated credits in prime television,” Leverence said. “These are not people at the entry levels. These are distinguished people.”

That’s the problem, says Martha Lauzen, professor at the School of Communication at San Diego State University, whose area of expertise is women in television and film. The entertainment industry is run by very wealthy, well-educated white men who have little experience with working America, she said. According to her research on last year’s prime-time sitcoms and dramas, women were drastically outnumbered. Lauzen said they composed only 24% of writers, producers and directors, directors of photography and editors.

“When you see someone who is similar to you, it validates your own experiences,” Lauzen said. “This is a select group of people who are reflecting what perhaps is their perception of other people’s reality.”

Rosenthal insists he’s in touch with the harsh realities of this town’s meritocracy. If “Everybody Loves Raymond” wins on Sunday, it could be signal a new trend of acceptance. But he’s betting on the viewers rather than his peers. “It’d be nice to win,” he said. “But syndication is the place where shows like ours are vindicated because they’ll be on the air for years.”