The Bear cast is over the comedy question
The Bear thinks it's a comedy. The Internet disagrees. What should the Emmys do about it?
Aux News The Bear
As The Bear sweeps award show after award show—culminating in 10 wins at the 75th Emmy Awards—an age-old debate has reached a fever pitch: is this show a comedy? The cast and crew of The Bear think so, and they seem a little bothered by the question. Just listen to the tone of stars Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White’s voices after winning Best Comedy and being asked if people “find a lot of laughs in your show.” “Yes,” they both answered emphatically, as in, yes, obviously. But what is a television comedy and a television drama is not as obvious as you might think.
“I think the show is true to life, and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s real,” The Bear executive producer Josh Senior told press at the Emmys, noting that the writers want to “tell the truth and make people feel things.” He added that “The show is roughly a half-hour long and that fits in the box of a comedy.” Similarly, Ebon Moss-Bachrach said that “We got bunched in, we got into comedy because we’re half-hour.”
Here’s the thing: a half-hour television show does not a comedy make. That used to be the Emmys’ rule from 2015 to 2021, when the Television Academy was figuring out how to categorize content in an era of increasing dramedies. But we’ve also been living through an era of evolving television form, and the time limit on TV categories (30 minutes for comedies, 40+ minutes for dramas) boxed out some straightforward comedies like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. So in 2021, the Emmys removed program time as a consideration for categorizing shows. Now, the responsibility falls to a show’s producers to decide in which category their series will compete, “with the stipulation that the Television Academy’s Industry Panel reserves the right to review the producer’s preference.” The only guideline is that “the content is primarily comedic for comedy series entries or primarily dramatic for dramatic series entries.”
The Bear is undoubtedly funny—Moss-Bachrach and Edebiri both justifiably pointed towards the first season episode in which the restaurant gets a C grade from the health department as a comedy stand out (per Deadline)—but is the show “primarily comedic”? Much of the Internet would disagree, especially compared to a competitor like Abbott Elementary. Abbott is a clear example of a show that’s “primarily comedic,” while The Bear exists in more of a gray area. How do you decide whether comedy or drama is the “primary” characteristic of a show?
As Moss-Bachrach pointed out, these lines are getting blurred all over television, not just on The Bear. “Between, like, Succession and BEEF and our show, I feel like these ideas about comedy and drama are a little bit outdated,” he said in the Emmys press room (via TV Guide). “We’re all just trying to reflect the mess of being human, which is deeply hilarious and we’re all suffering.”
This year’s Emmys will certainly not be the last time the comedy vs. drama debate will rear its head, especially if one or two shows continue to dominate the awards conversations at the expense of others. (By the way, those 10 wins were for the first season of The Bear, so you can expect them to be back in the mix at next year’s ceremony for the critically acclaimed second outing.) The way forward is unclear. Should Emmys voters be looking at jokes-per-minute? Should the Television Academy introduce new categories to allow for more nuance? Categorizing by program time didn’t work, and judging the content by its “primary” traits hasn’t solved the issue. Seems like it’s time to go back to the drawing board for new solutions.
71 Comments
To be fair. I laugh the same amount when I watch The Bear and Abbott Elementary.
That just wrinkled my brain. Of course I get it wrong the first time.
There is no logical debate here at all. The Bear is a fantastic show, but it shouldn’t remotely be considered a comedy, and it’s not fair to the other actual comedies to put them in that category. I’d say the same thing about Barry, even though it has far funnier elements than many of the comedies. I’d like to make a better case for myself, but have to go back to the SCOTUS description of pornography…I know it when I see it.
I haven’t seen the Bear yet but was completely surprised to see Barry in the category. I get it’s Hader, but come on…
I think S1-2 of Barry were comedy and then S3 took its real Sopranos turn
The first two seasons of Barry it was definitely a dark comedy. The third season of Barry was just dark. The fourth season I’m not even sure wtf was going on.
Right, and nominations for those years make sense. S4 though? Nope.
“it shouldn’t remotely be considered a comedy”It gets more laughs than Jo Koy
That …is not a very high bar.
So does a funeral.
So did 9/11
Some of these folks just seem to conflate “comic relief” with “comedy”. They aren’t the same.
This. Comedy doesn’t mean “jokes” and “makes you laugh”.Unless we want to say that Shakespeare didn’t write and comedies. And Dante will have to re-brand his work.
Different awards show, but I was also puzzled to see May December in the comedy category at the Golden Globes.
I don’t think either show classifies as pornography. You are way off base on that one.
That’s because you’ve never seen my Sarah Goldberg/Ayo Edebiri crossover fan fic.
Answer: it’s not.
The simple answer is that the producers knew that if they submitted the show as a drama it wouldn’t stand a chance of winning, especially up against a juggernaut like Succession. It’s the same reason there are more than a few actors who have won major awards in supporting categories when they were clearly the leads.
Yep, that.
at the same time i wouldn’t blink if succession was in the comedy category either.
It should be. I’ve always seen it as a very funny, foul-mouthed soap opera.
Exactly this and it’s why shows like The Bear or Transparent before it should always have an asterisk beside their wins in my opinion. It’s giving an award to Honeycrisp as the best orange. Sure, they’re both sweet – that’s close enough right?It’s a shame too because it takes away from everyone involved.
the rules around comedy, drama and show length are dumb and mostly wrong: YUP‘the Bear’ is a comedy: NOPE
“What should the Emmys do about it?”
Maybe time to give up on this asinine notion that any show that’s a half hour long is automatically a comedy? It doesn’t seem to be working out, and is just making them look really out of touch. Plenty of good comedies are coming out, but you certainly wouldn’t know it from these award shows!
The Bear isn’t a comedy. It just isn’t. The only real counter people have had is that it has had a few funny scenes like the kids passing out on drugged punch or Fak bickering with Richie. But having a few funny scenes doesn’t make a show a comedy. The Sopranos and Mad Men had humorous scenes too (I’d argue they had more than The Bear even) but no one thinks of those shows as comedies.The show is great and the actors are more than worthy of winning awards. But what’s the point of having categories for comedies at all if a show that is 80-90% drama can compete in that category and win?
I don’t know why, but this scene from Mad Men cracks me up to this day. Do you think Don believed Peggy’s performance and thought he had a wrong number?
Probably easier to pull that move off in the old days lol.A couple of scenes that come to mind for me:Everything with Miss Blankenship acting as Don’s secretary, including the scene where she passes away and the other secretaries need to move her body out of client viewRoger and Harry Crane discussing Harry giving up his office to PeteJoan bringing her baby to the office to visit and him being passed around from employee to employee, including one scene where Pete clearly thinks it’s his and Peggy’s love child for a brief secondDon wailing like a baby on cue for a commercial pitch“Not great, Bob!”
Trying to move Miss Blankenship’s body out of view was a series highlight. Also: Joel Murray playing Mozart on his fly. The guy getting his foot run over by the partier riding a mower in the office. Peggy accidentally stabbing her boyfriend and then him breaking up with her in the ambulance. “SURPRISE, THERE’S AN AIRPLANE HERE TO SEE YOU!”
“THERE WAS CHEWING GUM ON HIS PUBIS!”Pretty much everything Roger says is hilarious.“We’ve got Oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone it’ll take over Europe!”“They say he might lose his foot.” “Right when he just got it in the door.”“You’re a real prick, you know that?!” “Dammit, Burt: you stole my goodbye.” (After firing Burt for the second time.)“Well, you know what they say about Detroit: it’s all fun and games until they shoot ya in the face.” Everything with Miss Blankenship acting as Don’s secretary,“YOUR DAW-DAH’S PSYCHIATRIST CAWWED WHILE YOU WERE IN THE TOILET.”Also, Cooper’s ominous foreshadowing about British cars…“…they never start…”
Oh my god, thank you for posting that. I had totally forgotten about this scene but was obsessed with it when it first aired.
Yeah, agree. Terrific show, not a comedy. It is funny often, but that’s not its primary mode. If it’s a comedy, so is Uncut Gems. I think of both as primarily dramas with off-the-charts tension; that tension, strangely, is what makes both of them also kind of funny.
The tension is what makes them ridiculous, because no one in history has been subjected to such contrived nonsense.
Mad Men is enjoyable because it is SOOO over the top. Put your characters in a pressure-cooker and watch them pop.
I mean the Sopranos was always classed as a drama, and it was, technically, but it was also one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen.
the bear is what a comedy show looks like now. it may not look like what a comedy show looked like in 2010, or 2000, or 1990, but it’s what it looks like now.just like how many of the shows in the drama category are also quite funny, this is just where we’re at with the entertainment medium. it will change again, too.ted lasso is, for my money, a less funny, more serious, more saccharine show than either barry or the bear, but i also wouldn’t put it in the drama category, either.
Except there are any number of more traditional comedies on the air/streaming. This is not what comedy shows look like. This is what *some* comedy shows look like. It’s a bigger field than these awards imply.
i agree. it’s a comedy show.
No, it is not. It is what a drama that knows it can’t beat better dramas for awards and so submits itself as a comedy looks like. There are plenty of actual comedy shows in existence today, and plenty of very traditional comedy shows or consistently funny comedy shows, so it is absolutely not “what a comedy looks like now,” as if all comedy is now similar to The Bear. That’s ridiculous.
the final season of Succession was funnier than The Bear, and it won for “Drama”. I love both, the categories are preposterous.
I agree with all your points.
For people who haven’t worked in hospitality: it’s a dramedy.
For people who have worked in hospitality: it’s PTSD flashbacks.
I have worked in hosptality (night shifts when I was a student) I assume there isn’t a ‘headache grey, surreal horror’ category then because that’s mostly what I remember.
I like thinking of The Bear as a surreal horror. Maybe it can win a Hugo award.
My first 10 years of work life were in restaurants and food service. It was wild, and fun, and crazy at times. This show…this fucking show… distorts and exaggerates and just makes me miserable when I watch it. It is absolutely not a comedy. I don’t give a fuck what the creators say. Especially after that abusive emotional pornography Christmas episode. It was a 45 minute beat down for every single viewer. That was my cue to leave. Never watching this show again.
I was (morbidly) curious where the show was going in the first season and so stuck it out, but the second-to-last episode broke my suspension of disbelief. Like, to the extent that both my partner and I thought the only way they could save the story was if that episode was all a horrible dream.
It wasn’t, so we haven’t bothered with the 2nd season.
The fact that nobody punched Richie in his loud stupid mouth at least once an episode since the beginning of the show should have been my cue to leave but I had to stick it out because everyone said it was “SO GREAT.”
None of the kitchens I worked in would have tolerated such unrelenting assholery.
Succession is over. The Bear can now be a drama. Somehow (and I don’t know how to impact Emmy voters) we need to get past the idea that “this is the best show, therefore we’ll give it all the awards.”
Yeah, definitely don’t want the best shows winning all the awards or anything. That definitely isn’t literally the entire point or spirit of awards or anything…
You truly believe that Succession had the best performances in every acting category, and in every other bloody thing they were nominated for? It was a good show, but it wasn’t perfect in every way.
If you have to explain to people why you’re a comedy…then you are not a comedy. Its the usual award category “tactics” douchebaggery, but having to say “we’re not really a comedy , but some executive had us listed as one so that we wouldn’t have to compete with Succession, but it was nice to win” is pretty demeaning for someone to have to say.
I’d like them to explain why they, and not the superior Reservation Dogs, got nominated. I like The Bear a lot but it can’t touch Res Dogs.
100%. Except I hate The Bear.
Counter: If you have to explain why its a drama, its not a drama.I’m not sure your logic makes sense. It’s a meaningless phrase that sounds great to people who already agree with you.
It’s not a comedy, and everyone involved with the show knows it’s not a comedy, but in recent years the Drama category has been stuffed while the comedy section is a wasteland; hence, it’s entered as a comedy so as to better its chance of winning awards.
I’m all for a reconsideration of the categories and the conversation about formats but I am not on board for the pretentious bullshit variety of rhetoric ie: “reflect the mess of being human blah blah blah, these ideas are outdated blah blah blah”. Fuckin get over yourself, Moss-Bachrach.
If every character you play is an unredeemable turd, maybe it’s you.
Succession was one of the funniest satires in years and won Best Drama.The Bear is frequently an unbearably intense depiction of broken people working an impossible job with impossible standards. It won Best Comedy.I’m starting to think awards shows might be kind of silly.
If The Bear is a comedy, so is The Sopranos. Basically, no.However, Barry is definitely a comedy despite the deep tragedy in the main storylines.
I don’t think The Sopranos is a comedy, but it’s still much funnier than The Bear.
The Bear should compete in the Anxiety Inducing Series category.
The Bear is a comedy in the same way that Succession is, which is to say that while many episodes have gut-bustingly funny scenes that are arguably among the funniest scenes on television in the year they came out, if you described the show as a comedy to someone who had never heard of it and then sat them down to watch a season of it they’d look at you like you were crazy afterward.
If we can change the definition of what a woman is then I don’t think changing the definition of comedy is that much of a stretch. At least nothing is getting chopped off with the new definition of comedy.
They were tired of grinning and bearing it. It was embarrassing.Look at the bare facts people. It might be barely a comedy but so is Barry.The next person who says otherwise I’ll beat to death with my bare hands.
It’s funny to see people be real and cut loose. No suits, no prestigious family, no wealth to hide behind. Just people struggling and in struggles, come the funniest moments.
I never laughed more at a TV show. That show is funny. Tina calling Carmy “Jeff” and threatening him like a G. Rich pretending to be human and crying all the fucking time. Sydney’s shade and baby melt downs that always make things worse for her (her throwing up when stressed had me cracking up). Carmy’s dumb ass just being a sociopath and the funny shit he says. It’s like I’m back on the block in the Bronx watching people doing funny shit. Sure, people get hurt, but that just makes it funnier with brutal irony.
The funniest episode was the Christmas one. All star cast with the best one liners I’ve heard since Rob Reiner and Norman Lear. This is Renaissance TV.
Is this….is this satire?The fact that you have apparently never seen an actual comedy or actual funny show does not make The Bear a comedy.
Barry isn’t a comedy, either.Succession is funnier than either of those shows, so if Succession is a drama, so are they.
I feel like the people who care about this have significant overlap with the group of people who think the question “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” is both interesting and worth having a strong opinion about.
It’s a chaos show, but, like, thoughtful
I really like the show, but a comedy it ain’t. And, you can tell the producers and cast secretly get it, too. I don’t think they’d be so defensive about it if they truly believed it was a comedy. Plus, I love how the actors can basically only point to one episode and go “see, it’s a comedy.” One episode out of eight. I didn’t realize the Emmys even had the guidelines that something hd to be primarily a comedy or drama. While, maybe – MAYBE – there’s some wiggle room with the first season, because it does have more comedic scenes scattered throughout than the second season. But, if they’re being honest they would move the show to the drama category for the second season. JAW is a great actor, but it is a little frustrating that he’s winning all these comedy awards for a role where he barely does anything comedic.