Emmys 2024: Why Is 'The Bear' Counted As A Comedy?

Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White, winners of the Outstanding Performance by a Female and Male ... [+] Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series awards for '"The Bear," pose in the press room during the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on February 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

If you have ever watched an episode of The Bear, the popular FX on Hulu program that has dominated awards season for the past several years, then you know it has its share of dramatic moments. From depicting tense family showdowns to depictions of the real, very difficult consequences of grief, The Bear is one of the most compelling psychological dramas on TV. And yet, it does not compete in the drama category at awards shows. Why is The Bear considered a comedy by the Emmys, Golden Globes and others? The answer is simple but also somewhat frustrating to fans who think it should be competing as a drama.

The Bear is a comedy on FX on Hulu that recently released its third season. The show has the most nominations of any comedy for Sunday night’s 76th Emmy Awards with 23. It also has the second-most nods overall, behind another FX on Hulu program, Shōgun.

The Bear follows Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), a young chef who achieved some success on his own, returning home to Chicago to take over his family’s restaurant, which his late brother had run. Carmy struggles with the realities of transforming the restaurant into something new while also dealing with money and staffing issues. Ayo Edebiri plays his sous chef, Sydney, an ambitious woman whose father loved the original restaurant. Both White and Edebiri have earned many honors for their performances.

The Bear is considered a comedy because the show’s producers see it as one. The Television Academy of Arts and Sciences doesn’t actually enforce any definitions of what a comedy is. Think about it for a moment—comedy is quite subjective. It’s hard to say “a show must have this many laughs per minute to be considered a comedy.” That’s an absurd limitation. So the Academy allows the team behind shows to determine what category they will enter the awards competition in.

Plenty of programs classified as comedies (Gilmore Girls and Orange Is the New Black come to mind) are not laugh-a-minute shows but had comedy underlying the moments of pathos. The Bear’s blend provides an even lower laugh-to-drama ratio.

But the producers have said they see the show as a comedy. The characters often find a lifeline in humor. They are dealing with dark feelings, such as grief, shame and guilt. The show’s writers use humor to defuse tense situations, deflect things characters don’t want to deal with, and shed light on why someone acts the way they do.

There’s also an argument that the pile of awards The Bear has won, including Best Comedy at January’s Emmy Awards (delayed by the writers and actors strike), would be a lot smaller if the show was competing in the drama category. HBO’s Succession dominated that category for years, and there’s a lot of sharp competition in drama, whereas The Bear’s weighty subject matter likely gives it an edge over the incredibly joyful, deftly written, yet much lighter, other favorite for Best Comedy, Abbott Elementary.

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