The Arts Edit: A historic Emmy Awards
Welcome to the latest edition of The Arts Edit, my weekly newsletter from The National's Abu Dhabi newsroom rounding up this week's most noteworthy arts and culture stories.
IN FOCUS
The Emmy Awards 2024 capped an incredible year for the Disney+ series Shogun, with the drama series taking home four top statuettes on television's biggest night, bringing its total to a record 18 wins this year across the Primetime and Creative Arts ceremonies.
The Japan-set period drama's lead stars, Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada, also took home two of the top acting honours, making representation history as the first Asian woman and first Japanese man to win a lead acting award in the drama categories respectively.
However, not all of this year's milestone Emmy nominations reached the winner's podium. Egyptian-American comedian Ramy Youssef, nominated for directing an episode of The Bear, lost out to his collaborator on the series Chris Storer. Read about more of the biggest snubs here.
Youssef, who rose to prominence for his series Ramy, has seen his star rise in recent years, with a Netflix original series opposite Will Ferrell on the way, after his prominent role in the Oscar-winning film Poor Things last year. Along with the likes of Glen Powell and Charles Melton, we've named him one of Hollywood's next leading men.
The Mena region was largely ignored at the ceremony, with no onstage mentions of Palestine. The only call for an increase in Arab representation came from actor John Leguizamo, who gave a rousing speech about the need for increased diversity, which you can read more about in our round-up of highlights from the event.
Even though he didn't win, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, the Canadian star of Reservation Dogs, himself of Oji-Cree First Nations descent, made a powerful statement on the red carpet. The actor, the first Indigenous performer nominated for best actor, arrived with a red handprint painted on his mouth in solidarity with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement. See more from the red carpet here.
Shogun's impressive award tally may have been expected, as it garnered 25 nominations, but the night was also full of several surprises. While Disney+'s The Bear set a record for comedy series nominations this year, it did not take home the top prize, as HBO's Hacks, on OSN+ in the region, won the comedy series award.
In many ways, in the world of television, everything old is new again. Even as streaming services continue to transform the way that we consume series from the past and present, this year's winners also largely represent the continued power of legacy talent and classic stories, as long as they are updated to modern sensibilities.
Shogun, after all, revives a classic novel and once-beloved limited television series, though it notably fixes many of the flaws with the original, centring on the Japanese characters instead of the western man as the original did. Jodie Foster brought her decades of gravitas to HBO's True Detective and revived its former glory, for which she took home the best actress in a limited series prize.
Hacks, meanwhile, feels like an anachronism, at a time when television comedy seems more dormant than it has since the medium's birth. The only “comedy” series that has broken through in recent years, The Bear, has morphed into the most stressful drama currently airing, a shift that has inspired lively industry debate about how to categorise it. But Hacks star Jean Smart, who had previously won multiple Emmys for her turn on Frasier, coupled with writers who know how to bring her talents to our current paradigm, remains as funny as ever.
However, there is still room for complete innovation. Netflix's viral hit Baby Reindeer, a show about a comedian who becomes the victim of a stalker based on a one-man stage show, is unlike anything that's come before it, for which it was rewarded handsomely – taking home four trophies including that for best limited series.
Here is the full list of winners from the biggest night in television.
Grammy Awards coming to the Middle East
A version of the Grammy Awards is being planned for the Middle East within three years, according to the parent organisation’s new regional boss.
In an exclusive interview with The National, Taymoor Marmarchi, the first executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Recording Academy, has outlined an ambitious vision of development and growth and explained how he intends to use the organisation to celebrate the regional musical industry.
His plan includes launching a Mena Recording Academy membership scheme, targeting music professionals from performers to songwriters and producers.
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Also under discussion is a new Grammy Award category for the Middle East – it would be similar to the inaugural Best African Music Performance prize launched at this year’s main ceremony in Los Angeles – featuring in future editions of the competition. Marmarchi says that the category will also be open to Arab artists who live outside the region.
The ultimate goal, however, is for the Mena Recording Academy to launch a new version of the Grammy Awards, celebrating music and artists from the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.
“There is a target to achieve this within between three and four years because it will take us that long to build our community and membership,” the British-Iraqi states.
Find more here.
Remembering author Elias Khoury
Elias Khoury, who died on Sunday aged 76, was a leading voice in the Arabic literary scene, writes Maan Jalal.
He had been battling illness and was taken to hospital several times in the past year, an Arabic newspaper he once worked for said.
Through his prolific work as a novelist, journalist, playwright and critic across different genres, he was dedicated to exploring themes around collective memory, war, exile and trauma.
He was also unwavering in his support for the Palestinian cause and his perspective as a storyteller is the reason why his novels have been widely read in the Arab world and why many of them have been translated into languages such as English, French and Hebrew.
With 15 novels, two short story collections, five non-fiction books, three plays, two screenplays and countless articles, it’s hard to know where to start with a writer of Khoury’s calibre.
Here are The National's top picks.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
· Chicago: The Musical at Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi – until September 22
· Peggy Gou and Teddy Swims at Etihad Park, Abu Dhabi – December 5
· Ricky Martin at Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai – December 15
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS