Actors of Color Went 0-for-12 at This Year’s Emmys, and Fans Are Furious
Awards season conversations rarely stay confined to who won and who got snubbed. Every year, alongside the celebration of standout performances, there’s usually a deeper look at who actually got recognized, and whether that recognition reflects the industry’s stated commitment to inclusion.
This year’s Emmy Awards delivered plenty of headline moments, from historic sweeps to record-breaking wins across multiple categories. But as the dust settled on Monday night’s ceremony, a different kind of story began to take shape, one that had less to do with celebration and more to do with who was consistently left off the stage.
Actors of color were shut out of every major acting category at this year’s Emmys, with none of the twelve lead and supporting acting prizes going to a performer of color across drama, comedy, and limited series races on the main broadcast. The only performers of color to win an on-camera or voice Emmy this entire cycle did so a week earlier at the Creative Arts ceremonies rather than during the televised main event.
Those two wins belonged to Ernest Harden Jr., who took home guest actor in a drama for his work on HBO Max’s ‘The Pitt,’ and Octavia Spencer, who won for her narration work on ‘Lost Women of Alaska.’ Notably, the supporting actor and actress categories for limited series, which have historically offered more opportunities for diverse recognition, were among five categories shifted off the main telecast this year in a reshuffling that already drew criticism from Hollywood guilds.
The shutout wasn’t just about who won, either. According to Variety’s count, seventeen performers of color were nominated across the lead and supporting acting races this year, a thirty-nine percent decline from the twenty-eight nominated just last year.
That figure stands in sharp contrast to the high-water mark set back in 2021, when forty-nine performers of color, including that year’s host, earned nominations across the same categories. That year also happened to be when the phrase “Emmys So White” first entered the cultural conversation, and Variety’s own framing of this year’s coverage as “Emmys So White Part 2” makes clear the parallel wasn’t lost on anyone watching the numbers closely.
Social media reaction moved quickly once the pattern became clear over the course of the broadcast, with the original hashtag resurfacing across platforms as viewers noticed category after category going to the same demographic makeup of winners.
The night wasn’t without meaningful milestones elsewhere, even if the acting categories told a different story. Behind the camera, Hiro Murai won the comedy directing prize for Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay,’ making him the first Asian director ever to win that specific category and only the third Asian director in Emmys history to win in any category at all, following Lee Sung Jin for ‘Beef’ and Hwang Dong-hyuk for ‘Squid Game.’
Those individual wins offer a reminder that progress hasn’t disappeared entirely from the ceremony, even as the acting categories reflect a clear step backward from where the industry stood just a year earlier. For an awards show already grappling with sliding viewership and questions about its cultural relevance, the disconnect between its diverse nominee pool and its far less diverse group of winners adds another layer to an increasingly familiar conversation.
What do you think about the lack of diversity among this year’s Emmy acting winners?
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