![]() The series starts with Coel’s pitch-perfect take on the nuts and bolts of trauma, from the intrusive thoughts and sarcasm toward art therapy to the ringing we hear when main character Arabella is triggered to Arabella downplaying her own trauma by comparing it to various global tragedies. A creator working at the current height (but clearly not yet the apex) of her power, Coel’s take on trauma and consent is the kind of prestige exploration that only a survivor could write. Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You is a tour de force creation of laser-focused storytelling. Instead, Academy voters looked elsewhere.Warning: contains spoilers for the I May Destroy You finale. A sweep for I May Destroy You would have felt like a clarion call belying the poignant urgency of the series. That, in turn, made it all the more confounding to see the Academy repeatedly overlook one of the most staggering shows of the year-not least because, at their most altruistic, awards shows amplify works that might have been overlooked by TV viewers who reflexively reach for the safe thing, or the thing with the biggest marketing budget and the biggest stars. She ended it by dedicating her speech to “every single survivor of sexual assault.”Ĭoel’s speech reflected what made her own series so resonant. Though this year’s nominee pool was inclusive, every acting award was ultimately handed to a white performer, while a majority of the other awards were given to white writers, directors, and producers.Ĭoel accepted with aplomb, delivering a succinct ( ahem) speech in which she urged writers to “write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that is uncomfortable. It was also a respite from an overwhelmingly white night of winners. Her win was historic, making her the first Black woman to win the category. Instead, Coel picked up one statuette at Sunday’s Emmy ceremony, for best writing. It’s not always the case, of course similarly hyped TV auteur Lena Dunham never won an Emmy for Girls (though there was always a cloud of controversy swirling around her), while later creator Aziz Ansari won two, in two separate years, for Master of None, and Donald Glover won two in 2017 with Atlanta.Ĭoel, however, seemed destined to be the next big winner in this vein, especially after being snubbed by the Golden Globes-a glaring oversight from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group that seemed determined to dash its dwindling influence this year. Who can forget Phoebe Waller-Bridge picking up three well-deserved Emmys for the searing second season of her dramedy Fleabag in 2019? Or just last year, when Schitt’s Creek cocreator and star Dan Levy picked up four statuettes, including best comedy, for the final season of his beloved series? Emmy voters love to lavish certain creators with awards, recognizing their respective faculties for writing and directing and acting and producing all at once. ![]() In recent years Emmy voters have chosen to recognize zeitgeist-capturing multihyphenates with armfuls of statuettes. When the show finally dropped, its reception was warm and widespread, and the critical consensus was clear: There has never been anything like this before. ![]() In many ways there were few shows more urgent than I May Destroy You when it debuted last summer, both in terms of what it was doing narratively and what Coel was modeling for others as she navigated the industry and retained creative autonomy.
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