Something has been weighing ...

Question: Something has been weighing on me regarding the Emmys ignoring The Wire in years past, but the most recent nominations just confirmed in my eyes. I can't help but compare the treatment of Mad Men to that of The Wire. I love Mad Men, and now that The Wire has finished its run, it's easily the best show still on TV. However, it is rather curious how it took them no time to embrace Mad Men, yet they had no trouble ignoring one of the most acclaimed shows in TV history for five years. Both shows are low-rated cable dramas that received massive critical buzz. One could even reasonably claim that The Wire had an industry advantage — it was on a network with more credibility and even had more viewers than Mad Men, as impossible as that may seem. One has to conclude that what made the academy acknowledge one show and not another is a matter of content (or at least perception of content), and when you go there, you go into territory that is considerably ugly. You have to start considering things like the characters on Mad Men are rich, dapper and affluent white people, while The Wire has a cast that is 60 to 70 percent black, many of the impoverished, criminal or just plain unsavory variety. Maybe I'm being way off base here, but this seems like an elephant in the room situation. The bottom line is that when your kind (critics) called attention to Mad Men, they stood up and immediately took notice in a way that they never came close to for The Wire. It seems like there are exceptions to most of the other conventional theories. Damages and Lost put to bed the "plot's too complex" theory, and Lost seems a pretty significant exception to the "not filmed in NY or LA" theory. So what factor do you think made the Academy respond to the buzz of Mad Men with, "Hey, I better get to watching that," but respond to the buzz of The Wire with, "Eh, it's not for me"? Can it really be dismissed as a coincidence that the most ignored great show of all time is also one of the most prominently black shows of all time?
Answer: You make some excellent and provocative points here. For me, there's no question that The Wire and Mad Men are both masterpieces, but there's also no question that one creates a much more inviting world than the other. Mad Men is evocative and mysterious and has plenty to say about the sexism and racism of the early '60s, but it's also gorgeous (not gritty, despite the smoke) and witty (as opposed to profane). And while it does have a dark and cynical side, it's much more seductive and nowhere near as bleak and unsparing in tone as The Wire. It's not entirely a matter of race and class, although you'd have to be blind not to consider these as factors, but more an issue of what might be perceived as entertainment value, as shallow as that sounds. And when it comes to honoring great work, it really is a condemnation of the myopia inherent in the Emmy process that The Wire faced such resistance from the membership through its entire run.