Why did Emmy voters fall so hard for Amazon's "Fleabag" in 2019



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Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her brilliant nervous comedy "Fleabag" won four Emmys on Sunday night, four more than most of the expectations expected a few months ago when the Emmy campaign began.

How did it happen? Was the Hot Priest in the series connected to a higher power?

The second season of "Fleabag", consisting of six episodes, was dropped in mid-May on Amazon Prime, about three weeks before TV Academy voters began to vote for Emmy nominations for this. year.

It did not leave much time to raise awareness of a BBC television comedy that had not won an Emmy nomination for its first season, despite good reviews of the series and its featured author-writer , Waller-Bridge.

The "Fleabag" reward campaign team does not have to worry. The second season of the series became almost immediately viral, catapulting to the forefront of criticism from the aggregator of Metacritic. list of the best of the year. It was a huge success in his native England, which had a sizable contingent of more than 24,000 members of the TV Academy – although the size of the electorate means that no one can cope with the result so easily. (It also means that the explanation of the turbulent year of the Emmys is probably not a demographic change similar to that of a film academy: changing the composition of such an important institution is like transforming a cruise ship. )

Beyond that, "Fleabag" took over the Internet. the elegant black jumpsuit Waller-Bridge used in the first episode of the season has become a fashion and social media sensation. Fans have confessed their love for Andrew Scott's Hot Priest character with a multitude of memes.

"It was a program that people had to discover," says an award consultant who worked on "Fleabag," and when elements of your show start to be fashionable, you know you're developing the kind of awareness that you need to break into the electorate. "

The brief period of the season – you can watch the six episodes in less time than necessary to watch the latest movie "Avengers" – has led to obsessive and repeated observation of drinking parties for hardcore fans.

The rumor that took place during the vote with "Fleabag" was greeted 11 times – including the writing, the acting and the recognition of Waller-Bridge – when announcing the appointments in July.

This kind of show could be considered a sufficient victory, especially when the competition included rented shows such as the "Veep" that was leaving and the "Barry" ascending.

But Amazon Prime, who also had the winner of last year's comedy series, "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, "went on the offensive by recruiting Cynthia Swartz, a seasoned consultant for her shows, and taking Waller-Bridge to Los Angeles in August.

Waller-Bridge and his co-stars, Sian Clifford and Brett Gelman, Emmy Awards supporting actor, participated in two events, one for the Screen Actors Guild, the other open to all guilds. (The Emmy rules limit specific screenings to the TV channel after the announcement of the nominations.)

The screenings, in addition to a third event organized by the industry deadline, were popular enough to divert people to the door, a rarity for a televised event late in the season.

Amazon also ensured that "Fleabag" remained relevant on social media at the time of the Emmy's final vote, recreating the guinea pig's coffee series three days later on Melrose Avenue. The next best thing to meet Waller-Bridge? A cute selfie with a cute rodent.

Awareness would have been useless if it had not gone hand in hand with a deep and lasting love of the second fleabag miracle of a second season. And the fact that Emmy voters have long been Anglophile, rewarding British series such as "Downton Abbey", "The Crown" and "Sherlock", probably did not harm at least.

Really, however, this seemed to be a year where the tone of the cultural conversation surrounding a show was crucial to its success, that it was Waller-Bridge and "Fleabag," actor Billy Porter principal of the theater, winning the title for "Pose" or Jodie Comer. surprising everyone (including herself) with her victory in "Killing Eve". The most animated show of the moment, "Succession" of HBO, even drew an unexpected victory for the writing of a dramatic series, thus highlighting the apparent responsiveness of voters. on receipt of critics and audience of the nominated series.

After all, on the other side of the coin, the fact that the memes surrounding the last season of "Game of Thrones" are more fun and satisfying than the series itself may explain its mediocre broadcast Sunday night. If this year's Emmys have only one advantage, it's hard to ignore a million people signing a petition for a do-over. Or, in this regard, a few thousand very vocal people claiming on Twitter that a woman known as Fleabag attacks a priest.

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