Emmys 2013: The LGBT View

emmyATV Today takes a look at the 2013 Emmy Awards from the LGBT point-of-view as HBO‘s Behind the Candelabra took away several awards while openly gay actor Jim Parsons won for his role in the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory.

There were some surprises at last night’s Emmy awards as Breaking Bad continued on its path towards world domination by picking up the Best Drama award beating critical darlings Downton Abbey and Mad Men. However, perhaps the biggest success story of the night wasn’t Breaking Bad picking up the prestigious drama award but HBO’s Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra picking up three awards.

It was a good night for HBO as it picked up a string of awards but it was Behind the Candelabra that won the most. It picked up the gong for Outstanding TV Movie or Mini-Series the Directing Emmy (for Mini-Series/TV Movie) and Michael Douglas picked up an award for Best Actor (in a Mini-Series/TV Movie). Douglas beat his co-star Matt Damon to pick up the Best Actor award.

Behind the Candelabra beat Ryan Murphy’s anthological cult series American Horror Story in the Outstanding TV Movie/Mini-Series category. Last season Ryan Murphy had three shows on air; Glee on Fox, The New Normal on NBC and American Horror Story on FX. Sadly NBC decided to axe The New Normal but Glee and American Horror Story both remain on air.

American Horror Story did pick up an award last night with James Cromwell winning the Outstanding Supporting Actor (Mini-Series) category. Cromwell beat his AHS co-star Zachary Quinto, who is openly gay, to win the award. Actress Jessica Lange was nominated for her role in the Outstanding Lead Actress role but lost to Laura Linney. Lesbian icon Sigourney Weaver was also nominated in the Outstanding Lead Actress category.

The-Big-Bang-TheoryABC‘s Modern Family won the Best Comedy award while several of its cast were nominated in other category’s often up against each other. While Tony Hale won the Outstanding Supporting Actor (Comedy) award for Veep actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Ty Burrell and Ed O’Neill were all nominated for Modern Family. Actress’ Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen were nominated in the Supporting Actress comedy as was Jane Lynch for Glee but all were beaten by Merrit Wever for Nurse Jackie.

Openly gay actor Jim Parsons once again won the Best Actor (Comedy) award for his role of Sheldon Cooper in CBS’s ratings titan The Big Bang Theory. Parsons won the award in 2010 and 2011. In his acceptance speech the actor thanked his partner Todd Spiewak; Parsons officially came out as gay in May 2012.