Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way: hoping for a shake-up in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a
Comedy Series category is a futile pursuit. You know and I know that, come September 18, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
will add yet another bathroom doorstop to her home in the form of an Emmy statuette. And yet, I find myself
dreaming the impossible dream of a world in which 2016’s award goes to Lily Tomlin.
In all honesty, Grace and Frankie isn’t a great show. It’s a mostly mediocre sitcom that owes any successes to the performances of its leading ladies. Yeah, President Jed Bartlet and District Attorney Jack McCoy are there, too, but they’re not at the top of their game; Martin Sheen in particular seems like he’s there because he lost a bet.
Now, Jane Fonda is a wonderful actress, with incredible poise and cheekbones that could cut glass. But excepting a few standout scenes, Grace and Frankie’s writers don’t require much from her aside from glaring contemptuously and wearing an endless array of neutral-toned sweaters. All the fun, intense, high-stakes stuff? That goes to Lily Tomlin. Frankie Bergstein, the aging hippie chick whose husband leaves her for another man, typically appears in scenes for comic relief, and a lesser actress would let the character rest on broad, hammy slapstick.
But Lily? She’s a goddamn comedy pro, and she knows just how to balance the laughs with pathos. When a young beauty executive talks down to Frankie during a pitch meeting for a new brand of yam-based lube (yep, that’s a major season 2 plot point), Lily gives the camera a master class in micro-expressions. Her usually relaxed posture stiffens, her jaw tightens, the wrinkles in her brow furrow, her eyes flash... and that’s all before she says a single word. The dialogue that follows is big and bombastic, but those little moments of subtle restraint are the marks of a brilliant comic actress.
So yes, Lily Tomlin deserves a best comedy actress Emmy on the basis of her awesome talent. But failing that, I’d like to petition the Emmys to add a new category: Best Performance by a Pair of Overalls in a Television Program. Because the overalls Lily wears throughout season 2... flawless.
We’re talking Platonic ideal here.
In all honesty, Grace and Frankie isn’t a great show. It’s a mostly mediocre sitcom that owes any successes to the performances of its leading ladies. Yeah, President Jed Bartlet and District Attorney Jack McCoy are there, too, but they’re not at the top of their game; Martin Sheen in particular seems like he’s there because he lost a bet.
Now, Jane Fonda is a wonderful actress, with incredible poise and cheekbones that could cut glass. But excepting a few standout scenes, Grace and Frankie’s writers don’t require much from her aside from glaring contemptuously and wearing an endless array of neutral-toned sweaters. All the fun, intense, high-stakes stuff? That goes to Lily Tomlin. Frankie Bergstein, the aging hippie chick whose husband leaves her for another man, typically appears in scenes for comic relief, and a lesser actress would let the character rest on broad, hammy slapstick.
But Lily? She’s a goddamn comedy pro, and she knows just how to balance the laughs with pathos. When a young beauty executive talks down to Frankie during a pitch meeting for a new brand of yam-based lube (yep, that’s a major season 2 plot point), Lily gives the camera a master class in micro-expressions. Her usually relaxed posture stiffens, her jaw tightens, the wrinkles in her brow furrow, her eyes flash... and that’s all before she says a single word. The dialogue that follows is big and bombastic, but those little moments of subtle restraint are the marks of a brilliant comic actress.
So yes, Lily Tomlin deserves a best comedy actress Emmy on the basis of her awesome talent. But failing that, I’d like to petition the Emmys to add a new category: Best Performance by a Pair of Overalls in a Television Program. Because the overalls Lily wears throughout season 2... flawless.
We’re talking Platonic ideal here.
