In one of the biggest Emmy reshuffles, voters welcomed “Silicon Valley” to the Outstanding Comedy Category — essentially replacing “Girls” with another HBO show with almost no girls.
Besides “Girls,” the only show nominated in the category that didn’t return this year is the Tina Fey-led “30 Rock” — which wasn’t eligible because it ended. But it wasn’t all bad news for women-dominated shows: Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” also joined the category.
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It wasn’t all bad news for “Girls”: Star and creator Lena Dunham was still nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, and her co-star Adam Driver got a supporting actor nod.
“Girls” has plenty of strong male characters, but “Silicon Valley” is light on women. Amanda Crew, who plays Monica, provides the only regular dose of estrogen in “Silicon Valley,” a show that is, like the real Silicon Valley, dominated by men.
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It’s a situation the show’s executive producers plan to change in future seasons. But in their first season, they said they were simply reflecting the realities of the tech world.
“It’s definitely one of those super relevant hot-button issues that if we’re lucky enough to do a second season we would love to steer right in the middle of,” Alec Berg told TheWrap. “That and the class issues and gentrifying, these are super relevant things and if we can come up with the definitive satirical take on them — if not this show, then who?”
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“It’s not an excuse, but the most sexist shot in the entire series is a real shot we got when we were at TechCrunch Disrupt of this massive room and there’s like two women and 300 dudes in it,” he added. “And it’s a real shot. It’s not something we crafted.”