The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards aired on a Monday night for the first time, and the shift in schedule didn't dim the queer energy at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Mariska Hargitay hosted with warmth and a giant smile, and while the night was light on openly LGBTQ+ winners in major acting categories, queer-inclusive shows like Hacks and Pluribus kept adding to their trophy cases.
History Made, Twice Over
Jean Smart's win for playing Deborah Vance on Hacks wasn't just a fifth consecutive trophy, it made her the first actor ever to win an Emmy for every single season of the same series. It capped the show's final season, a run built on the messy, loving dynamic between Deborah and Ava that's become one of the defining duos in recent TV history.
Rhea Seehorn's win felt just as meaningful in a different way. Playing the curmudgeonly Carol on the sci-fi hit Pluribus, Seehorn picked up her first Emmy after five nominations, and used her speech to shout out co-star Karolina Wydra, who plays Carol's would-be love interest Zosia. Pluribus entered the night with 18 nominations total, a staggering haul for a show built around a queer lead character.
A Nod to the Show That Couldn't Compete
Anyone wondering whether Heated Rivalry would come up on Emmy night got their answer almost immediately. The gay hockey romance couldn't be nominated at all, since Television Academy rules bar the Canadian production from competing, but it still got a wink during Hargitay's opening number, a riff on Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" that name-checked the show's steamy reputation while she and Jean Smart watched from a bed onstage.
The Bigger Picture
Look past the individual winners and a pattern emerges: queer stories are thriving at the Emmys even as queer performers struggle to break through in the biggest acting races. Hannah Einbinder and Megan Stalter, both bisexual, were nominated together for the first time in Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hacks, and Colman Domingo, Michael Urie and Jeff Hiller were among the few openly queer nominees in major acting categories this year. None of them won. All three Lead Actor categories and Supporting Actress in a Drama went without an out LGBTQ+ winner.
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Alan Cumming
That's the paradox worth sitting with. Shows built around queer and trans characters keep multiplying trophies and nominations, which is real progress from an industry that once treated those stories as niche. But the people actually playing those characters are still getting passed over when it's time to hand out the biggest statues. Representation on screen and representation in the winner's circle aren't the same fight, and this year's Emmys made that gap hard to ignore.
MQ's Take
We're thrilled Hacks and Pluribus keep cleaning up, and Kate O'Flynn's win for playing the endearingly odd Patricia on Widow's Bay was a genuinely lovely moment: "This is for all the Patricias out there," she said, and we felt that. Alan Cumming closing out The Traitors' third straight win with a plea to register to vote was exactly the kind of use of a spotlight we want to see more of. Still, an industry can celebrate queer stories all night long and it won't mean much if the actors telling those stories keep getting left off the stage when the envelopes open.
Red Carpet, Full Volume
Away from the trophies, the carpet delivered its usual chaos. Fresh off her run in Oh, Mary!, Megan Stalter arrived dressed as a literal Emmy statuette, gold paint and wings included, holding a miniature golden globe overhead with co-star Paul W. Downs as her arm candy. Stylist Law Roach, not nominated but impossible to miss in a flowing golden robe, used the moment to remember his late friend, designer Bob Mackie, telling reporters he'd once spent five hours getting "the most gorgeous gossip about all the Hollywood ladies he would dress" from him. It was a reminder that even on a night dominated by trophies, the fashion often tells its own story.
Sources: Queerty, GCN, them., Out
Cover photo: Jan van der Wolf / Pexels
