AWARDS PETITION
When submitting BH: 90210 for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, it was deemed a drama and had to compete as such. Hoping to compete as a comedy to better position ourselves against other entries, I wrote the below petition arguing the change in category that resulted in the show switching genres as desired.
We would like to petition to have BH90210 compete in the Comedy Series category for this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.
BH90210, which premiered on August 7, 2019 on FOX, is a scripted, limited series in which the original cast of the nineties teen soap opera comes back as heightened versions of themselves; they wanted to reclaim the limelight and make a profit off of its drama.
While the original series hailed as a soap opera filled with teen angst and constant coming of age plot points, the iteration created by CBS TV Studios and FOX spins joke after joke, wholly leaning into the insanity and hilarity that ensue when one-hit-wonders of television from a distant era attempt to navigate adulthood and its responsibilities. Each storyline during the show’s limited-event broadcast skewed heavily more humorous than serious in tone, provoking a rather cheery range of emotion.
In short, BH90210 is a satire. It uses humor, irony, exaggeration and criticism to explore the madness that is Hollywood and celebrity prestige (or, celebrity prestige lost). The drama is certainly there, but only to serve as a vehicle for comedic absurdity and laughter. And, though at times, the stakes seem to be high for the 90210 gang, the essence of ridiculousness makes it “smart enough to feel clever, just silly enough to feel relaxing,” and ultimately, a lighthearted guilty pleasure (Emily Nussbaum).
Of the Comedy Series category qualifications, BH90210 is scripted, tells a through storyline from beginning to end, and was marketed as a comedy by both CBS TV Studios and FOX for the entirety of its campaign. Each episode had a 60-minute runtime, but only because the entire series was developed as a limited event production with no intention of moving beyond the finite story it’s come to be.
In all, BH90210 leans into the soapiness that lingers from the nineties hit but allows the drama to spin into full blown funny, as it takes us so far out of the reality we live in, we can’t help but laugh.
For these reasons, we feel that BH90210 is the perfect fit for contention as an Outstanding Comedy Series.
Thank you so much for your consideration.