Here, reality’s the star

PEOPLE ARE the reason we watch what we watch. Although the other arts and sciences the Emmys honor, from writing to wardrobe, all determine how we see the people of TV, ultimately, the medium is a matter of human observing human.

Sally Field was much mocked for her “You like me!” Oscar speech, but she was close to the mark: The choices we make as viewers, and those made by Emmy voters, are not so much analytical as they are emotional, or even hormonal, and involve a kind of double apprehension that at once takes in actor and role. Is it Jon Hamm who turns you on, or Don Draper? Is it Christina Applegate, or Samantha Newly?

It’s both, of course, and we watch award shows to see the actors emerge from the role – though here again each plays a double part, as “real person” and glamorous celebrity.

Almost everything good about Sunday’s Emmy broadcast had to do with getting a different-angled look at the people of show business, winners and presenters alike. (Some of these views were more frightening than intended.) Almost everything else was remarkably leaden (and, finally, rushed), even by the standards of these things.

This doubleness applies as well to the people of reality television, whose importance was acknowledged this year in the (infelicitous) choice of the show’s five co-hosts, who also constituted the nominees for the first-ever best reality host.

There is as of yet no Emmy that presenter Lauren Conrad is eligible for as a star of “The Hills” – perhaps it’s thought that being followed around by cameras is not a talent. Still, the Conrad of the “Hills,” a simple girl making her way in the big city, is not exactly the millionaire youth idol who designed (along with fellow reality star Christian Siriano) the gowns worn by the “trophy girls.”

As for the winning actors, their election reflected the interests, prejudices and, to some extent, the considered analyses of a relatively small group of individuals, all working in the same industry and mostly living in one or both of two metropolitan centers. So it’s not as much a surprise as it might seem to find relatively little-seen Zeljko Ivanek (“Damages”) and Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) winning awards. But from a viewer’s standpoint, one winner is always as good as another.

Best reality host: Jeff Probst. Why? Why not?

 robert.lloyd@latimes.com