The Television Academy has some explaining to do, considering this story Mindy Kaling told about being nearly denied an Emmy nomination while working on The Office.
In a recent profile for Elle magazine, Kaling said that while working on The Office, where she was an actor, a writer, and a producer, the show was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. But the Television Academy, she says, told her that since there were too many producers on The Office, Kaling would have to be cut from the list. To receive recognition for her work as a producer, she says “they made me, not any of the other producers, fill out a whole form and write an essay about all my contributions as a writer and a producer.” She also had to get letters from all the other producers saying she had contributed. Ultimately, her name stayed on the list.
The Television Academy disputes this, with a spokesperson telling the Los Angeles Times that at the time there was “an increasing concern years ago regarding the number of performers and writers seeking producer credits.” Every performer producer and writer producer, the Academy says, had to justify their production credits, which is no longer required.
Kaling stands by her story. “Respectfully, the Academy’s statement doesn’t make any sense. I *was* singled out,” she wrote on Twitter. “There were other Office writer-performer-producers who were NOT cut from the list. Just me. The most junior person, and woman of color. Easiest to dismiss. Just sayin’.” Kaling went on to elaborate on her comments to Elle, saying the experience was humiliating. “I had written so many episodes, put in so much time in the editing room, just to have the Academy discard it because they couldn’t fathom I was capable of doing it all.”