How ‘The Traitors’ Can Upset ‘Drag Race’ at the Emmys 2024
The Emmys do not move off of their favorite reality-competition titles easily. The Amazing Race won seven years in a row until Top Chef broke its streak. The Voice won three years in a row until RuPaul’s Drag Race took over, which then won for five of the past six years (interrupted only by Lizzo’s one-off, Watch Out for the Big Grrrls). Emmy voters always like sticking to their habits, but rarely more than in this category. Yet Peacock’s The Traitors appears positioned to join that elite group of disruptors at Sunday’s Emmys 2024 and commit some (Alan Cumming voice) murrrrder.
The US version of the hit social game, tucked away in the Scottish Highlands, exploded in popularity over the winter, cracking the Nielsen streaming charts and generating endless memes and debates. In many ways this series is catnip for true reality fans, as it throws together competitors from various beloved franchises and asks them to backstab (well, pretend murder) each other for weeks on end. Where else are you going to get Survivor’s Parvati and Real Housewives’ Phaedra stuck in the ultimate frenemy dynamic?
Impressively, all of the category’s other nominees this year are former Primetime Emmys winners—Amazing Race, Top Chef, The Voice, and returning winner Drag Race. Some have diminished in stature, but they’ve all got enough institutional support to make it this far cycle after cycle. What The Traitors has, by contrast, is the spark of something new—through to season two’s deliciously surprising ending. No other show on this list could claim to have energized its viewership in quite the same way.
“The show has mastered the art of manipulating audience expectations, using weekly installments to its advantage—we the audience are the faithful to the producers mischievous traitors,” Chris Feil wrote for Vanity Fair earlier this year. “As the series looks toward the future, with fans already outspoken on who should be cast…that foundation of obsession that The Traitors has laid for us every week has the makings of a global franchise built to last.”
Oh, and I haven’t even really brought up Alan Cumming yet! The show’s crafty, slithering host, whose costumes deserve their own Emmy, has provided our best hint yet at The Traitors potentially spoiling Drag Race’s party. Why? He has already won this year’s best host Emmy—last week, at the Creative Arts ceremony. And this was even more of a feat than beating Drag Race overall would be, since RuPaul was on an eight-year winning streak. If Cumming could put a stop to that, there’s no telling what The Traitors can do on the main show.
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