Hundreds of guests joined Noah Wyle, Jason Ritter, Katherine LaNasa and Miles Heizer at the Writers Guild of America Theater on Monday to celebrate the 25th annual Norman Lear Awards, which honor television shows that spotlight social issues such as addiction, racism and climate change.
The awards were once called the Sentinel Awards but were renamed in honor of their founder following his death nearly two years ago. The show was hosted by the Hollywood, Health & Society program at USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Center, which provides writers rooms with expert advisors for storylines dealing with health, safety and security.
Wyle credited the program with creating The Pitt’s sense of authenticity and realism. “I really can’t underestimate the help that Hollywood, Health & Society has given our show. We prided ourselves on being the most medically accurate show on television,” he said in his acceptance speech as the show received the Culture of Health Award. “Thanks to Hollywood, Health & Society, we got an all-star team of experts, both in season one and season two, to draw our storylines from.”
Also announced at the event was a new study from the USC Norman Lear Center that showed The Pitt viewers were more likely to register as organ donors and plan for end-of-life decisions after watching the series, and nearly 90 percent of those who watched at least three episodes said The Pitt reveals how systemic problems like understaffing affect patient outcomes and makes provider stress relatable.
Lynn Lear, Norman’s widow, spoke to her husband’s intentions when he established the award show, telling the audience, “It’s a special thrill to see Norman’s name on these awards. They honor what his life and work were all about — rejoicing in our differences, celebrating our connectedness, recognizing, as he liked to put it, that, ‘I’m just another version of you.’”
She noted his love of playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw, explaining, “One of his favorite quotes from Shaw was, ‘There is only one religion, although there are a hundred versions of it,’ meaning we are all connected cells in the whole of humanity. We are all unique versions of one another. And that’s the message of his shows from All in the Family to The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time and Clean Slate.”
Grey’s Anatomy actor Jason George spoke directly to America’s current anti-science political climate while introducing his show’s award for advances in medicine/clinical trials.
“At no time in recent, recent American history has medicine been so under siege; evidence-based science squashed and quack theories hawked, and now medical research is threatened by massive funding cuts,” George said. “Patients are at risk from disrupted clinical trials, even with pediatric cardiac and cancer studies, and there’s a brain drain in the scientific community.”
Medical and legal dramas were heavily represented on the honorees’ list, and the night’s other winners included Chicago Med (for depictions of racial disparities in healthcare), Dying for Sex (breast cancer), Matlock (addiction and recovery), Paradise (climate change) and Shrinking (caregiving), with appearances from Katherina LaNasa, Jason Ritter, Judith Light and Sarah Shahi.
