Humanitas Prize

Humanitas Prize
Awarded for	Filmandtelevisionexploring the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful way.
Country	United States of America
First awarded	1975
Website	www.humanitasprize.org

TheHumanitas Prizeis an award for film and television writing, and is given to writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful way.It began in 1974 with Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser—also the founder ofPaulist Productions—but is generally not seen as specifically directed toward religious cinema or TV. The prize is distinguished from similar honors for screenwriters in that acash award, between $10,000 and $25,000,accompanies each prize.JournalistBarbara Waltersonce said, "What theNobel Prizeis to literature and thePulitzer Prizeis to journalism, the Humanitas Prize has become for American television. "

The Humanitas Prizes are annually presented by the nonprofit organization Humanitas, which also operates a host of other programs, including the New Voices Fellowship, the Humanitas College Screenwriting Awards, and other public event programming.

History

Kieser founded the Human Family Educational and Cultural Institute (dba Humanitas) in 1974 to present the award. Beginning as primarily a television award, the first Humanitas Prize winners were announced on theToday Show.Kieser,Ray Bradbury,andRobert Abernathyannounced the first winners in 1975. At that time, the awards were divided into three categories, based on program length (30, 60, or 90 minutes and longer); these lengths tend to correspond to comedies, dramas, andtelefilmsorminiseries,to the extent that some articles refer to the categories by those names. The Kieser Award, alifetime achievement award,was established after Kieser's death in 2000, and Prizes in Drama, Comedy, and Family Feature Film are currently presented.

When establishing the Humanitas Prize, Kieser determined that the writer was the source of the most humanizing values in any program and should therefore be the focus of the awards. Although lists of Humanitas Prize winners for television categories often tell only the name of the program, the award is made to the writers of specific episodes, and more than one episode of a given show may be among the finalists in any given year; similarly, reports on the film categories often give more prominence to the film's title, but the award goes to the writing staff. In 2005 Humanitas winners includedHotel Rwanda(feature film) andThe West Wing(television).

In 2006, the documentary filmAn Inconvenient Truthaboutglobal warmingstarringAl Gorewas given a "Special Award" for "mak[ing] a significant contribution to the human family by communicating values, forming consciences and motivating human behavior."

The most wins—four—by any single program was for writers of the TV seriesM*A*S*H:Larry Gelbart,1976;Alan Alda(with James Jay Rubinfier), 1980; and the team of David Pollock andElias Davisin 1982 and 1983.Several shows won three times includingThe West Wing,The Wonder Years,Family,Scrubs,thirtysomething,Hill Street Blues,andI'll Fly Away,which once won in the 60-and90-minute categories in the same year.Life with Louiewas the only show to win three times in the children's animation category.

Writers who have won three times includeAaron Sorkin(forThe West WingandSports Night),David E. Kelley(Picket Fences,The Practice),David Milch(Hill Street Blues,NYPD Blue) andMarshall Herskovitz(thirtysomething,Once and Again,and the telefilmSpecial Bulletin). While at least four writers have had back-to-back wins, it is not unusual for several years to pass between one writer's winning the prize again. To date the longest gap was the case ofChina Beachwriter-producerJohn Sacret Young,who won in 1978 for the telefilmSpecial Olympics,then won his second Humanitas Prize 21 years later for the TV movieThanks of a Grateful Nation.(Young eventually went on to become a member of the Humanitas Board of Directors, where he served with at least four other repeat prizewinners.)

While the Humanitas Prize is awarded to the writers of produced work only, Humanitas also supports un-produced screenwriters. Humanitas annually awards two college students with the Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Award and the David and Lynn Angell College Comedy Award. The Angell College Comedy Award was founded afterDavid Angelland his wife, Lynn Angell, were killed in thecrash of Flight 11in theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks.In 2010, Humanitas introduced a program called "New Voices."It is designed to help emerging screen and television writers by pairing them with award-winning writers for a one-on-one mentorship.

Media references

Inseason 4, episode 19ofBoston Legal,Carl Sack, played byJohn Larroquette,stated, "Well, there goes my Humanitas Award," after a long rant against organized religion. By itself, it was ameta-referenceto both Larroquette's short-livedeponymous sitcomwinning the award in 1995, along withBoston LegalcreatorDavid Kelleywinning it in 1996 and 2003.

The short livedClerks: The Animated Seriesparodied the award in itsfirst episode;main characterDante Hicksmentioned that it was "an award for shows that don't use words likeretarded",to which friendRandal Gravesreplied, "That's retarded. And queer."

In the 2007Sopranosepisode "Stage 5,"Tony Soprano's nephew,Christopher Moltisanti,asksJ.T. Dolanabout his "Human-itis" award. J.T. corrects him, correctly pronouncing "Hu-ma-ni-tas", after which Christopher whacks him on the head with the award. J.T. was played by actor and producerTim Daly,a previous Humanitas award recipient.The SopranoscreatorDavid Chaseis also a previous recipient of the Humanitas award.

Winners and nominees

Main article:List of Humanitas Prize recipients

See also

• List of American television awards

External links

• Official website
• The Humanitas Prize: Encouraging Hollywood's Best,profile by Jack Wintz forAmerican Catholic