The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors have announced the 42 nominees for this year’s Entertainment, Arts, Children’s/Youth, Podcast/Radio, Interactive & Immersive and Public Service honors. The nominees were chosen by a unanimous vote of 17 jurors from over 1,200 entries; the winners of the 83rd Peabody Awards will be announced on May 9 and then celebrated on Sunday, June 11 at a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.
This will be Peabody’s first in-person ceremony since 2019, as well as the first time ever in its history that the awards ceremony will take place in Los Angeles.
“From hilarious and heartfelt comedies to interactive and immersive stories that leverage technology to create gripping narratives, Peabody is dedicated to recognizing compelling stories across the media landscape,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody. “We’re thrilled to nominate each of these remarkable pieces of media and to honor the forward-thinking Shari Frilot with our inaugural Visionary Award.”
While not many animated projects were nominated, there were a couple stand outs for general audience and kids’ toons, as well as next gen animated storytelling on display in the immersive category.
See the full list of nominees at peabodyawards.com.
ENTERTAINMENT
Bob’s Burgers | 20th Century (FOX)
Jury comments — This long-running, witty animated series is gentle and full of heart. Over its 13 years on the air, Bob’s Burgers has quietly depicted a truly progressive vision of a working class family, giving us both realistic and aspirational portraits of parenting life, teenage life and queer life, as well as lessons of acceptance and resiliency.
CHILDREN’S & YOUTH
El Deafo | Lighthouse Studios in association with Apple TV+ (Apple TV+)
El Deafo uses unique sound design to take viewers inside the experience of a young girl named Cece (voiced by Lexi Finigan, who is also deaf) as she loses her hearing and finds her inner superhero in this animated series based on the graphic novel by Cece Bell.
INTERACTIVE & IMMERSIVE
Life Is Strange: True Colors | Deck Nine Games & Square Enix External Studios (PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Stadia)
Life Is Strange: True Colors is a game that follows a 21-year-old, bisexual Asian-American woman, Alex Chen, who has spent the last eight years in foster care and is investigating her brother’s death. Largely about grief and trauma, the game is also joyful, affirming the true importance of empathy through Alex’s supernatural ability to sense and manipulate others’ emotions.
Lucy and the Wolves in the Walls | Fable Studio, Third Rail Projects, Sound+Design, Story Studio & Experiences (Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest)
Through the endearing and earnest narrative of Lucy and her quest to find the source of mysterious happenings in her house, this wonderful interactive VR fable based on the book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, which continues in Lucy’s extended life across platforms, invites us along to explore the fine line between imagination and reality and reminds us of that liminal space of possibility that we occupy as children.
Reeducated | The New Yorker (Oculus, Mobile, Desktop)
China’s systemic detention of Uyghurs and other minorities is well-documented, but there exists no photographic evidence from inside the camps, which limits journalistic coverage. This New Yorker VR project combines the testimony of three brave survivors, hand-drawn illustration, and immersive video technology, showing the conditions inside prison cells, classrooms, torture rooms, and a makeshift operating room, and illuminating the atrocities of harrowing life.
The Uncensored Library | Media.Monks, Reporters without Borders, DDB Germany (Minecraft)
Meticulous and artistically-rendered, this Minecraft build serves as a monument to press freedom and an innovative back door for censored content. Because Minecraft is often freely accessible in countries where other media is blocked, more than 20 million gamers in 165 countries have been able to access information about threats to press freedom in their own countries as well as censored articles from independent journalists from oppressive countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Egypt, and Vietnam.
Un(re)solved | FRONTLINE (PBS) with Ado Ato Pictures and StoryCorps (pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/unresolved)
Drawing on more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents, and dozens of first-hand interviews, this FRONTLINE multiplatform investigation of lives cut short examines a federal effort to grapple with America’s legacy of racist killings through the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
Unpacking | Witch Beam Games & Humble Games (Steam)
This Zen puzzle game transforms the mundane experience of unpacking items out of boxes after a move into an extraordinary storytelling device, allowing the player to get to know the main character at an intensely intimate and personal level without ever seeing her over 21 years of her life and eight different moves.
