Awards and Nonbinary Actors

[hermione]

I wondered about this when I saw Bella Ramsey’s nomination in the Best Actress category. I hope the Academy and other nominating bodies moves to genderless categories.

collider.com/bella-ramsey-emmy-nomination-best-actress-lgbtq/

[erbear]

Seriously. Acting is acting. Why gendered?

[Jalapeñomel]

I’ve been saying this for years. Just give out two awards for best acting, best supporting, etc. it drives me nuts.

Edit: not best director, I’m stoned. Lol

[erbear]

Jul 15, 2023 20:37:32 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’ve been saying this for years. Just give out two awards for best acting, best supporting, etc. it drives me nuts.

Edit: not best director, I’m stoned. Lol

Out of curiosity, why two awards? Don’t you think that would continue to reinforce a gender binary?

[Jalapeñomel]

Jul 15, 2023 20:44:28 GMT -5 erbear said:

Jul 15, 2023 20:37:32 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’ve been saying this for years. Just give out two awards for best acting, best supporting, etc. it drives me nuts.

Edit: not best director, I’m stoned. Lol

Out of curiosity, why two awards? Don’t you think that would continue to reinforce a gender binary?

So they can still give out the same number of awards, and it can go to two people of the same gender (or not).

Or not, and just give out one acting award like best director.

Related: Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets)opted out of the Emmys due to gendered categories.

[goldengirlz]

Jul 15, 2023 20:37:32 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’ve been saying this for years. Just give out two awards for best acting, best supporting, etc. it drives me nuts.

Edit: not best director, I’m stoned. Lol

Liking both for your point and your choice of vice this evening.

[mrsslocombe]

The Indie Spirit Awards got rid of gender segregated categories this year, there was one winner per category. Which I would stick to one winner personally, I don’t see a point in awarding the top two.

There is resistance to eliminating male/female because there’s a fear that you would wind up with men dominating the nominations and wins because the Academy is trash.

I’d honestly be shocked if it happened in the near future because the Academy membership is ancient and extremely resistant to change.

[formerlyak]

Jul 15, 2023 20:44:28 GMT -5 erbear said:

Jul 15, 2023 20:37:32 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’ve been saying this for years. Just give out two awards for best acting, best supporting, etc. it drives me nuts.

Edit: not best director, I’m stoned. Lol

Out of curiosity, why two awards? Don’t you think that would continue to reinforce a gender binary?

Not the same, but our high school got rid of homecoming or prom king and queen and the top two are crowned as “royalty” regardless of gender. It’s been two of the same gender, a boy and a girl, and last year one of the royalty was gender non-binary. So it might not necessarily mean it would still be one of each gender.

[bronxgirl]

While this is discussion is applicable to acting awards of any kind, just to be clear, Bella Ramsey was nominated for an Emmy.

[Velar Fricative]

Yeah, remove the gendered categories and just have a Best Acting Performance category, with perhaps the same number of total nominees as their are now (so, for the Oscars, ten Best Acting nominees regardless of gender).

But, this would also require appropriate representation in the respective academics sooooooo execution may not be great.

[Deleted]

Or perhaps more categories? Drama, comedy, historical, voice/animated? Leading and supporting?

[erbear]

Jul 16, 2023 10:23:23 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

While this is discussion is applicable to acting awards of any kind, just to be clear, Bella Ramsey was nominated for an Emmy.

But only because they chose a gender category, even though they didn’t want to. I think People had a story about it.

[Velar Fricative]

Jul 16, 2023 11:46:35 GMT -5 erbear said:

Jul 16, 2023 10:23:23 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

While this is discussion is applicable to acting awards of any kind, just to be clear, Bella Ramsey was nominated for an Emmy.

But only because they chose a gender category, even though they didn’t want to. I think People had a story about it.

I think bronxgirl's post was intended to correct the thread title - they were nominated for an Emmy, not an Oscar.

[litebright]

I went to our county's gala for high-school level awards for theatre and I thought how they did it was interesting. They have nominations for actor in a female role and actor in a male role, best supporting actor in a female role/best supporting actor in a male role, and so on. I think there were also some breakdowns for plays vs. musicals.

High school theatre is a bit different in that you do often end up with quite a bit of cross-gender casting, though. And the licensing rules for every show I've seen specifically say that while you can have an actor of a different gender play a character, you can't change the character's gender (i.e., you can have a girl play Bert in Mary Poppins, but you can't make Bert a female character instead of a male character).

[Jalapeñomel]

Jul 16, 2023 17:49:27 GMT -5 litebright said:

I went to our county's gala for high-school level awards for theatre and I thought how they did it was interesting. They have nominations for actor in a female role and actor in a male role, best supporting actor in a female role/best supporting actor in a male role, and so on. I think there were also some breakdowns for plays vs. musicals.

High school theatre is a bit different in that you do often end up with quite a bit of cross-gender casting, though. And the licensing rules for every show I've seen specifically say that while you can have an actor of a different gender play a character, you can't change the character's gender (i.e., you can have a girl play Bert in Mary Poppins, but you can't make Bert a female character instead of a male character).

This is how ours do it as well.

Edited out the name.

[TR]

Jul 16, 2023 17:49:27 GMT -5 litebright said:

I went to our county's gala for high-school level awards for theatre and I thought how they did it was interesting. They have nominations for actor in a female role and actor in a male role, best supporting actor in a female role/best supporting actor in a male role, and so on. I think there were also some breakdowns for plays vs. musicals.

High school theatre is a bit different in that you do often end up with quite a bit of cross-gender casting, though. And the licensing rules for every show I've seen specifically say that while you can have an actor of a different gender play a character, you can't change the character's gender (i.e., you can have a girl play Bert in Mary Poppins, but you can't make Bert a female character instead of a male character).

This makes a lot of sense for theater. But as roles get more progressive, there will be non-binary roles too. I guess they could add another category.

[basilosaurus]

The type of role was the only justification I could see as maybe legit, but it was a stretch for me to get there. Having categories for roles does make more sense at least, but it would still be overwhelmingly male/female anyway

[msmerymac]

Jul 15, 2023 20:48:01 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Jul 15, 2023 20:44:28 GMT -5 erbear said:

Out of curiosity, why two awards? Don’t you think that would continue to reinforce a gender binary?

So they can still give out the same number of awards, and it can go to two people of the same gender (or not).

Or not, and just give out one acting award like best director.

Related: Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets)opted out of the Emmys due to gendered categories.

My original thought was that they could divide it into drama and comedy/musical, like the Golden Globes (although not everything fits neatly into those categories), but the article above mentioned other options. Ensemble cast, like they have for the SAG awards, has been something a lot of people have wanted the Oscars to do for a long time. Or best new/breakout performer, young adult (under 30) performer. Plus, awards shows have changed categories and added new ones and consolidated old ones many times over the years. There's certainly room to experiment to see what works best. I kind of agree that it would seem unfair to give out fewer acting awards, though.

[erbear]

Jul 17, 2023 8:13:47 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Jul 15, 2023 20:48:01 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

So they can still give out the same number of awards, and it can go to two people of the same gender (or not).

Or not, and just give out one acting award like best director.

Related: Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets)opted out of the Emmys due to gendered categories.

My original thought was that they could divide it into drama and comedy/musical, like the Golden Globes (although not everything fits neatly into those categories), but the article above mentioned other options. Ensemble cast, like they have for the SAG awards, has been something a lot of people have wanted the Oscars to do for a long time. Or best new/breakout performer, young adult (under 30) performer. Plus, awards shows have changed categories and added new ones and consolidated old ones many times over the years. There's certainly room to experiment to see what works best. I kind of agree that it would seem unfair to give out fewer acting awards, though.

Exactly. And there’s no reason not to try something new — it’s not like most people are clinging onto keeping the Oscars in their current iteration.

[hermione]

Jul 16, 2023 10:23:23 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

While this is discussion is applicable to acting awards of any kind, just to be clear, Bella Ramsey was nominated for an Emmy.

Yes, my mistake! I will correct.