Neither actor nor actress: Why the awards should be genderless (or, perhaps, not yet)

Imagine that at the next 2023 Oscars gala two awards were given for Best Director: one for Best Director and another… for Best Director. Or that there would be an award for best male screenwriter and best female screenwriter. Weird, no? Well, that’s how the interpretation awards have been handed out since the dawn of the awards and, perhaps out of habit, it hasn’t seemed strange to us. However, in recent years the removal of this barrier has begun to become the subject of debate. This week Emma Corrin, from ‘The Crown’, called for neutral awards for non-binary interpreters, but she is not the only one who has proposed the topic lately. While the Oscars have not yet ruled on the matter, the Spirit Awards announced last August the elimination of the genre in interpretive categories, following festivals such as Berlin and San Sebastián and other awards. There are also voices against. What is behind all this?

Where we come from

The first edition of the Oscars, held in 1929 and which rewarded the films from 1927 and 1928, distributed twelve awards (and two other honorifics) and both the winners and the nominees were all men, except for the Best category. actress, in which Janet Gaynor won. ANDThat was the starting situation, an industry dominated by men and in which only interpretation was the ground that women stepped on.. In the next edition, Bess Meredyth and Josephine Lovett were nominated for screenplay, but it would be a rather unusual situation if other pioneers gradually appeared.

Dorothy Fields was nominated in 1935 for Best Original Song and Julia Heron, in 1941, for Production Design (both accompanied by men in the nomination). They were followed by Janice Loeb in 1948 for the documentary ‘The Quite One’, the same year that Edith Head, Irene, Dorothy Jeankins and Karinska inaugurated the female presence in one of the few categories that women would later dominate, Costume Design. For a Best Director nomination, we would have to wait until 1976 with Lina Wertmüller, although Astrid Henning-Jensen had managed to enter the Foreign Language Film category in 1959. In 2009, at long last, Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win directing.. In 2020, a study by The Guardian pointed out that only 14% of the nominees in the entire history of the Oscars had been women.

That women continue to be unequal to men in the film and entertainment industries is an obvious reality, but the question is if splitting categories is a solution or if, on the contrary, it is a vestige of the past.

back with the genre

“The change is due to the conviction that gender, a social and political construction, ceases to be a criterion for distinction in acting for us. The criterion for the jury will be to distinguish between good and bad performances,” explained José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastian Festival last year when they changed the Silver Shell for best actor and best actress for the Silver Shell for best leading role and best supporting role. This statement We could reformulate it as a question: does gender influence when carrying out a trade such as acting? and therefore why do they compete separately or are considered different achievements?

In Donosti they were not the first, but joined the Berlin festival. Before, the Grammy Awards eliminated the gender distinction in 2012 (“What’s the difference between a male country singer and a female country singer? Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but there’s no punch line. It’s just a fact. They’re both singing, so why separate them?”), said then the president of the Recording Academy, Bill Freimuth), just as the MTV Awards did in 2017.

Of course, it is not only a matter of men and women, but As we move towards a society in which many people do not feel represented by the gender binary, they are left out of those categories or forced to fit in. in one or the other. This is, for example, the aforementioned case of Emma Corrin, a popular performer for ‘The Crown’ and who identifies as non-binary. “Right now, it’s hard for me to try to justify in my head being non-binary and being nominated in the female categories,” she reflected on her potential Oscar run for two high-profile films, “My Policeman” and “Lady’s Lover.” Chatterley’. As the rules stand, you must choose the male and female categories or apply for both, as Kelly Mantle did in her 2016 candidacy. Emma D’Arcy from ‘House of the Dragon’, also non-binary, has had to apply to the Golden Globes as a leading actress.

Eliminate the gender barrier, does it eliminate discrimination or increase it?

One of the main arguments against abolishing the gender division is that fewer prizes, fewer opportunities, as well as the assumption that women would probably lose out in a mixed category. If we reduce it to a question of the number of awards, of course it is difficult to reach the statuette, but it does not have to be that way: the gender separation can be erased and, at the same time, add other awards (for example, revelation actor in awards that do not have it or separate drama and comedy). Is it fairer and more egalitarian Leading Actor-Actress or Performer of drama-comedy?

When Hollywood seriously opened up the racial debate, with the #OscarSoWhite bombshell in its hands, Nobody thought of creating an award for white actors or directors and a complementary one for racialized. It would mean exclusion, creating a smaller parcel for those who, due to historical discrimination, do not have access to the table of the elders. Instead, denouncing and making visible the lack of diversity was the path taken for studios, streaming platforms or academies to get their act together. Incentives for productions or rules on diversity in awards are tools to undo to some extent the inertia of inequality.

The fear that the mixed categories will reduce the number of women awarded is understandable, but the division by gender in these has not exactly been a historical tool towards equality. When Issa Rae read the 2020 Best Directing shortlist, she left a little message: “Congratulations to these men.” With her subtle comment, she exposed the Academy and its systematic exclusion of female directors, but creating a category for them would not be the solution. In fact, prizes are at the end of the chain, but inequality arises much earlier, in the conception of projects and contracting of teams. If today we have a new generation of Spanish directors consolidating itself, it is, in addition to their talent, due to specific policies in the film industry that have sought to repair this historical grievance. The problem is long before the awards.

Is it the right direction but not the time?

The Gotham Awards red carpet held this Monday, with its second edition with non-gender awards, was a good time to resume the debate. “I’m lovin ‘it. I think it was something that was outdated to begin with.. And I also believe that there are non-binary people, in the case of my series there are members of the cast who are non-binary, and I don’t think they have to be forced into a category that they think they don’t belong to,” he responded to Variety Actress Melanie Lynskey from ‘Yellowjackets’. Michael Chernus from ‘Separation’ or the director Baz Luhrmann were also favorable to the idea that the Oscars should follow this path.

For her part, Patricia Arquette did not show opposition but doubt: “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it would be fair at this time because I think most projects are still led by men and most roles are still written for men and are better for them. So I don’t know if it would be fair for everyone”. the roles that are offered to them, something that does not happen with their male colleagues. Some people think that this would be, precisely, the way to make inequality evident: the clearer it looks, the less makeup the problem will be.

Even understanding the doubts that it arouses, reflection can lead us to think that it’s more a question of when than yes or no. Or, at least, that the conversation will continue to become more and more vivid. Those who make some by now reluctant Oscars may set the world standard, but they are not the only ones with the ball in their court. The BAFTAs already have a category without gender, that of Emerging Star, and they claim to be evaluating what to do from now on. The Goyas, for their part, only they just said that “this is an open and very complex debate” after the San Sebastián decision. The future is about to be written.