MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Gender Neutral Awards

Gender Neutral Awards

posted a year ago by HarveyManFredSin (4877)
30 replies | jump to latest

There has been some controversy recently with the Brits introducing gender neutral categories, as opposed to the 'Best Female Artist' or 'Best Male Artist', because, as many of us predicted, it's usually women who end up getting marginalised and squeezed out, when recognition isn't guaranteed for either women or men.

But, as the Brits have no doubt observed, many artists are now identifying as non-binary/gender neutral, and so, it's inevitable that awards committees and guilds will start reflecting that in how they break up certain categories going forward.

Although I doubt there is *any* system that will please everyone, surely the best possible system (i.e. the least unfair) would be to do what some Scandinavian countries do with respect to executive board representation, which is to say that 40% of a company's board must be women (and from what I gather the same rule applies to men; in other words, 40% of a company's board must also be male). Thus, even if a company isn't 50:50 split between women and men, *at most* only 60% of the executive board would be made up of one particular sex, and the opportunity for discrimination/sexism is significantly minimised.

AMPAS, for instance, could do away with the Best Actor/Best Supporting Actor and Best Actress/Best Supporting Actress categories, whilst still ensuring a *minimum* number/percentage of women were still represented, by saying that a Best Lead Performer and a Best Supporting Performer category required at least 40% women and 40% men. At worst, at least 4 of the 10 nominees would be women, and going back to the basis for the change (i.e. non-binary representation), if 4 of the nominees are women, and 4 of the nominees are men, the other 2 nominees might, potentially be, binary/fluid. At the moment, the percentage of non-binary people is less than 20% of society, so even if only a maximum of 20% of potential nominees could represent this demographic, they still wouldn't be marginalised (UNLESS, by some unlikely outcome more than 20% of the year's best performances were given by the 0.1-2% of the population that is so far estimated to define themselves this way).

Like I say, this might not be a perfect option, but it's possibly the *most* perfect option available.

[–] Rorikon (16794) a year ago

So equal amount of genders/sex will mean less discrimination/sexism? Wut? Where's the stats for this? Seems more like fornication and sexual harassment if anything.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

My argument is that we can have a gender neutral award, which allows for the recognition of non-binary/gender fluid actors, but *ALSO* guarantees that a minimum number of cis women and cis men are recognised, rather than potentially marginalised (as is, unfortunately, likely to be the case with cis women, as the Brits recently demonstrated).

[–] WandererFromYs (1871) a year ago

If they are going to mandate that nearly half of the nominees to be a certain gender, than they should just leave them in separate categories.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

I see what you're saying, but my solution allows for gender neutral/non-binary actors to also be recognised. How else would we do this? An entirely separate category? At least this way (1) non-binary actors are recognised and (2) they're all competing against one another rather than treated as different (except for the clause requiring a minimum number of cis women and cis men).

[–] WandererFromYs (1871) a year ago

I think they should be in their own category. They are small minority of the population, and there is also lack of major trans artists in the mainstream. Dedicating 20% of the spots to them will take away from more known artists, and just lead to tokenism. Give them their own own category, and you can highlight more than 2 people at a time.

You can still have a best overall artist done the way the suggest.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

But this is the point; non-binary and gender-fluid artists are too small a minority to justify their own separate category, and right now the prejudice and intolerance against them is going to make such a category a hard-sell. Also, as an aside, trans actors should already be recognised in either the Best Actor or Best Actress categories. Elliot Page, for instance, should hypothetically be eligible for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. I'm referring to non-binary/gender-fluid actors rather than trans actors.

As for 20% of spots being reserved for non-binary/gender-fluid actors, that wasn't my point. In theory, 60% of the Best Performer slots could go entirely to men or entirely to women, with the other 40% of spaces being occupied entirely by women or entirely by men. However, as envisioned, 20% of those spots could *potentially* go to non-binary actors. The only guarantee/reserved places would be a minimum of 40% cis women (and maybe 40% cis men, although I don't feel so strongly about that need, since I doubt there's as big a risk of cis men being marginalised).

All that said, and I hope I made sense, thank you for engaging with this topic in sincere good faith. It's appreciated, even if you still don't agree with me.

[–] Moonglum9 (10848) a year ago

Until every award also has a category for robotic goats, I won't be watching. Tired of them being ignored by Hollywood! "And the winner of the Best Dramatic Performance by a Robotic Goat is...". I'd watch then.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

I neither agree nor disagree.