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Why the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys Are Not Ready for They and Them

Asia Kate Dillon of “Billions” is calling on the Television Academy to scrap gendered categories. But the organization and others have no plans for change, for now.

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by Anonymousreply 39October 19, 2019 4:44 AM

I'm so tired of this bullshit, just like with bathrooms and sports. Instead of trying to drop gendered categories, or redefining what gender means. Why don't they just fight to be seen as a third gender. So we can have male, female, and trans. I would feel much more inclined to support them, as I feel would most people.

by Anonymousreply 1October 18, 2019 4:34 AM

R1 Amen. For all the talk about there being so many genders, they sure do want to be put into one or the other - no matter how much the rest of the world shakes their head.

She's a masculine woman. Deal with it. You're not a man - a woman doesn't have to wear a dress and lipstick every day.

by Anonymousreply 2October 18, 2019 4:41 AM

Men make up the majority in all voting committees so if they end up axing gendered categories - men will end up winning almost everything. If they REALLY are so desperate to remove the categories then the structure of the voting committees has to be changed first- have equal number of men and women in them, then do whatever the hell you want.

Because no matter how much progress we think has been made, sexism still exists and it is still going strong. You can't just make gender neutral categories and expect women to win all of a sudden - that would be wrong on so many levels.

by Anonymousreply 3October 18, 2019 4:42 AM

no penis, not a man.

Simple as that.

by Anonymousreply 4October 18, 2019 4:49 AM

Let's do this. I'll get nominated anyways, but G will be finished.

by Anonymousreply 5October 18, 2019 4:58 AM

A trans category fits for sports. I think she has a point about art, however. We dont have many literature and art prizes restricted to male or female. Acting is acting so in theory the male/female could be scrapped.

by Anonymousreply 6October 18, 2019 5:05 AM

Actor in a Leading Role

Actress in a Leading Role

Trans Actor in a Leading Role (can be won by either man, woman or gender neutral)

Actor in a Supporting Role

Actress in a Supporting Role

Trans Actor in a Supporting Role (can be won by either man, woman or gender neutral)

by Anonymousreply 7October 18, 2019 5:14 AM

[quote]She's a masculine woman. Deal with it. You're not a man - a woman doesn't have to wear a dress and lipstick every day.

She’s not even that. This is all Dillon (and her team) cynically riding the trans/non binary wave to make a name for herself. She was as femme and straight as can be just a few years ago back when she was struggling for gigs. The dirt from former friends is out there (the bedbug story is particularly gross). She was always a manipulative user.

As to her issue, yeah erasing women's categories is about erasing women. If this were a more egalitarian world, then we wouldn’t have to worry about women being overlooked for their artistic achievements. But since we don’t live in that world, and since a man is never going to play Margaret Thatcher and a woman is never going to play Winston Churchill, we have these gendered categories. That Dillon thinks this is a pressing issue, and not saying getting trans actors in more visible roles, speaks to her actual priorities, namely promoting herself.

by Anonymousreply 8October 18, 2019 5:18 AM

That makes zero sense R7. The third category shouldn't be called Trans if a male or female can win it. Trans people should submit themselves for consideration in Male or Female or wait for the gendered awards to be abandoned.

by Anonymousreply 9October 18, 2019 5:18 AM

Erasing gay men one more step at a time. Trannies are the absolute worse. Why even have awards? Gender is very clear. Cock or cunt? There’s your gender.

by Anonymousreply 10October 18, 2019 5:20 AM

OP’s article is pay walled. If anyone would be so generous as to copy and paste, pls?.

by Anonymousreply 11October 18, 2019 5:21 AM

This useful idiot is trying to guarantee almost no women will win those awards in the future. The real irony is that the only chance Dillon ever has to win an acting award (something she's extremely mediocre at) is if she puts herself in the Best Actress category.

by Anonymousreply 12October 18, 2019 5:21 AM

I want to hear the bedbug horror story, please.

by Anonymousreply 13October 18, 2019 5:23 AM

R2

She doesn't identify as a man. Dillon is "non-binary" which means she has short hair, doesn't wear makeup, and has meltdowns when people call her "she". She also thinks her het relationship is "queer" because of this identity.

by Anonymousreply 14October 18, 2019 5:24 AM

Where's the mole troll to criticize Dillon for that thing on her face? This is a rare time I agree with a facial mole being hideous.

by Anonymousreply 15October 18, 2019 5:25 AM

Oh, I'm not trying to make sense, R9. I'm just trying to imagine what the Oscars could look like in 10 years should the Academy eventually give in to pressure to change the acting categories to appease the SJWs. You're right, though, that (cisgendered) males and females probably shouldn't be allowed to win a trans category even if they play a trans role (think Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry"). It should only be for those who identify as trans/non-binary in real life or what would be the point of adding the category in the first place.

by Anonymousreply 16October 18, 2019 5:40 AM

Best Performer, Best Supporting Performer etc?

by Anonymousreply 17October 18, 2019 5:44 AM

For R11:

"Why the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys Are Not Ready for They and Them"

By Cara Buckley

Sam Smith, the British crooner with a voice often described as heaven sent, announced in September that “my pronouns are they/them.” Days later, the Brit Awards, which had nominated Smith for top male artist earlier in the year, said the categories would be reconsidered for 2021.

If the Brit Awards do go gender-neutral, they would join the Grammys, which did away with separate male and female awards in 2012, and MTV’s Video Music Awards, which did the same in 2017. MTV scotched gendered prizes at its Movies & TV Awards that year too. And important prizes like the Nobel, Pulitzer, and Man Booker are not allocated separately by sex at all.

Yet with the major acting awards — the Oscars, Baftas, Tonys and Emmys — there are no signs that gendered categories are going anywhere. Even though more artists are identifying as nonbinary, and theater awards in Canada and several American cities have done away with gendered prizes, there seems to be scant momentum in the bigger awards organizations to make the switch.

Now one performer, the nonbinary actor Asia Kate Dillon, of “Billions,” is calling on the Television Academy to drop gendered acting categories outright from the Emmys. Dillon said in an interview, “I presume no one has asked them directly to make that change, so perhaps this is the right moment,” Dillon said. “What are the first steps that need to be taken to make that change? Call me. Email me. Let’s get it done.”

But a spokesman for the Television Academy said while the group “celebrates inclusiveness,” it has no plans to make that change.

Neither does the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which hands out the Baftas, or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which administers the Oscars and has given out separate actor and actress prizes since the first awards in 1929. A Bafta spokeswoman confirmed there would be no changes in the performance categories this season, and a spokeswoman for the American academy said it would “continue to be sensitive to the evolving conversation” and planned to keep its current structure in place. A spokesperson for the Tonys declined to comment.

by Anonymousreply 18October 18, 2019 5:46 AM

Until relatively recently, divvying up acting categories by gender was largely unquestioned. Dillon challenged this in 2017, writing an open letter to the Television Academy about being confounded over whether to submit themselves for Emmy consideration as a supporting actor or actress. The academy replied that Dillon could choose whichever category they identified with. At the time, Dillon opted for actor, but said in the interview that making distinctions by gender identity or assigned sex is arbitrary and discriminatory.

“If we separated categories by the colors of eyes, hair or skin, people would go, ‘This is unacceptable,’” said Dillon, who is appearing in and producing the play “Orchid Receipt Service,” featuring gender-nonconforming and transgender performers. “That’s how I feel about gender categories. At this point, it feels unacceptable and unnecessary and archaic.”

The debate has roots in older conversations about whether carving out places in a male-dominated field for one group, in this case women, comes at the cost of excluding others.

Proponents of gendered categories say that absent such distinctions, men would dominate the nominees and winners.

“Merging gender categories would create a cosmetic definition of equality in an industry where we know that equality does not exist,” said Mark Harris, who covers Hollywood’s awards season for Vanity Fair. “It’s placing this huge bet that sexism is so solved that it doesn’t need to be paid attention to anymore. It’s so solved even though a vast majority of voters in awards groups are men. It’s so solved even though actresses have absolutely no shortage of important and fascinating things to say about the way gender inequities persist in the industry.”

Melissa Silverstein, the publisher of the site Women and Hollywood agreed, noting that in prize categories that are nongendered, like director, producer and cinematographer, very few women are recognized. In 2017, Steve Pond of The Wrap found that in fields where acting awards divided by gender were scrapped, men indeed disproportionately bagged more nominations and wins. At the gender-neutral awards handed out by the Television Critics Association, Pond determined that over two decades, men won the individual drama and comedy acting awards seven times out of 10.

But Dillon and other nonbinary actors argue that gendered categories give the false appearance that prime roles for women are far more prevalent than they actually are. If the best actress category was axed and the vast majority of the nominations went to cisgendered men, Dillon said, “We would have to deal with the inequality that still is in Hollywood and always has been when it comes to gender as well as race.”

by Anonymousreply 19October 18, 2019 5:48 AM

Becca Blackwell, the nonbinary star of the Off-Broadway show “Hurricane Diane,” said that gendered categories obscure a theatrical canon and systems around it that do not value women. “They’re forcing you into boxes for what?” Blackwell said. “Of course women will get short shrift until we deal with the fact that women are still not considered first-class citizens with full agency.”

The Obies, which herald achievements in Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway theater, do not separate awards by sex, and in the last few years, theater awards in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Toronto have adopted gender inclusive categories, with varied results. Most doubled the number of finalists per performance category, and meted out two awards in each.

Leigh Goldenberg, the executive director of Theatre Philadelphia, which administers the city’s Barrymore Awards, said that before the switch, women voiced concerns about being overshadowed given that so many productions revolved around men.

“We eventually got to a place where folks who had those fights — women or people of color — recognized that there needed to be another group brought in, and this would build toward equity for all if we make that change,” Goldenberg said.

Theatre Philadelphia, which has also been working to diversify its adjudicators, held the Barrymores on Monday. Of the eight performance awards, six went to women.

Dale Albright, the deputy director of the Theater Bay Area Awards in San Francisco, said that finalists in the new gender-inclusive performance categories tended to skew male, but that the wins were equitably divided between male- and female-identifying performers.

After changes were made in Chicago’s Jeff Awards last year, there was controversy when many of the nominees ended up being male, which Drew Blau, an official with the awards, said was a reflection of the fact that larger theaters were producing male-centric shows. The hope is that by spotlighting the imbalance and pushing to diversify judges, the awards will balance out.

Meanwhile in Toronto at the Dora Awards over the summer, winners in the performance categories were dominated by women of color, according to Jacoba Knaapen, the executive director of the Toronto Alliance for Performing Arts. “There is inequity overall, but it is trending toward balance,” Knaapen said.

Until such changes are more widely embraced, Blackwell, the trans star of “Hurricane Diane,” said, should they end up nominated for a major award, they would opt to compete with performers who identify as male.

“I’d rather beat out a bunch of cis-men than take an award from a woman,” Blackwell said. “I always joke that I better be the first person with a vagina to get a best actor award.”

Alex Marshall contributed reporting to this article.

by Anonymousreply 20October 18, 2019 5:49 AM

So Dillon wasn’t sure what to nominate as? But rather than take a stand and say “I’m neither” and miss out on an award run, it’s off to the male category. Amazing how quickly a person’s activism resolve disappears when it affects their real agenda - furthering themselves.

by Anonymousreply 21October 18, 2019 5:58 AM

You are a male or female. Period. I f you choose to be identified as a kangaroo, then so be it, but don;t think the world owes you anything or must kowtow to your incessant braying.

by Anonymousreply 22October 18, 2019 12:32 PM

Our culture still hasn't settled on a single definition for "They/Them" or "trans" or "ungendered," etc. Are you a woman just because you say you're a woman? Are you a woman only if you have a vagina? What about a vagina that was created in a hospital? Are you a woman only if you have XX chromosome? So many questions, so few agreed-upon answers.

A quick solution would be to create a new awards show for these folks. They can nominate whomever they want and create whichever categories they want. No one will want to tune in if its televised but hey, at least they can hand out awards which is fun. In our shitty, dark world, there's no such thing as too much celebration.

by Anonymousreply 23October 18, 2019 1:38 PM

R6 I disagree, especially for acting. The roles played can be very different but equally as good, and for the most part they are playing men or women. By eliminating male and female, you would do away with the possibility of a man and woman both winning for playing opposite each other, even though at times that is what made the performances so special. Take Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins and Foster both gave good separate performances but it was them together that created two great performances.

by Anonymousreply 24October 18, 2019 3:17 PM

But both could be nominated in the gender free category. Sometime two men are good together. Sometimes two women. What is your point?

I have no skin in this game. The trannies in sports issue is quite dismal, though.

by Anonymousreply 25October 18, 2019 3:21 PM

R25 my point is that like in the Silence of the Lambs example, there were clearly a male leading role and a female leading role, that could only be played by a man and a woman. Both were performances were made better by the other, if they were both nominated in the same category only one could win, and it would have been the man because it was the more showy role. Usually when two people of the same gender are in that situation one can be submitted in the supporting category.

by Anonymousreply 26October 18, 2019 3:35 PM

[quote] Sam Smith, the British crooner with a voice often described as heaven sent

By whom?

by Anonymousreply 27October 18, 2019 4:01 PM

I can't imagine why this person would be nominated for an award anyways. She shaved her head and acts like Data from Star Trek: Next Generation. She has hardly elevated the craft.

by Anonymousreply 28October 18, 2019 6:55 PM

We. Want. The. Bedbug. Story. NOW!

by Anonymousreply 29October 18, 2019 7:04 PM

If there were gender-free nominations, men would destroy the women and the #MeTooers would demand separate categories.

by Anonymousreply 30October 18, 2019 7:13 PM

Less than 1% of the population (and 3-4% of the LGBT population) demanding the other 99% bend to their will

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by Anonymousreply 31October 18, 2019 8:42 PM

Best Performance by a That in a Supporting Role

by Anonymousreply 32October 18, 2019 8:49 PM

I voted for G for Best Actor this year.

by Anonymousreply 33October 19, 2019 1:49 AM

" And now the award for Best Performance by a They goes to........."

by Anonymousreply 34October 19, 2019 2:24 AM

Such bullshit!

by Anonymousreply 35October 19, 2019 2:31 AM

r14

[quote]She doesn't identify as a man. Dillon is "non-binary" which means she has short hair, doesn't wear makeup, and has meltdowns when people call her "she". She also thinks her het relationship is "queer" because of this identity.

W&W x1000

by Anonymousreply 36October 19, 2019 3:03 AM

for r29 regarding the bed bug story taken from a comment posted on an AV club article.

Let me tell you about Asia Dillon. She dated my best friend who was living with me at the time. She had no job and was making him pay for food, rent and everything else in her life. She then got him hooked on fentanyl patches. She made him move to Ithaca with her and turned him into a burn out when he used to be a producer for satellite radio. She ruined our friendship I had known him since I was 13.

She let her friend live in our living room, who then gave me a loft bed as a "favor", she said she was allergic to the type of wood. It ended up having bed bugs. My whole apartment got infested we had to get bug bombed it was the worsts summer of my life. She then had the nerve to go on MySpace (that long ago) and publicly ask if I had gotten the beg bugs out of the loft and if she could then have it back because she fucking lied to me and knew it had them the whole time.

She let her fucking hippy brother live with us for free for weeks who would have weirdos over and give them massages (he was a masseuse) in our living room for hours. In the winter she would turn the stove on to like 450 degrees to keep the house warm and walk around in her underwear. She tried to get my best friend to kick me and my other roommate out of the house on valentines day because we were laughing at an episode of Opera she was watching. I hate Opera almost as much as I Asia.

She gave two of my friends crabs independently. She once told me she wanted to be a nutritionist because she "wanted to tell people how to eat". Mind you all she ate was garbage food and take out I am surprised she doesn't have bone deficiency.

Screw this person. She's a shitty, selfish, stupid, human being.

cont... Sorry for hijacking your comment. The are few people I have met in life I actively dislike. Seeing one of them pop up on the AV Club as a righteous warrior for a cause when I know she's full of baloney was a huge shock this morning. This is a person who used to get coked up and ride the subway with a hoodie on and sunglasses and silently mouth the lyrics to Rammstein songs she was listening to on her headphones while staring at the person sitting across from her. She once gleefully told us how cool it was her boyfriend (my then friend) had a black bass player in his band. Repeatedly. Like I couldn't fucking see the guy playing the bass two feet in front of me. She went to AMDA. I don't know if that means anything if you're not from New York but believe me that says a lot.

by Anonymousreply 37October 19, 2019 3:35 AM

R37, she seems to be an A grade cunt.

by Anonymousreply 38October 19, 2019 4:18 AM

Thanks for posting that r37.

by Anonymousreply 39October 19, 2019 4:44 AM
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