After actress Issa Rae announced the nominees for best director at the Oscars this year, she quipped, “Congratulations to those men.”
Some feminists and film buffs were miffed that the Academy Awards snubbed female directors, particularly Little Women filmmaker Greta Gerwig.
While critics perennially complain that the Oscars shut out women from many of its main categories, they have one surefire shot at success: best actress. But another group of liberal lobbyists has recently begun to air another grievance whose solution would make the gender imbalance worse: creating space for entertainers who identify as nonbinary, neither female nor male, by scrapping gendered categories.
Activist and nonbinary actor Asia Kate Dillon has been calling on awards shows to do away with their gender distinctions for years. Star of the TV show Billions, Dillon has petitioned the Emmys to eliminate its gender distinctions, though the awards show has not been receptive to the suggestion. When Dillon submitted an application for best supporting role, the actor wasn’t sure whether to choose “actor” or “actress.” The Television Academy said whichever group Dillon identified with was fine.
Contra Dillon’s disappointment with the Emmys, the music industry has already evolved somewhat to fit the prevailing taste: The Grammys and MTV’s Video Music Awards scrapped gendered awards in 2012 and 2017, respectively. In 2017, Dillon presented the MTV Movie & TV Awards’ first nongendered award to Emma Watson.
“If we separated categories by the colors of eyes, hair, or skin, people would go, ‘This is unacceptable,’” Dillon told the New York Times. “That’s how I feel about gender categories. At this point, it feels unacceptable and unnecessary and archaic.”
It may be commonplace among some circles to view gender as a personal identifier no more significant than hair color, but that’s not how most of America sees it. Most awards shows, including the Oscars (whose leaders said they have no plans to scrap gendered categories but will “continue to be sensitive to the evolving conversation”), are a far cry from making any drastic changes.
But as the calls for nonbinary options pick up traction — and they will — awards shows will find themselves in a tough position: run afoul of the growing number of entertainers who refuse to identify with a single gender or scrap gendered categories and suffer the wrath of other liberals when they realize many film and TV academies still aren’t good at nominating women.
Soon, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is going to have to answer a question: Are there two genders or not? Either way, many fans will not be happy. So the Academy will listen to the loudest voices.
