Gotham Award – The New York Times


Should acting awards be gender neutral? The question has floated for years with heated arguments for and against.

But the biggest ceremonies honoring the acting, knowing that change will kick a cultural hornet’s nest, tradition-bound. The best actor. Best actress.

On Thursday, a key stop on the way to the annual Oscars broke the queues. NS Gotham Awards She said that from the November ceremony, acting awards will no longer be separated by gender. Gothams will replace the best actress and best actor categories with a single category for outstanding lead performance. For the first time, there will be a category for supporting roles: outstanding supporting performance.

Each category can have a maximum of 10 nominations, with the field specially selected by committees of film critics, festival programmers, and film curators. As always, separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers and other film professionals will determine the final buyers. There were previously five nominations in the acting categories at Gothams.

“There are so many talented individuals who aren’t binary, and it’s not fair to force them into the men’s and women’s boxes,” said Jeffrey Sharp, executive director of the Gotham Film and Media Institute in New York. “We have a truly proud history of inclusion. It’s part of our DNA. But it was also a time of improvement for us.”

Will other important ceremonies follow?

“We can only speak for ourselves, but we have a history of leading the conversation,” said Mr. Sharp, referring to the position the Gotham Awards hold. first important ceremony Hollywood’s award-winning season.

Influential Berlin Film Festival became gender neutral With performance awards in the spring. Although not taken seriously as a sign of artistic achievement, the MTV Movie & TV Awards stopped segregating acting awards by gender Along with MTV’s Video Music Awards in 2017. The Grammy eliminated the episode in 2012.

But none of the organizations behind the most prestigious acting awards – the Oscar, BAFTA, Tony and Emmy awards – have indicated they will do the same. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which ran the Oscars, told The New York Times in 2019 that while it plans to keep its current structure in place, it has perhaps gone the farthest, saying it will “continue to be responsive to emerging conversations.” The Academy Awards for best actress and best actor were first awarded in 1929.

NS Screen Actors Guild Awards, Independent Spirit Awards and Golden Globes There are also male and female acting categories.

The debate has its roots in old conversations about whether making room for one group in a male-dominated space, in this case women, comes at the expense of others.

Change seekers argue that, in addition to forcing non-binaries to enter the boxes, the gendered categories give the false appearance that main roles for women are far more common than they actually are.

“We should be more afraid to support a discriminatory, sexist policy than to repeal it,” said non-binary actor Asia Kate Dillon, best known for her roles in Showtime’s “Billions.” wrote an article last year. “There are ultimately two tangible obstacles to removing the category of actress from awards ceremonies, and they are – to be frank – money and emotions,” they added.

Proponents of gender-based categories say that in the absence of such distinctions, men will dominate the nominees and winners. There are also those who are sweeping away potential change as an example of progressive ideology going berserk.

Mr Sharp said his concern about maintaining a fair mix of candidates while eliminating gender-based categories was “valid”.

“In terms of the danger of being warped one way or another, we have great faith in the people who make our nomination decisions,” he said, referring to the Gotham Awards’ committee system. (The New York Times is the corporate sponsor of the awards and has no role in deciding the new categories.)

Mr. Sharp noted that his organization’s longstanding award for what will be called a “groundbreaking actor” and will be renamed “groundbreaking actor” has always been gender neutral and awarded to stars like Amy Adams (“Junebug”) and Elliot Page (“Juno”) . , Michael B. Jordan (“Fruitvale Station”) and Mya Taylor (“Tangerine”).

The most recent Gotham Awards ceremony took place in January and was staged virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nicole Beharie was named best actress for her performance in “Miss Juneteenth,” and Riz Ahmed won the best actor award for “Sound of Metal.”

The Gotham Film and Media Institute (formerly The Independent Filmmaker Project) also said Thursday it has created two new categories of television: groundbreaking nonfiction series and outstanding performance in a new series.

Cara Buckley contributing reporting.



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