Awards season entities are certainly doing the most today. First off, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences elected a lot of women and people of color to their Board of Governors. Now, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences have made an attempt to be more inclusive when it comes to recognizing the wide gender spectrum in their performing categories.
Let us explain. Starting with this year’s Emmys, the TV Academy will invite people who are nominated for acting awards to opt to be recognized as a “performer,” rather than an “actor” or “actress”, according to all the trades.
In a statement to media, the Academy said, “No performer category titled ‘Actor’ or ‘Actress’ has ever had a gender requirement for submissions. Now, nominees and (or) winners in any performer category titled ‘Actor’ or ‘Actress’ may request that their nomination certificate and Emmy statuette carry the term ‘Performer’ in place of Actor or Actress.”
Actually, it really doesn’t change too much. From what we understand, the Emmy trophies for Best Actor, Best Actress and other performing accolades will not change their name, but the performer will have the option to be a performer. It sounds like if a performer who does not identify with a gender wins an Emmy in a performing category, the accolade will remain in an “Actor” or “Actress” category, but the performer won’t. I guess that makes sense…
In any case, this brings us back to 2017 when Billions star Asia Kate Dillon, who identifies as non-binary, wrote a letter to the TV Academy questioning their gender-specific classifications of the acting categories. “I wanted to get more information from the Academy as to whether or not they use the word actor or actress to refer to assigned sex or identity, so that I could make the best decision for myself as to how I wanted to be submitted,” Dillon told Variety when they were speaking about Emmy nominations at the time.
The TV Academy also dropped the news that any film submitted for the Best Documentary Feature or Best Documentary Short to the Oscars will be will, be ineligible for Emmy recognition starting next Emmy season. That seems fair enough… but we talk more about this newly introduced “non-gender” addendum to Emmys submission?
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