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Post by oxfordsimon on Apr 9, 2017 23:13:48 GMT
Should they become the industry standard?
I know in some categories in some ceremonies you get 'Best Performance' rather than 'Best Actor' and 'Best Actress' - but that is not yet the norm.
What do people think about the possibility of abolishing these acting awards and just awarding Best Performance and Best Supporting Performance gongs?
There are those performers who do not identify with either gender - so how do you celebrate their performances?
If awards do go gender neutral, how do you prevent one gender dominating over a period of time?
I think that until we have real parity in terms of acting opportunities, we should preserve the gendered awards. World drama, on the whole, does not have as many leading roles for women - which could be argued to put them at a disadvantage in terms of awards potential.
But that doesn't deal with those who don't fit into the 2 'standard' categories.
A tricky one - but my instinct is to leave things as they are for now. But to review things regularly.
Thoughts?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2017 23:20:23 GMT
No no no no no no no.
Would just result in men being awarded all the time and women being ignored, in the way that happens for directors and other creatives. Acting is the only place where women are consistently awarded, other than maybe costumes, hair and makeup.
Just rename the categories if they have to. Female and male refer to sex, not gender, so it can go by anatomy. Or those who do not identify with a gender can choose which.
Honestly, there just aren't that many people in the world who feel like they don't identify with either gender. And of those that do, how many of them are actors in contention for major awards? Women make up 50% of the world - probably more than 50% of actors - and I don't think it's a good idea to sacrifice their ability to win awards for the sake of a few individuals. Plus it would likely mean even less strong roles being written for women, as they have less chance of winning awards, and overall would just mean less people getting recognition as there would be half the amount of winners.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 7:20:51 GMT
If awards go gender neutral, you can't guarantee one gender won't dominate. You can't go "well, a woman has won Best Performance the last five years in a row, better have it be a man this year" because that's not awarding the best. And the nature of the industry is that men still have the lion's share of great roles written for them. If society were better at equality generally speaking, I'd say it would be absolutely fair, but society sucks at equality, so let's keep 'em gender segregated. Male perception is such that if women make up 17% of a crowd scene, then the crowd looks equal to them, and if women make up 33% of the crowd then the women appear to outnumber the men. Anyone who's really trying to keep up with contemporary feminism will have encountered men (#NotAllMen) who seem to believe that the promotion of women is about taking things away from men, and I don't fancy having to read the whiny backlash after, say, two consecutive years of women taking the top prize. Because that's what will happen - certain men (#NotAllMen) won't see it as eliminating inequality, they will see it as women taking things from men.
I did read the BBC News article on this which mentioned Asia Kate Dillon as a non-binary performer who had to choose which category to be nominated for, and I do get how it sucks for non-binary performers. I just think it would be better to seek a solution that doesn't exclude non-binary rather than chasing after the solution that has the strong possibility of excluding women.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 8:12:57 GMT
Male perception is such that if women make up 17% of a crowd scene, then the crowd looks equal to them, and if women make up 33% of the crowd then the women appear to outnumber the men. That's not my perception, and I've not noticed anyone else having that perception. If anything, a crowd with 17% women is going to draw attention to the imbalance.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 8:26:43 GMT
Ack, I knew I'd forgotten to add a #NotAllMen to part of my post. www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=197390707 I mean, congratulations on your personal ability to understand what half-and-half actually looks like, but broadly and generally speaking, you are an oddity and not representative of the wider picture.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 9:29:50 GMT
I've always kind of liked the way the Drama League award is given in the States, one Distinguished Performance per year, and you can only win it once. Over the last few years it seems fairly evenly split male/female, plays/musicals. Up until the mid 90's or so the Screen Actors Guild used to give out a Lifetime Achievement Award annually and then they started to add competitive awards. Some of the American Equity Awards also seem gender neutral too. But let's face it people aren't really boasting about those are they??
Considering the dearth of parts for women generally, and the lack of representation that sometimes occurs I suspect it could lead to male domination in some regards. The Grammys combined some categories a few years back and that certainly seems to bear out that possibility.
Less awards also means less excitement, less buzz, shorter award ceremonies, less opportunity for advertising etc. How would that be responded to?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 9:50:49 GMT
"We just heard a fascinating and disturbing study, where they looked at the ratio of men and women in groups. And they found that if there's 17 percent women, the men in the group think it's 50-50. And if there's 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men."Before I get into the details of what the study actually said, does the above really make sense? Do you really think that in a room with 83 men and 17 women the men are going to look around and say "that looks like an even balance", even though there are so few women that many of the men will have no women anywhere near them? Do you genuinely believe that could happen? There's no question that there's a severe gender imbalance in some places, but that doesn't mean that men can't see the imbalance. It just means that the particular men who are in charge of such places have no interest in doing anything to upset their comfortable status quo. This is the problem with anecdotal evidence. People remember what they want to remember, not what they actually heard. The original source appears to be a paper Gender Stereotypes: An Analysis of Popular Films and TV by Dr Stacy L Smith and Crystal Allene Cook for The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and what it says is very, very different from the implications of the statement above. Unfortunately many people keep repeating the inaccurate quote instead of referencing the actual study, because it's far more comforting to repeat a snappy made-up quote that says what you want than to read a twelve-page study that doesn't. To start with, the 17% figure comes from an analysis of crowd scenes in G-rated movies, 1990 to 2005. It was noted that typically only 17% of the crowd was female. A bias this heavy only shows up in crowds: although there are other biases in favour of white male characters they aren't as strong: The key findings from this study included: fewer than one out of three (28%) of the speaking characters (both real and animated) are female. Fewer than one in five in this sample (17%) of characters in crowd scenes are female, though this finding should be interpreted with caution.2 In this sample, more than four out of five (83%) of the films’ narrators are male.
Gender was not the only aspect of imbalance in these films. We evaluated the apparent ethnicity as characters as well. A full 85.5% of the characters in G-rated films are white, 4.8% are black, and 9.7% are from “other” ethnicities. No differences emerged by character gender.There's an endnote associated with the first paragraph above: 2. The assessment of group characters proved to be an extremely difficult task in study 1. Coders had to determine that two or more characters were 1) speaking simultaneously or 2) looked similar (i.e., the male guards in Aladdin) but were overlapping in speech such that distinct characters could not be identified. For example, the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast features dozens of characters crisscrossing in and out of frame saying only one or two words. Once coders identified that a group met the definition, they were then expected to estimate using values from a scaled item (e.g., 5-10, 11-25, etc.) the highest number of males, females, and/or characters with an unknown gender in each group.
Given this complexity, our data set initially revealed that the coders were using values that were not valid when assessing mixed gendered groups (e.g., collectives with both males, females, and/or those with unidentifiable gender) and groups with only characters whose gender was not identifiable. Because of this, we only reported the results of groups with same-sex characters. A later reanalysis of reliability judgments of group size revealed that coders had difficulty with estimating the number of males (reliability coefficient over .38) and females (reliability coefficient over .80) in same sex and mixed-gendered groups.This seems to be the source of the idea that men have trouble judging the makeup of groups, except it doesn't mention men having trouble at all. It mentions coders of no identified gender struggling to identify individual speakers in a crowd scene in a film. But that doesn't fit the message that people want to spread, does it?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 9:54:24 GMT
I don't really like the idea of Gender Neutral. I like the way the Emmy's are doing it where any non specific people can choose which catagory they would rather be put into. Especially as, if we use the Oliviers as an example, there are currently 8 acting awards. Why half that and only have four awards when you can recognise more people for their brilliant performances. It also does make it fairer are some people giving brilliant performances may be missed out for the sake of a famous person or something like that.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 10, 2017 11:36:11 GMT
But that doesn't fit the message that people want to spread, does it? Ack. Those pesky facts getting in the way of the agenda again!
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Post by lynette on Apr 10, 2017 12:41:06 GMT
Tricky one this one. As time goes on we shall have women play men and men play women. O my, we already do. So are women now having more roles and so more of a chance to win a prize? On balance I would go for Best Performance and this would allow for all the complications of identification, sexuality and gender.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 12:52:10 GMT
I'd also point out that whilst this may work with theatre awards (and perhaps already does with the Drama League distinguished performance award) where women are often celebrated and large/juicy female roles not quite so ubiquitous, at somewhere like the Oscars it would just go awfully wrong. We'd probably have to alternate every year between #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsSoMale.
The only way I'd be okay with it is if they enforced a rule where voters had to be 50% women, 50% men. I'd still rather it stay how it is now though. Honestly, I don't see a world in which film studios and actresses would allow it to happen. I think there'd be a major outcry and rightly so. With respect to Asia Kate Dillon, they aren't going to be nominated for an Emmy so let's maybe not change all the rules due to their letter.
Although actually I've just looked at the Drama League winners and 10 men have won the award and 4 women. That's not 'pretty equal'. That's less than half the amount of women as men. Coincidence maybe but I guarantee it wouldn't be the case the other way round.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 10, 2017 14:21:23 GMT
*googles Asia Kate Dillon* *carries on with day*
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Post by kathryn on Apr 11, 2017 13:29:05 GMT
Male perception is such that if women make up 17% of a crowd scene, then the crowd looks equal to them, and if women make up 33% of the crowd then the women appear to outnumber the men. That's not my perception, and I've not noticed anyone else having that perception. If anything, a crowd with 17% women is going to draw attention to the imbalance. You might think so, but Genna Davis' institute did the research, and it turns out that women typically make up only 17% of characters in crowd scenes - and no-one seems to notice that they're unbalanced. EDIT: Ah, I see you found the research. Baemax, I think you might be conflating that research with the study of the amount of time men and women in mixed groups spend speaking - which found that if women speak 33% of the time, and the men 66%, the women are perceived as dominating the conversation.
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Post by kathryn on Apr 11, 2017 14:26:38 GMT
That's not my perception, and I've not noticed anyone else having that perception. If anything, a crowd with 17% women is going to draw attention to the imbalance. You might think so, but Genna Davis' institute did the research, and it turns out that women typically make up only 17% of characters in crowd scenes - and no-one seems to notice that they're unbalanced. EDIT: Ah, I see you found the research. Baemax, I think you might be conflating that research with the study of the amount of time men and women in mixed groups spend speaking - which found that if women speak 33% of the time, and the men 66%, the women are perceived as dominating the conversation. Or was it speaking 50% of the time??? My memory is fuzzy on it too. *sigh* There are so many bits of research on this subject it's very easy to mix them up. But basically the evidence is that the under-representation of women (and ethnic minorities, BTW) is so normal that people genuinely don't notice it until you start very consciously counting. Which is why saying 'it's fine - we're gender neutral now!' is not a good idea - our biases are very often unconscious and unnoticed. I mean, who'd of thought in this day and age there'd still be disparities in the numbers of male and female writers winning awards? The publishing industry is actively female-dominated, and you can't tell male from female writing just by reading it, and I'm sure no-one believes men are better writers than women. But those disparities exist.
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Post by lynette on Apr 11, 2017 14:47:52 GMT
No women in the University Challenge final. Beggars belief.
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Post by Jan on Apr 11, 2017 15:35:59 GMT
But that doesn't fit the message that people want to spread, does it? Ack. Those pesky facts getting in the way of the agenda again! It is just a case of confirmation bias - the selection of only those pieces of evidence that confirm your pre-exisiting views. Or put more simply, people believe any old rubbish if it supports their case.
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Post by Flim Flam on Apr 11, 2017 15:40:33 GMT
T.V. quiz shows and panel games are a constant source of bewilderment to me. Why, in this day and age, do t.v. companies feel it is acceptable to persistently under-represent women in their choice of panel members?
I often point this out to people, who then look at me as if I am making some extreme, overstated feminist argument, rather than talking about half the population! As you say, it seems to be so normal that nobody notices. Comedy panel games, which often have 1 token female on the panel, are some of the worst offenders I find.
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Post by Jan on Apr 11, 2017 15:41:20 GMT
Should they become the industry standard? I know in some categories in some ceremonies you get 'Best Performance' rather than 'Best Actor' and 'Best Actress' - but that is not yet the norm. What do people think about the possibility of abolishing these acting awards and just awarding Best Performance and Best Supporting Performance gongs? There are those performers who do not identify with either gender - so how do you celebrate their performances? If awards do go gender neutral, how do you prevent one gender dominating over a period of time? I think that until we have real parity in terms of acting opportunities, we should preserve the gendered awards. World drama, on the whole, does not have as many leading roles for women - which could be argued to put them at a disadvantage in terms of awards potential. But that doesn't deal with those who don't fit into the 2 'standard' categories. A tricky one - but my instinct is to leave things as they are for now. But to review things regularly. Thoughts? If the awards are really gender neutral then there is no problem at all if one gender dominates for a period - it doesn't matter - the awards are just on merit.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 15:51:09 GMT
Amazing how in gender neutral awards one gender has dominated for an extraordinary long time - in fact, since the existence of these awards began - when these awards are solely based on merit. Very strange!
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Post by Jan on Apr 11, 2017 15:56:09 GMT
Amazing how in gender neutral awards one gender has dominated for an extraordinary long time - in fact, since the existence of these awards began - when these awards are solely based on merit. Very strange! Well, I said REALLY gender neutral. But anyway, give an example of a gender neutral award where the winners have obviously not reflected the gender distribution of people eligible for that award.
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Post by Jan on Apr 11, 2017 16:01:53 GMT
No women in the University Challenge final. Beggars belief. Is that a problem, or even surprising ? It's like saying women are vastly under-represented in the train-spotting community.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 16:04:41 GMT
Amazing how in gender neutral awards one gender has dominated for an extraordinary long time - in fact, since the existence of these awards began - when these awards are solely based on merit. Very strange! Well, I said REALLY gender neutral. But anyway, give an example of a gender neutral award where the winners have obviously not reflected the gender distribution of people eligible for that award. One woman has won an Oscar for directing, compared to eighty-eight times a man has won. Whilst there are definitely more male directors than female directors, the ratio is nowhere near that high.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 16:05:28 GMT
No women in the University Challenge final. Beggars belief. Is that a problem, or even surprising ? It's like saying women are vastly under-represented in the train-spotting community. Why? More women go to university than men now.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 16:19:52 GMT
That's not my perception, and I've not noticed anyone else having that perception. If anything, a crowd with 17% women is going to draw attention to the imbalance. You might think so, but Genna Davis' institute did the research, and it turns out that women typically make up only 17% of characters in crowd scenes - and no-one seems to notice that they're unbalanced. EDIT: Ah, I see you found the research. (As an aside — and one I'll put at the start of my comment because I want to get it out of the way — I actually find it quite insultingly sexist that anyone would read something to the effect of "men see a crowd with 17% women and think the numbers are even" and not instantly dismiss it as obviously wrong. It's an utterly preposterous assertion and nobody should be giving it any credence whatsoever. It's up there with the assertion of some vegans that meat stays in the intestines for seven years. It shouldn't need pointing out that it's bollocks.) Anyway, back to the main subject. It's not even that people don't notice they're unbalanced. People do notice they're unbalanced: that's why the research is done in the first place. The problem is that people notice they're unbalanced and do it anyway. All characters were white and male by default and only varied from that when there was a specific need for it. That strikes me as quite bizarre. I can only assume it ties in to the long-held and only gradually diminishing belief that women are in some way boring to watch. I mentioned some time ago (possibly on the old forum) that when Lauren Faust was creating the characters for the 2010 incarnation of the My Little Pony franchise she wanted to create an adventurous world filled with strong and dynamic female characters for female viewers because when she'd been a child there were no such characters. There were shows led by female characters that were exclusively aimed at girls and watched by almost nobody, and there were shows led by male characters that were aimed at boys but watched by anyone with a measurable IQ. It was conventional and unchallenged wisdom — and I use that word quite wrongly — that girls meant dolls and fairies while adventure and excitement required boys. It's not that people were unaware what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing. It's just that what they were doing was stupid, as Faust and others have demonstrated: the My Little Pony show she created is coming up to its seventh season (taking it up to 169 episodes) and there's a movie coming out in a few months, and its almost entirely female cast hasn't harmed its fortunes in the slightest. Just the other day I was thinking about Disney films and the way their main animation studio has done such a grand job of dealing with female characters. (I'm concentrating on animation here because it's my passion. I've no doubt that live action is similar.) Starting from The Princess and The Frog they've had seven major films. Five of those films have had strong and resourceful female protagonists and many powerful female characters among the principals. Only one — Big Hero 6 — has been distinctly skewed in favour of male characters. Disney is certainly under no impression that female characters can't hold an audience's attention. But I can't think of any other major animation studio that has close to half of its films with female protagonists. That's obviously a problem, and it's not something that's going to be changed by spouting made-up statistics that deny the actual issue. It has never been the case that the people in charge have been unaware of the male-heavy bias of their work. The problem is that too many of them think that's what is required in order to be successful. Altering that attitude requires everybody to understand the real problem and to be on board with the idea of trying a different approach, and when someone comes along and insults people on their own side with comments like "I mean, congratulations on your personal ability to understand what half-and-half actually looks like" it's exacerbating the problem, not addressing it.
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Post by kathryn on Apr 11, 2017 16:32:03 GMT
You might think so, but Genna Davis' institute did the research, and it turns out that women typically make up only 17% of characters in crowd scenes - and no-one seems to notice that they're unbalanced. EDIT: Ah, I see you found the research. Anyway, back to the main subject. It's not even that people don't notice they're unbalanced. People do notice they're unbalanced: that's why the research is done in the first place. The problem is that people notice they're unbalanced and do it anyway. All characters were white and male by default and only varied from that when there was a specific need for it. That strikes me as quite bizarre. Ok, I'm going to hold my hands up and admit that I was very surprised when I saw that stat. I - film fan, feminist - hadn't noticed that it was *that* bad. I think it might be more accurate to say that some people notice and point out the imbalance, some people don't notice until you point it out to them, and some people will deny that there's any problem at all even when you present them with all the evidence in the world. Those are the ones who tend to feel like they're losing what their entitled to, that 'political correctness' is a way of taking things away from them.
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