The Los Angeles Times’ Editorial Board has decided to push for “gender-neutral” categories for the major award shows because their opinion is that having male and female separated is “sexist”:
The Academy Awards show, a high-tech production televised around the world, is still handing out Oscars for leading performances in one category for actors and another for actresses — the way it first did nearly 95 years ago over dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Television Academy similarly bestows Emmys for performances in TV shows by gender in separate categories for men and women.
Their next paragraph begins this way:
“But other awards shows have dispensed with this industry shibboleth…”
“Other award shows”? Does the editorial board actually think the Oscars can compare with “other” award shows, or needs to emulate any of them? They don’t. Sorry. Those “other” award shows are comprised of either film critics, industry outsiders, or various bloggers. They aren’t even on the same planet as the Oscars, let alone in the same room. Their primary goal is apparently to protect their own image online and/or not get viciously attacked by activists. At best, to be a good person doing good things.
Whoever they have hired at LAT to represent their “editorial board” does not understand history — film history, Oscar history. Nor can they comprehend the endless effort and resolve for activists to get to the point where a film like The Woman King could be made at all. Do they have any clue how hard it would have been, even 5 years ago, to get The Woman King made at that scale, starring Viola Davis, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood? It’s taken years of reports, of activists working behind the scenes, of convincing and wooing executives to greenlight it. It was not an easy road.
Davis has never won Best Actress, despite having won the SAG twice. Now, they’re trying to take that chance away? That’s not to say she will win this year but imagine — winning Best Actress feels like an accomplishment. Winning “Lead Performance” doesn’t carry the same historic weight. Sorry, it just doesn’t. That’s the reality, and everyone knows it.
I honestly don’t think the Academy, or the SAG, or the Golden Globes are going to be dumb enough to go down this road. If the film critics want it, fine. Have at it. But if you’re talking about awards shows, which are televised for ratings, then you best be bringing the heat. And the heat is never going to be in “gender-neutral” acting categories.
The BAFTA are the only major group I could see buckling under the pressure as they did post-2020 with upending their entire ballot process for choosing Best Director and the acting categories, bringing in juries to “fix” their perceived problem with race and gender. They went through all of that, forcing the vote to include half women for Best Director only to now be faced with removing gender entirely. As long as a special jury decides, it probably doesn’t matter if they have gender-specific categories. They will discover, like the LA Film Critics, that BAFTA voters will deliberately make them “fair.”
In case you haven’t noticed, the Oscar industry is dying because the movie industry is dying. It isn’t dying in terms of money, at least not yet. The big franchise movies will still bring in profits. More movies are being made now than there ever have been. They just don’t get seen by as many people. They rarely embed in the culture in any significant way anymore. They live as an isolated experience for the handful of people that they’re made for. The room is shrinking. The experience is becoming more elitist, less universal.
All these problems have worsened not only because Hollywood has been sucked into a strident new religion. They started long before that. But the strident new religion is killing off whatever is left. This is clear to anyone outside of the increasingly shrinking bubble that Hollywood has become.
This isn’t the first time religious zealots have captured Hollywood. Christianity has long been the dominant religion in this country and still is. But for decades, that percentage was over 90%. That is why films about other religions were few and far between. That is also why a movie like It’s a Wonderful Life opens with villagers praying for George Bailey. And it’s why the Hays Code was established: to purge Hollywood of its sins and prevent the depiction of vice and immorality from spilling out into the public.
The difference now is that “wokeism” or “identitarianism” (or whatever it was that bloomed as a generation of activists came of age on Tumblr) has gained prominence — even though its most strident adherents make up a very small portion of the American public. We’re probably talking at most 10%. Granted, they are a loud and therefore powerful 10%, but they do not reflect either the sensibilities or the desired goals of the majority. If you are making movies for that fraction of the population, and adopting policies to please them (land acknowledgments, gender-neutral categories, dogma-infused content), your profits will likely dip significantly. Or as they sometimes say on the Right, “go woke, go broke.”
The last “Fourth Turning” saw both a Hays Code and a Black List, two things we’re dealing with now. It is the darker end of collectivism, which starts out as a positive force in American culture. Everyone gets a seat at the table, no marginalized person left behind. But it has no choice but to become paranoid, punitive, and ultimately righteous in its efforts to keep a utopian vision alive.
In his book Pendulum: How Generations of the Past Shape Our Present and Predict Our Future, Michael Drew and Roy Williams write (from way back in 2011):
The second half of the Upswing of “We” and the first half of the Downswing from it (2013–2023) bring an ideological “righteousness” that seems to spring from any group gathered around a cause. The inevitable result is judgmental legalism and witch hunts. The origin of the term witch hunt was the Salem witch trials, a series of hearings before county court officials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693, exactly at the beginning of the second half of the Upswing toward the “We” Zenith of 1703.
Senator Joseph McCarthy was an American promoter of this witch-hunt attitude at America’s most recent “We” Zenith of 1943 (see the “House Un-American Activities Committee,” 1937–1953); Adolf Hitler was the German promoter (see the Holocaust, 1933–1945); and Joseph Stalin was the Soviet promoter (see the Great Purge, 1936–1938). Our hope is that we might collectively choose to skip this development as we approach the “We” Zenith of 2023. If enough of us are aware of this trend toward judgmental self-righteousness, perhaps we can resist demonizing those who disagree with us and avoid the societal polarization that results from it. A truly great society is one in which being unpopular can be safe.
And it’s indeed happening on the Right regarding transgender ideology and LGBTQ issues. It’s just that they don’t have as much cultural, political, and institutional power. But if they did, we’d see the same thing from that side on the same level. There is most definitely a virtual Civil War raging. The Oscars, if they’re to survive, must stand firm against reimagining themselves as a “Woketopia.”
As someone who writes up the Women’s Media Center report every year detailing just how hard it’s been for women to break into various categories at the Oscars, from directing to editing to cinematography and on down the line, I know what anyone with common sense should know: the acting categories have always been safe havens.
Regardless of even that, there is glamor and magic in the Best Actress category. It has always been the favorite categories of our readers here. It has a long history. I dare say it’s an institution. It is not, nor has it ever been, sexist. There is nothing more rewarding at the climax of awards season (and having sat through a three-hour telecast) than to see a woman in a beautiful gown take to the stage to accept her rightful award. Take that away, you might as well stick a fork in it. The Oscars are on life support as it is. This move would kill them off entirely, as Jeff Wells points out.
Here is the letter (co-signed by, but not written by, me):
“Since 1929, the Academy Award of Merit (aka Oscar) has been awarded to artists by artists. Less than a decade after the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created the categories of Best Actor and Best Actress not as artifacts of a patriarchal, oppressive past but harbingers of a more progressive future in which the inseparability of sex and performance was acknowledged — and celebrated at parity. This model has held for nearly a century because it is understood that actors bring more than simply talent to their craft — they bring the intractable experience of life as either male or female. It is no surprise that recent calls to abolish these categories, including gender-neutral moves by the Spirit Awards, the Gotham Awards and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, originate outside the profession and community of actors most impacted by them. These are efforts to change longstanding practice not at the behest of performers or for the betterment of the art, but to serve a broader and very recent agenda that presumes to achieve “equality” through the erasure of any recognized distinctions between the sexes. We reject these efforts as regressive and misogynist and call on the Academy and other organizations to do likewise.
“It is especially disconcerting that this pressure campaign comes during a year with no fewer than three major awards contenders — “The Woman King,” “Women Talking,” and “She Said” — singularly centered on the unique experiences of women. That all three films were also written and directed by women is a laudable step in the right direction — but could they have been just as easily written and directed by men? Absolutely. Could their predominantly female casts have been replaced by men? Categorically not. This is the distinction which advocates of genderless categories ignore. Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh are already heavy awards season Best Actress favorites for their respective performances in “Tár” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” But their achievements are more than great acting — the characters depicted are wives and mothers, women struggling to meet unequal expectations in a male-dominated world. These are parts defined by their explorations of womanhood, elevated by great actresses with the irreplaceable experience of being women. The same may be said on the other side of the equation — Colin Farrell’s and Bill Nighy’s respective performances in “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Living” are likewise rooted in their irreplaceable experiences as men. “Living,” adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film “Ikiru,” is a noteworthy case in point. Though separated by seventy years and two continents, Bill Nighy and Takashi Shimura face precisely the same realities — experiences which transcend culture while being bound by sex.
“Actors and actresses all understand that their career paths diverge based on sex and that this constitutes an opportunity and not a handicap. We should not expect or want Frances McDormand to play Macbeth any more than we should want Denzel Washington to play Lady Macbeth as the resulting performances would ring false, lacking the emotional resonance with which cinema connects the lived experiences of performers and audiences. These are distinctions borne of material reality — not culture — and removing that reality from acting categories will not remove that reality from life. It will, however, make films less honest, more ideological and less connected to the hopes, dreams and life experiences of audiences.
“At a deeper level, sex-based acting categories have been a longstanding cudgel against sex stereotypes — with separate categories celebrating the immense diversity of both women and men without denying their differences, and furnishing aspiring performers and artists their essential role models since the days of Fairbanks and Pickford. If the biological differences between men and women are sufficient to justify sex-segregated sports, how much greater are divergent life experiences a justification for the proud tradition of Best Actor and Best Actress?
“A more honest pressure campaign would have challenged the categories of Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, which were added in 1936. The distinctions between lead and supporting have always been flimsier and more prone to manipulation by studios — yet there have been no such calls for the eradication of these categories on grounds of “equality” because the voices behind the calls are not honest. Even the groups which have made such changes remain deeply divided and defensive about them. The Los Angeles Film Critics passed their change by a single vote and a plurality which still did not represent a majority of the voting membership. Film Independent President Josh Welsh, meanwhile, has acknowledged division within the organization but routinely declines to comment further or give any interviews but to “friendly” outlets.
“For its part, the Academy is no stranger to bullies and pressure campaigns — attempts to leverage the organization and its awards in the service of assorted agendas are as old as the Academy itself. But the last decade has seen the organization’s stakes significantly raised. Telecast ratings have collapsed, in large part because the organization and its honorees are seen as increasingly disconnected from its once reliable television audience of tens of millions. Bowing to fringe pressures at this fragile point in time would spell certain disaster for the organization’s legitimacy and the telecast’s ratings. Many seem to have forgotten that the “me” in #MeToo” is female, and that the “too” is a call to female unity, a movement borne of the courage of actresses who fought back against the predations of a famous producer and the imbalance of power they have always faced within their industry. The farce of “genderless” acting categories will not remedy these problems. If anything, it’s likely to make them worse by pretending the underlying problems don’t exist.
“The voices lobbying for such changes are both dishonest and disconnected from reality and we urge the Academy to ignore them. “
Watching “White Noise” and loving so far how Baumbach is doing a reverse of “Marriage Story” and poking fun at himself so much, using exactly the same ego-tropes that derrailed the other film to me…
My favorite movie of the year is Babylon ! In years to come when Avatar 2 , Top Gun 2 and Every Which Way But Loose as I call it are long forgotten people will still be talking about Babylon !
Here’s a new topic/fun game we haven’t played in the forums. Assume you’re directing/producing a film. Regardless of story (or depending on the type of one you have in mind), among living folks, assemble your dream team in each category of who you’d want to work with (you can still pick a director if not you; in acting, pick no more than eight key players). I’ll have to think about it myself but will report back.
Blood Meridian
Director – Ridley Scott
Screenwriters – The Coen Brothers
Cast:
The Kid – Caleb Landry Jones
The Judge – Vincent D’Onofrio
Glanton – Brad Pitt
It’s been a decade since I read the book and I can’t remember a lot of the characters but I think that’s a solid start. I’ll edit it with updates if my memory is adequately refreshed
Director: Jordan Peele
Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema
Screenplay: Jordan Peele
Score: Michael Abels
Production Design: Ruth de Jong
Cast: Me, Michael Fassbender, Thandiwe Newton, Danny Glover
Thank you, Ellie.
Please feel free to step in and hijack any discussion page at AwardsDaily that gets stuck in a rut or becomes too heated.
Sometimes I try to do that myself. But I might not be the best person for the job since I’m prone to getting struck in rut and becoming too heated.
Yeah, great topic. But it’s too bad I can’t think at the moment. I know I do have similar fantasy but it’s just not coming ti me right now.
Thanks, Ryan. I just like the discussions here.
And no worries. Whenever you have your claws out, as you say, I’ll just get you a scratching post.
Harold and Maude (remake)
Directed by: Spike Jonze
Adapted by: Charlie Kaufman
Harold: Timothee Chalamet (or Logan Lerman or Liam James or Tom Holland would be an interesting choice—I can’t decide, but Chalamet I think is my hearts first choice but not sold)
Maude: Shirley MacLaine (or Julie Walters or Susan Sarandon or even Meryl—but Shirley was my first thought with being eccentric and all)
Harold’s Mom: Frances Mcdormand (or Diane Lane or Laura Linney or even Helena Bonham Carter)
The General: Sam Rockwell
The Psychiatrist: Linda Hunt
I’m not so sure if it all would work, might not be a movie for today—but every since I first saw it a decade or so ago, I think about it every time I rewatch it or when the thought of making a movie comes up.
i love it. brilliant casting! Chalamet and Walters. And Spike Jonze is a stroke of genius, offering something other worldly perhaps about the story. That movie has stayed with me too since childhood (teenager).
I am still trying to conjure something up for Amy Adams and Laura Linney. Pure Oscar bait so they finally both win an Oscar competitively and not be 92 and getting an Honorary!
The Graduate, Part II
30 years later
Mrs Robinson – Laura Linney
Elaine – Amy Adams
Ben – I dunno… Oscar Isaac? Tom Hiddleston? Mmm… Rodrigo Santoro!
Ben and Elaine are married, still.
They’ve got a son – Timothee Chalamet (of course)
They live in a big, spooky house up in northern California somewhere.
And Mrs. Robinson lives with them…
Timmy’s aging grandmother
…who’s had a stroke
…so she can’t talk.
– Will it be funny?
– It’ll be funny. Dark, weird and funny.
– And with a stroke.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f33784f1ecc60d817a8206ead69e73def995102f99f103befc0eeb1400815281.jpg
Love it! Could we call it Post Graduate? ( 🙂 ) Jake Hoffman could play Ben?
Obviously Chalamet!!!
Can Timmy have a great grandmother – Diane Keaton? (the only squabble you and I have had on here, Ryan was about Ms Keaton, I have never forgotten it, so I had to shoehorn her in here). Or Glenn Close. Not talking. Even better. Finally win that Oscar after 15 nominations!
Now who to direct it? Someone straight out of film school. You know, a graduate? (ok, i’m done)
And it’s going to be funny
Perhaps bringing the recent Little Foxes stage production back to the big screen but switch out Nixon for Adams—boom, a period drama with Linney and Adams…..could be something?…..hhmmmm now who to direct and write????
Methinks—Sophia Coppola? Gerwig? Joe Wright?
sounds like a job for Joe Wright.
When Joe Wright is on…he’s on. I’m always curious what he does, even if some have been meh as of late.
How was your Christmas, Jerm? Have you been impacted by the weather events? All safe?
It was a great time! We did get a few inches of snow, but nothing unusual for us. Of course every year at this time, some people freak out as if we don’t get a bunch of snow every year, so this was blown way out of proportion. But…..Lots of time with family, food, and games. It was relaxing. The week after Christmas is always like a black hole, don’t know what day it is and time is irrelevant.
How was your Christmas?
glad you’re all ok. Mine was ok, Spent it with my Mum in the nursing home. Unexciting, but she was looked after which is important. Yes this interim week is always somewhat discombobulating!! Soon we will be ushered into a new year. Hope and possibility 🙂
Yes!!! Hope and possibility—certainly something we can all use. These past few years globally has really put people down—we sure could use some hope.
I’m glad you got to visit with your Mom—my mom runs a senior retirement facility—lots of lonely elderly people whose families don’t care to spend time with them. So bless you—for taking time to see your mom. Holidays can be hard for a lot of people—it’s not the same when you grow up, it’s like the realities of life ware off the magic of it all. Having kids certainly brings back some of that magic, that innocence is precious.
May 2023 renew a spirit of hope and warm blessings for all!!
P.S. I rewatched EEAAO—I just don’t understand the passion of it. It just feels like a mess from start to finish—I can’t imagine it as a winner for BP, it feels ssooooooooo far removed from the likings of the older voting block of the Academy. I tried to get on board—it just doesn’t do it for me. It definitely will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Finally seeing Banchees by the end of the weekend.
thanks Jerm, Bless you and yours.
Family is the most important thing and wherever one finds it.
Movies unite us here. Which I value so much and my fellow cinephiles and mates like you.
Happy Viewing. Am in the middle of ‘Thirteen Lives’ on Amazon.
Re Everything Everywhere – i am surprised myself that I have watched it not once, not twice but three times and I am still enjoying and getting so much from it. I can’t explain the fascination as it is not the usual fare in my wheelhouse, but there is a soulful layer to it, beneath all the constructs and fancy imaging and marshal arts and multi verses. There’s humanity and people searching for their purpose and coming to terms with their lot in life. I think that is what I keep getting more and more out of it. Definitely in my Top 10 for the year.
I was meant to see Banshees a few weeks ago but Mum had a fall and I needed to be with her, so threw my ticket! I must get there to see it, as it opened in wide release here on Boxing Day. Happy viewing my friend.
I love Harold and Maude. So much
And I think Logan Lerman would work perfect as Harold. Though all interesting choices. Tom Holland doesn’t seem right at first, but remembering him before Spider-Man/Uncharted, it’d actually be perfect/fun for him too, I think.
An underplayed Catherine O’Hara could also make a good Maude. And I’d add in Harriet Sansom Harris.
love HSH and Catherie O’Hara for that matter. Excellent selections.
Kate Winslet Wins One Dozen Oscars
A feature made of 12 short films. Each short envisions a Kate Winslet Oscar victory.
Directed by: Tom Hooper (segment 1), Stephen Daldry (segment 2), Maggie Gyllenhaal (segment 3), Mati Diop (segment 4), Peter Jackson (segment 5), Jodie Mack (segment 6), Cameron Crowe (segment 7), Terence Nance (segment 8), Ramon Zürcher (segment 9), Vera Drew (segment 10), Kōji Shiraishi (segment 11), Neveldine/Taylor (segment 12)
Written by: Akiva Goldsman (screenplay) Log Flume (story by)
Cast: Kate Winslet
I think it would be a great idea to have a film about the relationship between Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz. Probably a film about the last few years of Sontag’s lives (with some flashbacks). Not a purely biographical film but a film that focuses on a specific period. Given the dynamics and the dysfunction at the core of the Sontag-Leibovitz relationship (just read Sontag’s recent biography, so much material for a great movie in there!), I expect both actresses to walk away with Oscars.
I know the resemblance is not there but I want Meryl Streep to portray Sontag. I’m not sure about Leibovitz, but maybe Stephanie J. Block.
Director: Todd Haynes!
DP: Edward Lachman
Music: Philip Glass
I so love Philip Glass and his scores – would be great to work with
Citizen Kane (remake)
Dir: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Scr: Allan Loeb
Cast: Pete Davidson, Megan Fox
Featuring songs by Diane Warren
I´d love to see the last couple of months of my live finally being adapted to the big screen. It´s not too adventurous, but a bittersweet lovestory, some neurotic guy (woman was also neurotic because she had a horrible childhood), ended up very dramatic like Rome and Juliet but without dead people. Some hope in the end because the neurotic guy starts to immerse himself into Buddhisms and starts meditating. I guess I would choose Wes Anderson to direct, I´d go deep down into character study and play myself, the woman… tough! I would probably ask the real one to play herself but I guess she´s not interested (she has a very boring new boyfriend) – therefore probably Zoe Kazan. I could write the screenplay but would need Charlie Kaufman to have a second look and correct my shortcomings.
That’s too engaging for me to play… I am going to just mention some I would have liked to direct myself – plenty more in my head.
I am going to pass about impossible dreams but just to cite the projects that in a parallel universe I would probably have attempted
Original:
Milagros
An old woman at a small Andalusian village discovers the secret that her recently deceased husband kept from her, thanks to her growing friendship with the local priest
Twin Worlds
In a world where Hitler won WW2 and conquered the world, a member of the resistance finds a portal to our world, by breaking into a nazi research compound as they want to occupy and exploit parallel earths.
Adaptations
Clairvoyant – adapting freely Margaret St. Clair’s “The boy who predicted earthquakes”
Popsy, – adapting and expanding Stephen King’s short story
Lemmings – another short story by Richard Matheson
The Hour of the Sea – adapting the spectacular book by my friend Carlos Sisí (animation, probably, too expensive to be shot)
Nocte – another book by Carlos Sisí, science fiction
The RED trilogy, by Carlos Sisí… NOTE: there’s a monologue in the second book that was written by me, as he requested me to do it. I didn’t know back them, but that particular character, was inspired by our conversations.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Love in the Time of Cholera – hopefully doing justice to this masterpiece and away from Mike Newell’s version, which was just ok
Players at the Game of People – by John Brunner
Out are the Lights – by Richard Laymon
… and produce
No news from Gurb – by Eduardo Mendoza that would be directed by Javier Fesser, probably the only one that could do it justice
And I would totally love to reboot Friday the 13th, exploring the greek tragedy elements inherent to the whole relationship between Jason and his mother.
My own list. No specific topic, but it’d be more of a normal character-driven drama or comedy – or more likely, dramedy, not big budget action (otherwise, I’d pick Villeneuve or Kosinski to direct). So, just people I’d want to work with and work with as this group.
Director: Todd Field
Actors: Catherine O’Hara; Harriet Sansom Harris; Cleo King; J. Smith-Cameron; Taron Egerton; Ann Dowd; Laura Linney; Jennifer Coolidge
Screenplay: Me
Score: Jocelyn Pook
Production Design: Peter Francis
Costumes: Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan
Sound: Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
Editing: Chloé Zhao
Cinematography: Greig Fraser
Ok. Saw Avatar. Thoughts: Ok to pretty good. Pretty much what I expected.
Negatives first: Rehash of the first. I’m a bit bored by the villain by now. Some cringe dialogue. And cookie cutter of other movies (Aliens and Titanic were certainly on my mind – I half expected (seriously) Saldana’s character to exclaim, “Get away from her, you b****”). That said…
Positives: I mostly enjoyed myself. The 3D was stellar. I love teal colors, so I was in heaven. I still cried. The action was crisp and you could actually tell what was going on. And I loved the whales. I also saw it in a full theater on a weekday and the audience was in it – the teenager next to me was glued to the screen, jumping, biting their nails. And, I have to say, it made my experience better to see a diverse group of folks in a theater all paying attention for over three hours.
I felt Top Gun was better – was still a bit conventional for me in parts, but Top Gun never had a “bad” moment – all ok or great moments. I think Avatar had some eye rolls for me, but I’d still give it *** of ****, was glad to see it and have no problems with a Picture nom, since there are many times I don’t like some of the nominees much at all. Wishing Part III would go in a new direction, but I’m skeptical. But I’ll return to Pandora to see.
Well, this is new. I’m blocked by Werner. I knew about Sammy and MAGA Reynard guy. But this is a surprise.
well you”re stuck with me! 🙂
Darn 🙂
Also – I had no idea you could block people on Disqus. Not that I would, but shows what I know!
I’ve been blocked by a couple of people, but as far as I can recall have blocked only one commenter, which felt right for my sanity. I don”t miss their narky, reductive nonsense. As Werner eloquently states above (or below – i’m lost), the love of cinema and storytelling is important and why we are here, not to bicker and snipe at one another. I love reading the waxing lyrical by others and our hosts when they describe how a movie has impacted them.
Who better to be stuck here with than you, Dave?
aww! here’s looking at you kid! (I had to make a movie reference with, um, er, Movie-references) ^.^
Nobody’s perfect. (Best last line in a film)
Absolute classic. Love the expressions on their faces too.
Oh, it’s wonderful and hilarious. Lemmon can’t believe the answer he gets after he throws away his wig and tells him he’s a man.
Must be a mistake. Werner discouraged me and others from blocking telling me to ignore what I didn’t like. Weird he would do it.
I would speak up and encourage everyone to talk things through and hug things out, instead of blocking, but not sure how many people would heed my advice or even see my suggestion since so many people probably have me blocked.
with one person I tried that, but it degenerated and their infantile way of communicating was not conducive. The other blocked me for no apprarent reason other than I didn’t go along with their zealotry; ironic as I loved the movie they were zealing-ing over!
Interesting.
I’m just gonna start upvoting everyone who replies to me here, whether they agree with me or mock me.
Always good etiquette in many situations to reciprocate.
On some occasions, when I’m feeling extra-needy, I will begin a reply by saying: “Interesting.” 🙂
Hey, where’s my upvote? 🙂
They say don’t sweat the small stuff, but sometimes we schvitz!
oh, sorry.
I assumed you had me blocked.
he he! Why would anyone block you Ryan? You make the most sense; even on your tetchiest day! I must stop using words I can neither spell or be sure if they are apt!
tetchy is indeed the correct way to pronounce my particular brand of raffish yet archaic touchiness.
[very end of clip]
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It might be. He gets quite irritable with people sometimes, but he is not one who’s shy of irritating others either.
I think they’re all just playing hard to get.
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“Those ‘other’ award shows are comprised of either film critics, industry outsiders, or various bloggers.” Who are industry outsiders? The Spirit Awards? European Awards? Festivals?
Sasha, this open letter seems to be about a person who is upset with a world that is changing. By saying “We’re probably talking at most 10%,” you are being mean and uninformed and many other things. Black people is 12% of the population, is that just a little minority that we need to ignore? Using fake percentiles is a pretty bad argument.
Your work covering the award season has been great, but showing your bias just not only about gender issues but how you refer to other awards just showed me something pretty common in Americans: ignorance.
Shash(e) away.
I always wanted to say that hahaha.
Wait, what do you mean the world is changing? How can this be!!!!!
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Also to join the comments further down below, my current Top 10 of the year (in no particular order):
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Batman
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
The Northman
RRR
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
From these, I really gotta see RRR (lovers and haters on these forums) and All Quiet on the Western Front.
I thought RRR was fun. It was creative, exciting and audacious. Do I think it’s a masterpiece? Hardly. Does it deserve Oscar gold? Perhaps for its cinematography, production design, and VFX (and maybe if I’m feeling SUPER generous that particular day, Directing), but my hunch tells me it won’t do very well in most categories and I’m not going to shed any tears over it when there are better films out there
my only problem with RRR is its inherent and puerile racism, completely unbalanced and like talking to children. Otherwise it is spectacular but overlong, and not to be taken seriously.
Long story short: Deadpool did it better.
“ Long story short: Deadpool did it better.”
Lolol my first laugh of the day. Thank you sir!
My question when this topic comes up is “Who is this for, and who asked for this?” The small percentage of people who are non-binary, the tiny percentage of those people who are actors, and the miniscule percentage of those actors who are good enough for awards in a given year? There is very little reason to break decades of tradition except to virtue signal.
But, ultimately it’s movies awards, so it’s really not that important in the grand scheme of things, just highly annoying, lol.
I find it hilarious that the LAFCA went through the trouble of combining the acting categories, and they still managed to award one man and one woman in each. So, what was the point?
I hate the term virtue signaling. People on the right love to use the term. They love to think that people’s feelings and opinions and experiences aren’t genuine or sincere only being worthy of mockery.
I would say it’s an accurate term. And some people on the right certainly participate in it themselves, or at least a form of it. Portraying oneself as a good Christian is a classic example of this, going as far back as Christ himself, such as the parable he told of the Pharisee loudly proclaiming what a good and faithful servant of the Lord he was unlike the tax collector (a vocation typically looked down upon in ancient Jewish society and indeed many other places) who was standing only a few feet away. Who do you think Jesus was a bigger fan of?
good point on the Christian thing. And we all know that’s been widely abused for decades now by politicians.
Depends on the reasons for the change, and if they are legitimate. This is like creating a solution where there is no problem.
LAFCA went through all that to not takeaway awards from female and male actors and to recognise the importance of maintaining gender parity, especially in protecting female actors who are undervalued in other categories, and to allow for the inclusion of actors who don’t belong in either gendered categories. It’s mission accomplished! Now, the winners fall into typical female and male winners, but that’s how it is. It’s very new, but it could be different in the future. Let’s say, for example, Blanchet is somebody who doesn’t belong to either gender, that wouldn’t be typical winners and it would have allowed THEM to win without being gendered. Now, I know having two winners in a single category and them being female and male seems weird. But it was a practical solution and a genuine attempt to find a compromise that doesn’t hurt anyone. It was an admirable endeavour. Compromising is a dirty word and not popular because people instinctively think about what they might lose rather than what they could gain or whether it’s the only solution acceptable to both sides. Personally, I believe the biggest factor in compromising is that neither sides is the loser because it doesn’t harm either side. But the big problem is that people have difficulty giving up something, especially if they had it for a long time (tradition, nostalgia, etc), even if that thing is something as meaningless as gendered categories.
It’s easy, if you’re male or identify as male, you’re in Best (Supporting) Actor. if you’re female or identify as female, you’re in Best (Supporting) Actress. Any other would probably just default to the birth gender, or what the gender is for the character in the movie.
Besides, in the 95 year history of the Oscars, how many times has this issue come up? Once with Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game?
I would hate for someone like Viola Davis to be a front runner for a historic Best Actress win, only to lose to a man.
Well, that’s the problem, dude. Some people don’t identify with their birth gender. And some don’t identify with any. Any actor has to beat anyone in competition. That’s how it usually works. Davis hasn’t beat the wonen, so why would losing to a man be worse? The person who gets the most votes will win, regardless of gender. That’s not unreasonable. Anyway, the voters will vote for who they want to see win.
I understand you, LOL. Anyway, I don’t care that much what critics awards do, it’s fine, it’s just unnecessary.
“So, what was the point?”
The point is simply to award unique individuals for their unique individual achievement without first forcing all the actors to either join the girl team or the boy team before they can even be nominated.
It’s so frustrating and boring, trying to explain this obvious gesture of consideration to fussy imbeciles who don’t want to understand.
And just for the record, I myself have mixed feelings about renaming the categories.
But I hate to waste time bickering about something that’s extremely unlikely to ever happen — because even it does, none of the bickering is going to stop it.
Honestly, Oscar isn’t going to make this change, so a lot of the spleen venting is misplaced. But let’s be honest, if an actor who was gay/trans/non-binary was simply NOMINATED in one of the four traditional acting categories, the usual Edgelord/Ruimy/Matt Walsh types would be screaming bloody fucking murder anyway. It’s not the hypothetical category changes they hate, but the people themselves.
Again. In 2023 can’t we just talk about movies we love?
On a 7th grade summer reading assignment I used the expression “venting one’s spleen” to describe a character openly expressing pent-up anger and frustration. My teacher wrote that such an expression did not exist
Today, nearly 20 years later, you have used that same expression, and after some quick googling I discovered that it is, indeed, a valid expression in the English language
Fuck you Miss Lucas!
I use it all the time. Much better than a colonic!
We can and we do talk about movies. But we’re replying to the article and discussing the possible merits and outcomes of such a decision. I prefer people talking aimlessly about a serious subject than telling them to stop talking about it. It may be pointless to you, but you shouldn’t tell others to stop their discussion, even if it indeed is pointless. Asking people to stop a respectful discussion seems very wrong to me. I know you’re doing it in a respectful way, but it still odd and wrong. I mean, it’s just one article and we’ll soon move on other things to talk about.
stop making so much sense! 🙂 You make some excellent points on this subject. Very helpful, Thank you.
Well, I’m trying at least. Thanks, sensible Dave.
This is how many articles now on this site about this topic, and no matter how many times people point out that AMPAS is not considering this change it’s still getting flogged.
Well, that’s the perogative of the owner and editor of this site. You might want to take it up with Sasha. Some readers do want to have this discussion and there’s clearly strong opinions on both sides. If you think a discussion is pretty pointless, the best thing to do is to stay out of it and it leave to others rather than telling to stop it.
Based on the events last year “taking it up with Sasha” got more than a few people banned. For all of the talk of “cancel culture” it’s not too hard observing who and who is not self-censoring here. Which is all fine and dandy, the people who have chosen to be silent about what they believe in clearly value access to the site and who am I to say they’re wrong.
My overall point about this topic is because AMPAS isn’t ever going to do this, what is the point of everyone having the same circular discussion about it?
Who’s “throwing a fucking fit and screaming OMG This is the end of the Oscars!!”?
Oh wait. That’s Sasha.
The rest of us are just expressing our disagreement, no one is throwing “fucking fits”.
I try to avoid filmtwitter by getting myself blocked by half of filmtwitter.
But I need to be blocked by more of them, because you can see how they mess with my perceptions, Daniel.
Erik Anderson
Clayton Davis
Who else can we add to the wokester Blacklist?
It’s not that deep, it’s just silliness. I would hate for someone like Viola Davis to be a front runner for a historic Best Actress win, only to lose to a man.
Besides, in the 95 year history of Oscars, how many times has this issue come up? Once with Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game?
Massive fan of that performance, by the way. I can’t deny Hackman, but, were it not for him, Jaye should have won.
“without first forcing all the actors to either join the girl team or the boy team before they can even be nominated.”
If this is the issue and I understand it correctly, then, as somebody else said, why not add a non-binary Oscar category, instead, and leave Best Actor and Best Actress alone? Would probably also help non-binary actors get more opportunities. What would be the harm?
What the LA critics did was highly hypocritical. They voted for a man and a woman in both lead and supporting performance, which was practically the same as having four separate categories.
What the Indie Spirits did was even more ridiculous. They voted for mostly women in lead and men in supporting. What’s next? Next year, two men win in leading at the Spirits and there is backlash because the only category where it would be acceptable for two men to win would be supporting?
C’mon, these are awards, not the mid-terms. Four categories are the way to go. Anything else would only lead to more nonsense.
If it’s practically the same, then what’s the problem? There is no hypocrisy on the part of LAFCA in trying to maintain your precious four acting winners and also allowing for the inclusion of actors who don’t belong in either genders. That’s not hypocrisy, that’s a compromise. They were trying to find a compromise and they managed to keep you cherished four acting winners still intact. So, I guess, the only complaint left is getting rid of gender names. It’s a meaningless thing because actors are being rewarded for their performances, not their gender. Being placed in the wrong gendered category is bad, but being placed in a non-gendered category isn’t. All the other categories are non-gendered. There is nothing bad about that whatsoever. On the other hand, being placed in the wrong gendered category is clearly bad. Would Blanchet or Yeoh or Farrell or any actor, like it if they were placed in a gendered category they didn’t belong? Best Actor: Michelle Yeoh! Would she be OK with that? If she’s okay with that, it only makes the gendered categories obsolete. But I’m guessing most actors would not be okay with that and would prefer to be in their preferred gendered category or non-gendered/neutral category. I’d extend this to the debate about pronouns. Would you like it if people referred to you a gender you don’t belong to? It’s a free country and you can call people whatever you want. However it’s common curtesy to respect others and call them by what they call themselves. It’s not that hard. It’s about mutual respect and it works both ways.
And where are these nominees? Who is this nominee who will come close to an Oscar nomination? You might feel good about yourself writing this BS, but you have no idea what actors face every single day. Actors who don’t fit gender stereotypes won’t get enough work (or any work at all) because there aren’t people who are willing to pay to see films about their struggles (with them in the leading roles). So yeah, I understand what you wrote. It’s basic. But it’s pure BS. It’s not in the hands of award shows.
And where did I write that these are my “precious four” and that I wouldn’t accept change? Of course I would. But I wouldn’t accept hypocrisy and an organization that pretends it’s progressive and forward-thinking but is actually just as rigid and fake as the HFPA. I wouldn’t accept an organization that pretends it cares about gender equality and introduces non-gender performance awards but still honors one man and one woman per category. I wouldn’t accept the ridiculousness of two winners per category (with one of the winners clearly not being a ‘winner’ as they came in second, and maybe with a huge margin). And I definitely don’t think that award shows need to further dive into political correctness, which would take away their extremely limited respect for what’s actually good. Most people hate makeup wins, overdue wins, etc.. We can now add gender to the list of factors into a win. So we’ll have non-gender categories that care (a lot!) about gender. Even if this isn’t hypocritical (and it is), it is downright stupid.
Bottom line is: You might feel good about how progressive you are. The LAFCA might feel the same, but in the end, I respect change only if that change is for real. If that change really attempts to change something with determination. Not a half-assed, PC change for the headlines that actually intends to keep things as they are. If you want change, introduce two performance categories (with one winner per category). If you want change, don’t change the entire system next year when 80% of the nominees in the leading category are men. Do the change for real. But the LAFCA is not about change… The Indie Spirits are not about change.
What they did, my dear, is not change. It is PR.
What do I have to feel good about expressing my opinion? It’s just a bloody opinion! You’re so cynical that you’re even questioning people’s motives for their opinions. Jeez! I never for once claimed my values or opinions are better than anyone else’s. I’m not the one who feels their arguments are so inadequate that they feel the need to get personal and question their opponent’s integrity. You’re entitled to to make accusations of hypocrisy against them, but you need to provide evidence for that. So, where’s the hypocrisy? The LAFCA dropped the gendered categories to allow for the inclusion of actors who don’t belong in either category. That’s it. That was their specific aim and nothing about NOT giving out FOUR acting awards and not keeping gender parity. I would not be surprised if they only got the changes through by promising to keep them. And I wouldn’t have supported it without them maintaining those two things. So, how can you accuse them of hypocrisy when they did what they planned to do all along? That’s called meeting your goal, not hypocrisy. I accept that it looks weird giving out two awards in each category, but that’s about it. And giving out an award to both genders proves that they don’t really care about gender equality? That’s some twisted logic there. Gender equality, or any other type of equality, starts first and foremost by not allowing the exclusion of people based on gender, race, sexuality, religion, etc. There is no duty for them to honour non-gendered people, just as there’s no duty for them to honour people in other groups. Yes, I know that gender is the exception here, but that’s been the accepted thing for a long time and that’s why this is causing a lot of meltdown in some circles. And the sheer number of people who fall into both genders is why it’s likely the winners will be both genders. But that doesn’t mean it will always be like that. And who knows how many actors privately align with a different gender than their public one or don’t align with any? Elliot Page would definitely have benefited from it in 2007/8 when he was wrongly placed in Lead Actress instead of Lead Actor. The history of their own awards, and other major awards, as well as the modern demand for inclusiveness and gender parity has forced them into this decision.
Striving to behave honorably and then doing something honorable is not an example of “hypocritical.”
Once again, I worry about the students in your classroom.
Given how painfully predictable Oscars have become with the final results mirroring the precursors/guilds, I’m kind of happy that non-standard awards are making things harder to predict.
It’s also always nice to see people/films awarded that we all know have no chance of going all the way to the Oscars
Exactly. People accuse others of being cynical without realising they themselves are acting cynically by accusing others of being cynical without a shred of evidence.
Without even realising it? Please… Maybe you don’t realise what you do, but not everybody is so clueless. Thank you very much.
So, you’re well aware that you’re being cynical by accusing others of bad faith then? Sometimes you get too emotional and lose your cool and ranting for
The students in my classroom? I’m no teacher. You’re the one behaving like a teacher and talking down to people. Thanks.
And nope, LAFCA and the Indies didn’t do anything honorable. They did a PR stunt. That’s what they did.
How is it possible that you do not understand why these categories now exist?
If a non-gendered acting category gives more nominations/wins to women, it is considered proof of how bad the non-gendered acting awards are because they are merely pandering
If a non-gendered acting category gives more nominations/wins to men, it is considered proof of how bad the non-gendered acting awards are because it means fewer nominations for women
If a non-gendered acting categories gives equal nominations/wins to men and women, it is considered proof of how bad the non-gendered acting awards are because it’s just a meaningless posturing while acting like the gendered acting categories.
No matter what these awards do, it is considered proof of how bad they are. At that point I need to question whether the question is actually about any of these issues but about people just projecting their general dislike of the idea of these awards into these arguments. And even that outrage is minimal to what will probably come from the right once such an award actually awards/nominates an out non-binary performer.
Completely off-topic: since I feel like the discussion around the supporting categories has been so limited in this year (not even in terms of what was nominated, just what people seem to be discussing), I thought it would be interesting to hear people who everyone thinks is deserving of nominations/attention that is not among this list of people: Kerry Condon, Jesse Buckley, Claire Foy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu, Dolly De Leon, Angela Bassett, Janelle Monáe, Hong Chau, Carey Mulligan, Nina Hoss, Thuso Mbedu, Sadie Sink, Keke Palmer, Ke Huy Quan, Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan, Judd Hirsch, Paul Dano, Eddie Redmayne, Brad Pitt, Brian Tyree Henry, Mark Rylance, Ben Whishaw
Albrecht Schuch – All Quiet on the Western Front
Mehdi Bajestani – Holy Spider
Charlbi Dean – The Triangle of Sadness
Gabrielle Union – The Inspection
Albrecht Schuch – on mine too
Sean Harris – The Stranger
Her work in the opening scenes is not good, but her scenes at the end of the movie are fantastic (talking about Gabrielle Union)
Albrecht Schuch is such an awesome actor!! His work in System Crasher and Berlin Alexanderplatz should’ve won him Oscars. In fact, compared to those two performances, his work in this movie doesn’t even stand out.
Kate Winslet – Avatar: The Way of Water
This is kind of stupid but the most fun I had while watching that movie was thinking about the plot from her point of view.First these morons fly down and demand sanctuary even though they can’t do anything the correct way, then they take resources away from the tribe and make her kids look bad, then they bring humans onto the tribe’s land, offend her and the classic ways of healing things, then they’re directly to blame for the death of her whale friend, and then they put her kids and her village in danger. And at the end her husband basically says: “Yes, they should stay, they’re worth keeping here”
When Kate Winslet (Carnage, A Little Chaos) wins an Oscar for Avatar: The Way of Water her acceptance speech ought to include your retelling word for word!
I thought about that too. 🙂 I loved the movie, but, yeah… That all felt kinda’ wrong…
Anna Mouglalis, Happening
Kristen Stewart, Crimes of the future
Sandra Drzymalska, EO
Léa Drucker, Close
Anne Hathaway, Armageddon time
John Turturro, The batman
Steven Yeun, Nope
Category fraud as an excuse to talk about her: Guslagie Malanga, Saint Omer
No US release: The parents and brothers, Leila’s brothers.
Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy – Women Talking
Zoë Kravitz, Colin Farrell – The Batman
Brandon Perea – Nope
Noémie Merlant – Tár
Am I the only one who was underwhelmed by Kravitz’s Catwoman? Sure, she was good in the role and I enjoyed her performance, but some have singles her out as a highlight and I don’t understand that level of praise. It’s certainly nowhere as good as Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic turn in Batman Returns
You’re probably not the only one, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who has little use for Pfeiffer’s Catwoman (and almost all the Burtonverse villians). A light blonde Catwoman is a no-go for me, plus the Burtonverse template of neurotic-mouse-that-roared villains (Catwman, Riddler, Poison Ivy et al) was tiresome from the start.
I would argue Riddler and Poison Ivy are more Schumacher’s doing than Burton’s
But they follow the template.
J. Cameron-Smith, Vengeance.
i must watch ‘Vengeance’ then. I love her work on Succession. Where has she been hiding all these years? 🙂
I know! I didn’t love Vengeance but did like it. But, come on…someone give her a lead role! She’s probably my favorite part of Succession. Where has she been all my life!?
🙂 🙂
Yes you should. But don’t be disappointed in how little she is used. She eventually gets her scene and it’s perfection.
I really liked/was very impressed by:
Tandi Wright (Pearl)
Haley Bennett (Till)
Frankie Corio (Aftersun)
Andre Braugher (She Said)
John Douglas Thompson (Till)
In no order except I started with actresses.
Much left to see, as usual.
A moment of respect for the passing of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known the world over as Pele, one of the greatest sports ambassadors the world has ever known.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dad18d254dc7ddce44fb351a50dbadf24b62883f8fa561de2c2906cd197a2fb4.jpg
If anybody knows the reality about making movies it would be someone like Alfred Hitchcock. “Hitch” famously said that actors were “cattle,” “cows” and “little children.” He had a point. Most great acting performances are great because a screenwriter created a great story, character and dialogue and a good director told the actor what to do. In many cases if another competent actor was hired for the part it would be an equally great performance. So getting all worked up and serious about actor awards and arguing whether men and women should compete in the same category is a complete waste of time. WHO CARES?? Acting awards are for promotional, hype and ego purposes only. This is not the fricking Nobel prize. A Walmart greeter has a more purposeful life than an actor. Acting awards are for publicity only and therefore you need actor and actress categories to squeeze out every last drop of gossipy news coverage possible. Writers and directors (etc.) on the other hand have much more important functions and it would be silly to separate by sex. That, as they say, is my humble opinion.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c957d1bc7d1ec77c73fbe5ed324f7382282890570e4578725c85cf4f4cd5e99f.gif
That is a whole lot of nothing you just posted about an industry and craft that you neither understand nor respect.
“I honestly don’t think the Academy, or the SAG, or the Golden Globes are going to be dumb enough to go down this road. If the film critics want it, fine. Have at it. But if you’re talking about awards shows, which are televised for ratings, then you best be bringing the heat. And the heat is never going to be in “gender-neutral” acting categories.”
well why not for argument sake Sasha? after all awards season has taken the precarious DEEPLY UNPOPULAR reflected through the alarming decline flatlining in public regard for awards season why? cos all of award season is takign the PC lunatic Rd… at expense of common sense journalist, educated got their head screwed on right celebrity amongst the noisy cluster of resentful endless whingeing dingbats…of some celebrities wh9 frankly should spend more time letting their acting do the talking rather than engaging weighing in to making political gestures and forms of activism…
nothing is sacred anymore…that much is clear…nobody should have anything agains lgbtiq rights but why out of typical of them too the LA TIMES right insane unhinged mind should they what gives them the damn right to impose to other etreme have people who are traditional in their values conform in hollywood to their agenda?
IF provisions are rightfully made for LGBTIQ rites and needs in hollywood aroudn the countrym, why then should this take over from traditional virtues and values of many mainstream citizens?
the point of no return for awards season truly and alarmingly ..is point the threshold between promoting- within REASON- which is NOT happening it all overboard like a suffocating wave bout to crash down on awards season u can see it coming i did from moment Obama term as president was over…since then awards season has embraced much as they can activism , wedging and dividing up the traditional foundation base of Hollywood and awards season motre and more..
The POINT WHERE TRADITIONALIST CAN NO LONGER HAVE THEIR VALUES RESPECTED AND IN SCENARIO WHERE TRANS OR LGBTIQ RIGHTS ARE UPHELD AND ENHANCED WITHIN REASON BUT POINT EVERY CITIZEN OR ORGANISATION LIKE H9OLLYWOOD WOULD CONSIDER EXPECTING PPLE TO ABANDON THEIR TRADITIONAL VIRTUES FOR SAKE OF THE MINORITY…THAT THE POINT WHERE THE GRIM REAPER BLADE WILL TEAR AWARDS SEASON TO SHREDS..AND THERE WILL BE NO REDEMPTION FOR AWARDS SEAOSN FROM THAT POINT..
As you say Sasha hopefully though dont hold your breath if recent history of awards season recently past is to go by…the traditional base of awards season esp guilds, oscar etc have resisted such extreme conformist type agendas.
If as should be the case across the states in institutions and culture lgbtiq voices and rights and indigenous rights to must be heard and issues in these aspects of society must integrate include these people then why oh why how is it justified then for ignorant,, barabrism of the activists that corrupted the integrity of journalism clearly as is case in LA TIMES I DONT TRUST THE NY TIMES EITHER frankly given their depressing history….then how is it justified or fair that the common sense historically educated traditional class that very much is biggest part of any countries cul5ture in thew western world esp the United States how is it justified for traditional masses to lose ground to the pro rights activist Tsunami? for AWARD SEASON SAKE THEY BETTER HOLD THE LINE AGAINST THIS AGRIEVED RESENTFUL ASPECT OF HOLLYWOOD’S ORGANISATION AND CERTAIN PRESS PUBLICATIONS..
I also bet readership for LA TIMES AND NY TIMES is in terminal decline..bit like our national paper that sought to overinflate minority rights flood their news with issues alienating traditional mainstream readers that kepy THE AGE as most opular paper int he country but minute they undermine importance of traditional type issues to readers in favour of more obscure issues to amke out issues for lgbtiq somehow trump take precedence over more widespread concerns like energy issues and cost of living pressures , that the moment of not return.. IN LAST DECADE THE AGE HAS BECOME SHADOW OF ITSELF…this is NOT WAY AS PRECEDENT LA TIMES OR NY TIMES SHOULD GO but you can beyt come hell or high water they try to bully beh8ind scenes major award season operators of academy or guilds to see things their way do not forget..
the ACADEMY PRESIDENT is a renegade serial pro activist appeaser…and members of their board desperate foolishly for change…evidence is pretty clear based on opscar winnig outcome trends coinciding with their ratings decline you can be dumb deaf and blind and still sense the whiff of the girm reaper sharpening their blade ready to strike…what happened to the fate of THE AGE is a WARNING CALL FOR ALL publications and press esp rouind hollywood that inform awardss season decsiions…LA TIMES AND I PREDICT NY TIMES WILL EMBRACE FOLLOW SUIT frankly come awards season their choice for best picturte should never be listened to again by awards season main awards indicators..
lol please replace the original article with this comment. We must defend H9OLLYWOOD!
Sometimes I wonder if you construct these rants on some kind of wireless typewriter because I cannot think of a logical reason for any word salad to have this many grammatical errors in this day and age
What’s everyone’s favorite film they’ve seen so far? I still haven’t seen much, and I can’t decide between my top two, but, if forced:
1) Tar
2) Banshees
I know the first isn’t a winner at Oscar, but, hey. The beauty of a preferential ballot where we get to rank.
For me:
English:
1. Aftersun
2. Tar
3. Banshees
4. After Yang
5. The Fabelmans
International (of the shortlisted films):
1. Close
2. Joyland
3. All Quiet on the Western Front
4. The Quiet Girl
5. The Blue Caftan
Can’t wait to see Close, don’t think its available in US
It’ll be released end of January in theatres.
I “have” to see Aftersun. I can’t wait.
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RRR – totally unexpected FUN time (I knew nothing about the movie going in)
Glass Onion
Banshees
EEAAO
Top 10 so far:
1) Crimes of the Future
2) TÁR
3) After Yang
4) Benediction
5) Happening
6) Kimi
7) Saint Omer
8) Cow
9) Irma Vep
10) The Novelist’s Film
I’ll never understand how Titane was chosen over Happening last year.
I like both movies (and Petite Maman even more than either of them) but even then, I don’t think Happening would have gotten any closer to a nomination than Titane did, as proven by the emails Eliza Hittman got during the Never Rarely Sometimes Always campaign
EO
Introduction
Crimes of the future
Decision to leave
Pacifiction
Nope.
In that order.
I’m curious how you feel about Introduction in relation to Hong in general. Out of the approximately 5 of their movies that I’ve seen, Introduction was the one that kind of escaped my grasp and the one that felt like though not a draft of a film, at least the least finessed film of his I’ve seen which I found interesting (and I do like the movie in general) but makes it slightly difficult for me to say it’s among my favorites of his. So I’d love to hear someone really argue for it passionately among Hong’s filmography
My favourite Hong Sang Soo movies usually have a male protagonist, I think he’s the best director describing masculine fragility and vulnerability and not making fun of his characters. Hill of freedom, The day after and Right now wrong then are my absolute choices.
I was really touched by that boy ignored by his parents, seeking hugs from his father’s secretary, his girlfriend and his friends, asking to be loved without saying it, without knwing it. Besides, there’s a disclaimer at the begining telling us that it was filmed on March and April 2020, so the detail on human touch and the simplicity of its technical work reinforced that feeling of intimacy and tenderness. And all that in just one hour, I was floating.
Thank you once again for a wonderful description
A pleasure!
My favorites are:
RRR
Banshees
Top Gun: Maverick
The Woman King
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Fabelmans
The Northman
Babylon
Aftersun
Tar
Elvis
Nope
Then there’s a bit of a drop-off.
Till.
What about women/men who identify as not their assigned birth gender? Gets complicated.
Exactly the point of the change.
They should be able to choose which category they belong in. So a person who transitioned from male to female would probably want to be in the actress category. It will be up to voters to decide whether they vote for them or not.
Easy: Why not hand over awards for Best Performance by a nonbinary Actor, done. I mean, no one should be excluded for their gender, so MORE trophies instead of less.
Finally, some common sense (or is it uncommon at this point?)
I’m going to sidestep this convo and just say, I’m seeing blue creatures on IMAX today. I didn’t love the first but we’ll see…
James Cameon cleverly avoids any racially-charged confusion among trump voters watching AvaTÁR by painting all the actors blue in his waterworld.
#bluewave
I still appreciate this site in that editors, essays/posts and commenters often disagree. As a commenter, and one that doesn’t care too much about American politics, let alone Trump (who seems to be disappearing — American politics represent about 4% of the world), I still don’t mind the conversational chatter here of people with non-like minds.
Here’s to film. And I’m always intrigued by everyone’s views, often times, especially if they disagree.
https://www.outkick.com/rotten-tomatoes-critic-avatar-casting-white-people-as-blue-creatures-is-gross-cultural-appropriation/
Ryan. Google “Avatar racism” and see what comes up.
Oh I know.
I was trying to be wry..
It’s hard for anyone to know when I’m joking, particularly on days when I’ve got my claws out.
Ha ha! Got it.
They’ve made a suite for Rene Laloux’s La Planète Sauvage?
Good for them!
I get why it seems like a good idea. I personally don’t like it. I guess I’m “old fashioned” when it comes to my awards lol.
But the places that do it often defeat the purpose entirely when they have 10 nominees in each category in an attempt to keep as many celebs at their shows as before or they conveniently have “ties” in multiple categories and they happen to be 1 man and 1 woman “tying”
(I’m going to bounce off your comment, Derek. I’m not arguing with you though, okay? I’m just going to expand on your belief that changing the category name will have no real effect on the outcome. The change will happen with safeguards that ensure plenty of gorgeous talented people will still get all the prizes that they deserve.)
I don’t want to make a big deal of this, but I do have an opinion and see no reason to hide how I feel.
Also, I have about 55 more important things to be worried about this morning instead of getting worked up over a messy editorial in a newspaper that I can guarantee you will be completely shrugged off and ignored by the AMPAS.
Odds that the Oscars will rename their acting categories are virtually zero. I promise you.
And on the miniscule off-chance that they do, I promise you that Hollywood, and movies, and movie awards will survive intact and unscathed.
Movie-makers will continue to love making movies, movie-lovers will continue to love movies, and the movie industry will continue to love giving and receiving prizes and trophies.
When the LAFCA announced earlier this year that they would be changing the designations for their acting categories, it was obviously fun and exciting for a lot of hotheads to start screaming about how this would result in a disastrous imbalance.
I mostly laid low, and kept my feelings to myself, because I don’t enjoy screaming.
But I did venture to say (here on this site and elsewhere): “How about we all just wait and see what happens before we all collectively shit our pants?” [paraphrasing]
Because I had a feeling that the only result would be renaming the category, and that the ballot process would be designed to keep things on an even keel.
So how did the dire warnings of the looming LAFCA catastrophe turn out?
Best Lead Performance:
Cate Blanchett – Tár
Bill Nighy – Living
Runner-up: Danielle Deadwyler – Till
Runner-up: Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best Supporting Performance:
Dolly de Leon – Triangle of Sadness
Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Runner-up: Jessie Buckley – Women Talking
Runner-up: Brian Tyree Henry – Causeway
Anyone want to name which one of the incredibly outstanding performances on that list that does not deserve to be recognized? I don’t. I’m fine with it.
8 honors.
5 women, 3 men.
No heart attacks or exploding heads induced by the LAFCA were reported by the LA Coroners Office that day.
Maybe a few male actors around town were angry, bitter, and depressed, but that’s certainly nothing new.
Because all this hoopla is nothing more than simply a renaming of the category. Nothing much changed about the actual outcome, right?
It was just a big occasion for people to screech “WOKE!” — and then the awards announcement proceeded as usual. Fairly predictably.
Everyone who got a prize was happy, and some people were mad, but most people paid no attention at all. Same way it’s been for centuries.
I’ll say it one more time and then I’ll shut up about it: Changing the name of the category will not change outcome for the awards recipients.
It will never shut out anyone. It will only embrace everyone.
Because it turns out there are a lot of creative geniuses in the acting profession who don’t like to be labeled. (Shock!)
There are thousands and millions of individuals on earth that would prefer not to be categorized and forced to choose a sex-segregated “team,” relegated to a cloistered 1950s All Girls boarding school across the lake from the All Boys boarding school.
Recall in 2020 when the Academy decided to rename “Best Foreign Language Film” as “Best International Film”?
There were screechy think pieces written then, too.
“WOKE!” they screeched. “Changes in our institutions that naturally adapt to changes in society infuriate us!!” they screeched.
“We like calling global filmmakers ‘foreigners,’ because it reinforces our worldview that this is a fight between US and THEM!!” they secretly screeched inside their angry heads.
Best International Film. Sounds awesome to me. But there were lots of people screeching about that change too.
Fuck those people.
International sounds inclusive of all nations which would include USA but it doesn’t. Foreign Language seems clearer.
Well I would argue that since the Oscars are clearly an American institution the term “international” in this case suggests “not including the USA”
“Foreign” to whom?
It’s a category meant to honor filmmakers from around the world but the label “foreign” insulted each of the nominees for decades by casting them as “the other” and portraying world cinema as “them, not one of us.”
Their languages are not foreign in their own countries.
It’s a minor quibble to you, maybe, but it was lowkey disrespect that was easily rectified. So I’m happy they finally fixed it.
The change hurt nobody. It’s simply more polite and considerate to the nominees.
But the anti-woke patrol pissed their pants over it.
‘Foreign’ to the country giving the award. Like when students take foreign language courses in school, they’re called that because they’re foreign to the country offering them, no disrespect.
Pretty cool that you get to decide whether people from other countries feel respected or not.
Was just speaking to intent of whoever at school calls them foreign language courses. I do not think they are doing so as a means of disrespect.
“students take foreign language courses in school”
Some schools.
Better schools simply offer “language courses.”
When I was a kid and got a piece of steak stuck in my esophagus, should the doctor have said it was an “international object stuck in my throat?”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f61cb0b5104bf68ee6267aa416d71c424e41843d911084e0528879b75c3ca2a4.gif
Way too woke Ryan. Do you think other countries and cultures don’t have a word for “foreign”? Of course they do and they know what it means.
That is true but at the same time, International Film is not actually descriptive of what the idea behind the category is (because measurement is still done by language). Thus, I’d argue an even preferrable title would be the most descriptive one, Best Film Not in the English Language
Yeah, I assume only non-English Language films qualify.
Now no sneaky directors like John Sayles can disrupt things. (Now there’s an obscure Oscar fact)
But what about the Mormon Critic’s Association? They shouldn’t have to be dragged into the 19th Century.
Is that an actual critics circle? I’m picturing a bunch of covered wagons circled up together while people dressed like Michelle Williams in Meek’s Cutoff discuss old black and white films projected onto a bedsheet draped over a clothesline
now that’s the movie I want to see Michelle Williams win an Oscar for!
I should write an international best seller called “The Mormon Critics Association” It would be hilarious!
It’s a bit tricky for me, because while my main thought is that the categories should be left alone in acting, and the other categories aren’t gendered anyway, so nothing need be done there, either. However, I also have a number of friends and associates who are trans, non-binary, non-gendered, etc., and to be fair to them, I’m trying to think of how best their situations could be handled. For people who were identified M or F at birth and have now affirmed that the opposite is the correct gender identification for them, they should just be able to be slotted in the category appropriate to their gender identification as an individual, and not necessarily to the gender of their character; this was how they handled Glenn Close playing a male-identified character in Albert Noyes,. (Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game was a little trickier, as the character they played was a major spoiler, but putting them in the Supporting Actor category worked out fine as far as I could tell.)
It’s not quite as easy for people who are outside either gender, or who claim both, and I’m not sure what should be done. I suppose their could be a category for Performance by a Non-Binary Performer (lead and/or supporting), but it might come down to how many of such people there are whose work is up to that standard. One shouldn’t be winning something in competition when you’re the only one in that particular category, but I don’t quite know what the approach should be in that case–how do we decide if someone’s performance is so transcendently amazing that they deserve a category, and an award, by themself?
I’m not sure I’m making any sense here, but I am trying to figure out how best to approach people who don’t fit the usual category definitions. As for everyone who does, we ought to keep things as they are, not because we don’t want to come off as “woke” *rolls eyes* but because it gives the most chances to the greatest number of both male and female nominees. As for non-binary folk and where they fit, that may not become a big issue until someone who fits that category comes along. I just want whatever ends up done to be fair to the greatest number of people, and I do wish people would stop harassing and abusing transfolk of all flavors simply out of human decency. I can’t even begin to imagine just how painful it must be to have been designated as one gender when your entire mind and soul are screaming that this isn’t you and that you’re trapped in a body at complete odds with what you know yourself to be–I mean, I’ve had plenty of issues with my own body, but thankfully they never went so far as for me to know in my heart how people identified me was just all wrong. I would have hoped that simple human decency and kindness would lead to more people pondering the issue in the same way that I have, and that this might inspire people to be more compassionate to people in that position, but I suppose it’s not the first time I’ve given human at large too much credit for being kind…
I really appreciate this comment, however in relation to
We already have contenders at these kinds of awards shows who do fit that profile. For example, Emma Corrin has been vocal about the gendered Emmy categories, and they were nominated. And even in this year’s Oscar race, BFCA nominee Janelle Monáe identifies as non-binary. The current system seems to either be that studios can submit people in whatever category they want to or that they simply make assumptions based on physical appearance. I don’t think either is a reasonable approach as in one you’re placed in a position where a person’s gender identity needs to be negotiated into the binary, and in the latter is still based on physical appearance and thus doesn’t actually listen to the performers themselves in defining who they are.
Also, I don’t think the Jaye Davidson case is profoundly different from the Glenn Close or for example the Cate Blanchett case in terms of where they were campaigned, as I don’t think gender identity of the characters were ever considered and they were all just campaigned by how the actors identified themselves. This makes sense in relation to the longer category name “best performance by an actor/actress in a leading/supporting role”, implying that the limitation is not about part but about the actor/actress
Excellent post, Ryan! Thanks!
Though I must say, I am on the side of keeping the acting categories as they are….I do appreciate this specific take on it.
It does feel like another thing for people to fight and scream about…the more things change, the more they stay the same. On the off chance that this category change becomes a thing, I will sit back and watch what happens—likely nothing will happen in a bad way like some people may think but also I just don’t think it will happen in general.
Change is difficult for people, instead of responding well and embracing it, often people react in ways that don’t help. With this whole situation, people will react instead of embrace. I see it being extremely messy—which is why I believe the Academy will choose to ignore all of this and continue on unchanged. So all this fuss will be for people to yell and scream their opinions for nothing. The groups that will change will, and those that won’t, like the Academy, won’t.
I do have to say, it’s exhausting listening to both sides of the political spectrum crying and shouting about anything and everything…..like am I the only one that feels this?!?!
Moral of the story: Embrace change and respond accordingly.
Literally none of this is going to happen. The studios don’t want it. The agencies don’t want it. SAG doesn’t want it. And there is literally no evidence that AMPAS is even considering such a thing. Frankly, it’s in no one’s best interests to give out LESS Oscars. Ideally, 2023 will bring about an era when we aren’t expending so much energy on furious debates over Oscar topics that barely reach the threshold of “hypothetical”
“There is nothing more rewarding at the climax of awards season (and having sat through a three-hour telecast) than to see a woman in a beautiful gown take to the stage to accept her rightful award. ”
Does this include Jane Campion, Chloe Zhao, and Kathryn Bigelow? If so, great, then we can be spared the semi-regular “what about the white male director” discussions.
I’ve been giving this a little thought, but there is a real downside to viewing cultural experiences primarily or even solely through the prism of politics/partisan affiliation/tribal identification, etc. And I’m not talking about “woke” and all the insipid hand-wringing over it from all corners. When one is too doctrinaire, you run into a real problem when you have to carve out an exception to your cold, hard, fast rules for movies.
For instance, when Nomadland was romping, a few killjoys on the Left were weirdly complaining that the film wasn’t hitting Amazon hard enough. Cool, except the film wasn’t even remotely about Amazon (although, the film might have been a little more insistent that South Dakota relying on homeless seniors to keep tourist towns open isn’t really a great thing. We went to Mount Rushmore last year, and saw this up close). By drawing that line in the sand, a person might look a bit blinkered and deny themselves of watching a really interesting little film with a truly open mind.
Sort of like the increasingly encrusted belief in some corners that “real Americans” are being excluded from the movies because too many opaque, weird, and arty films are being made. Never mind that a cursory review of the Criterion Collection will reveal hundreds of films going back nearly 100 years that are opaque, weird, and arty. There is no verifiable correlation between blockbusters receiving nominations for BP and high Oscar ratings. And the insistent proclamations that Spiderman 8/Top Gun/Blockbuster Du Jour will “save Oscar” constantly skip over this reality. And after doubling and tripling down on “award a film people have heard of or seen”, how does one reconcile THAT while boosting a film like Banshees? Banshees has made a grand total of $19 million world wide. Nomadland, which was scoffed as the ultimate “who the hell has seen this” BP winner by some, made $39 million worldwide. Drawing too rigid a line in the sand opens one up for accusations of hypocrisy which would be somewhat justified.
If a blockbuster wins BP it isn’t the end of the world, but if a smaller niche film wins it isn’t the end of the world either. Let’s be real, we all spend as much time on Monday Morning Quarterbacking the Oscars (hell, people STILL have furious arguments over Annie Hall v. Star Wars 45 freaking years later) as we do on predicting these things.
Oscar should stop apologizing for who wins. We should stop expecting apologies from Oscar for who wins. So much negative energy lately. Great movies get made every year, and if we CHOOSE to seek them out, we’ll all be the better for it. Movies are meant to be watched, the purpose of film isn’t for US to constantly say we watched them. And it certainly isn’t the point of movies to scrape close to demanding that films that we personally don’t like not be made to begin with.
“Does this include Jane Campion, Chloe Zhao, and Kathryn Bigelow? If so, great, then we can be spared the semi-regular “what about the white male director” discussions.” No, they beat men. Sacrilege! Sasha cares about the only award where women get an award for being a woman, where they don’t have to compete with men. It’s a quota for women and patronising, really.
A-fucking-men. We’d all be better off if we stopped trying to appease those sad people who spend too much time on the Internet who are so miserable that having one thing they complain about appeased wouldn’t be enough to stop them finding something else to be outraged about
Does the phrase “they’d bitch if they were hung with a new rope” apply here?**
Let me say this once and for all right now: Giving Best Picture to Top Gun: Maverick or another huge blockbuster is not, repeat, NOT going to bring those people back to the theaters and to Oscar viewing who see Hollywood as run by evil “elites” who are trying to “groom” their children. None of these people would think “Oh, thank God! Common sense has returned! We pwned the evil libs! Time to hit the theater!”
It’s just not going to happen.
That ship left port for those people years ago, probably some time during the ’80s, and it’s only gotten worse since then; they literally wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t have one group or another to hate. Nothing would appease these people other than abject capitulation, and I for one are damn sure not giving them that, because those “good old days” they love so much weren’t so good if you weren’t white, Christian, and middle- or upper-class. The people who push that narrative don’t realize or won’t admit that they, too, are having their chains yanked, this time by their capitalist overlords; they’re too busy trying to convince themselves that they’re buddies with the “masters of the world,” all the while the billionaire class looks down at them and snickers. You’re not going to get those people back, so fuck ’em and the horse they rode in on. (On second thought, someone save that poor animal; they’re only going to ride it into the ground and then send it to the glue factory!)
Instead, why not make movies that a wider segment of the population can enjoy? Not just superhero/comics movies, either, but intelligent scripts about different kinds of people and stories that resonate with their lives. The problem isn’t that these kind of movies aren’t being made (although more would be great); it’s that they’re pitched toward the high income/high education level in a sufficiently snobbish way that’s all but guaranteed to put ordinary lower-middle or working-class people off. (Trust me, we know when we’re being condescended to.) Sincerely pitching this kind of work to “ordinary Americans” in a way that makes people feel welcome and included rather than put off might just make the difference, but we won’t know unless we try it, right? And figure out ways that people can see these movies without going broke–if it means cable or streaming rather than theaters, well, that’s a shame, but it seems to be the way things are going. People go to big, flashy movies when they do go out to the movies precisely because they feel they’re getting their $20’s worth or so. Perhaps smaller and more intimate films need the smaller screens and work better that way, but we won’t know if we don’t try, eh?
**Actually, you wouldn’t want to be hung with a new rope; you’d want an older one that’s stretched out enough so that when you hit the end of the rope, it breaks your neck cleanly, as opposed to maybe bouncing a fraction of an inch and leaving you to strangle. New ropes were stretched out before use by hanging heavy sandbags from them for several days. Didn’t think my interest in the macabre would come in handy here, but you never know, do you?
I’m sorry but this is, to quote Amadeus, too many notes. And there are plenty of people who aren’t straight white American Christians who enjoyed Top Gun as well so I’m not quite sure what being reductive toward its admittedly difficult (but not quite vast or impossible) chances at a Best Picture nomination are lol
Examples please.
How’s that rock? Yes, the one you’re living under.
If Sasha is going to write the aforementioned quotation and equate “wokeism” in cinema to the Hays Code, then it’s up to her to actually support her assertion. She doesn’t. But, perhaps your reading comprehension is somewhere under that rock of yours.
I would argue that when you’ve got movies and TV shows placing minorities and LGBT persons front and center as nothing more than tokens and props to be paraded around rather than being fleshed out as real living characters with wants and needs that go beyond the creators’ need to be seen as progressive or “on the right side of history” (God what an overused and meaningless buzzword that has become lol), or Disney’s seemingly endless stream of soulless live-action remakes where they seem intent on “correcting” things that were never a problem to begin with like making already inherently feminist characters like Belle and Jasmine even MORE feminist than before (unnecessarily, I might add), or this trend of remaking films like Ghostbusters with all female casts and then blaming their failure on sexists and racists (while that was certainly a large part of the online discourse when the trailers first came out, this alleged army of misogynist racist MAGA trolls were not the only ones who refused to go out and watch the movie), or where you’ve got shows like Star Trek Discovery where the lead is a black woman seemingly incapable of having flaws or making mistakes and makes decisions that even when they are acting in ways that are irrational or go against the rules and laws of the organization she works for are immediately forgiven or framed as her doing the right thing – not to mention the fact that this iteration of Star Trek places racial and gender issues as things that are supposed to be fought for despite decades worth of material presenting a universe where we have moved past such issues – I think you can indeed make the argument that there are “woke” films and TV shows out there lol
“I would argue that when you’ve got movies and TV shows placing minorities and LGBT persons front and center as nothing more than tokens and props to be paraded around…”
Examples?
“I would argue that when you’ve got movies and TV shows placing minorities and LGBT persons front and center…”
Yes yes.
Now try to imagine how annoying it is for people of color and LGBTQ people to watch movies where they don’t exist.
Imagine how annoying it is for people of color and LGBTQ people to watch movies where the only people who are ever allowed to do or say anything onscreen for 95 fucking years are always straight and white.
I am sure you don’t run across this Ryan because you are so highbrow. But CBS reality shows Survivor and Big Brother are very good at including LGBT contestants. But they only ever have one.
So we get some poor gay schlup stranded in a sea of heterosexuals. It’s the worst kind of erasure.
“poor gay schlup stranded in a sea of heterosexuals.”
Subtitle of my memoir.
Although if I ever find myself in a house with 16 strangers, and 15 of them claim to be straight, just give me a couple of nights and I’ll find out who’s lying.
ahaha @ “highbrow”
I just can’t find my remote, so all I ever watch on TV is Million Dollar Listing.
I am surprised that’s never really happened. Well except for Frankie Grande, he tried to get it together with Caleb. Funny thing is there was another gay guy on that season, but closeted. He came out at a later date. This is Big Brother I’m talking about. Don’t look for it, though. Arranging your eggs by size is more exciting.
I decided to answer both your comments in one large TL;DR if you don’t mind lol
The third season of Designated Survivor where they got rid of a perfectly fine tech guy and replaced him with one half of a gay couple, the trans kid in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina who exists for no other reason than to be a victim of bullies that Sabrina will inevitably stand up to and be a heroine for, casting a black actress to play Anne Boleyn in that Channel 4 series (I don’t have a problem with color blind casting in works of fiction – I really enjoyed Armando Iannuci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield and Dev Patel is just so great, likewise in The Green Knight), CW’s Batwoman’s sexuality being so important that she lets a mass murderer walk away once she finds out she’s a lesbian because she “understands” lol, turning Maggie on The Ranch into a lesbian overnight when there was absolutely nothing to indicate that she was (quite the opposite, in fact), the episode of High Score (a documentary series about the gaming industry) where they interview a guy who made an absolute garbage video game just because he was gay so they could tick off a box, that weird trend in movies where they replace traditionally redhead characters with minorities, making LeFou in the live-action Beauty and the Beast gay in order to make him sympathetic (he’s Gaston’s lackey, he doesn’t NEED to be sympathetic lol, and this is part of a larger trend within Disney films to steer away from making villains outright villains for their own sake and more “misunderstood” – hell, in the same film they went from Gaston being a classic chauvinist pig who craves what he can’t have and throws a tantrum when he’s rebuffed to a guy suffering from PSTD after his time in “the war”)
“Now try to imagine how annoying it is for people of color and LGBTQ people to watch movies where they don’t exist.
“Imagine how annoying it is for people of color and LGBTQ people to watch movies where the only people who are ever allowed to do or say anything onscreen for 95 fucking years are always straight and white.”
Oh I can, and I do. I’m more than happy to see greater representation on the screen (and behind it, for that matter). And as if yo prove my point there are plenty of other examples of great representation in shows and films. Captain Holt on Brooklyn 99, Omar in The Wire (one of the greatest characters of all time, on ANY show, regardless of race or sexuality), Tony in 13 Reasons Why (garbage show but he was one of the few bright spots in it), Robin on Stranger Things (Will is gay too but I’m not such a fan of his portrayal, the poor kid has suffered enough without making him heartbroken lol), shows and films like Atlanta or Minari or Hamilton (Broadway, I know, but it’s on Disney Plus so for my own selfish purposes I’ll include it) or Crazy Rich Asians or Everything Everywhere All at Once (Michelle Yeoh for the fucking WIN) or Judas and the Black Messiah or Moonlight (one of the best films I’ve EVER seen), Dan Levy on Schitt’s Creek (or even him and Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart in Happiest Season, which wasn’t a GREAT film but one I was happy for nevertheless because it was something I hadn’t seen before and a sign that TV and films are indeed diversifying and more and more stories are being told aside from those about white people (specifically white men) and I could go on and on. The last decade has seen a huge upsurge in these kinds of stories and I look forward to seeing more of them in the decades to come, and I can barely imagine how much more important it is to people who belong to these communities. That being said, when I see these examples of poorly written characters who exist more as props or tokens simply to check off a box it rubs me the wrong way, and I have no doubt there are plenty of people who actually belong to those communities who feel the exact same way
Also I’m pretty sure it’s a lot longer than 95 years as cinema didn’t begin with the Academy Awards lol. Can you imagine if The Birth of a Nation won Best Picture (which it 100% would have if the Oscars had been around in 1915 *shudders*)
Nothing is ever tl;dr for me! Else I would suck as an editor.
Thank you, Werner H, for the detailed and interesting reply. I sincerely appreciate it.
You mention 6 or 7 instances where you feel an LGBTQ character or person of color appears for no apparent reason, and I admit that I am unfamiliar with about half the cases you cite. (I’m an erratic TV watcher).
So what I’m about to say next is me talking out of my ass, but that’s not an unfamiliar situation for me.
I have never seen any episode of any season of Designated Survivor. But a bit of googling helped me discover that the tech guy who got replaced was Mike, played by LaMonica Garrett.
Here’s what I found the actor said: “There were lengthy negotiations between Designated Survivor and Netflix and unfortunately myself and a couple of others fell victim to the budget sword. #ActorsLife”
True? Was it that simple? Or is it a professional courtesy statement? Who knows.
But it would not be the first time that a popular character abruptly disappeared from an ensemble over money, right? Just ask Tom Hagen.
So that brings us to the question: Why would his replacement need to be gay? To which I would kneejerk counter: “Why not?”
I believe there probably are real life examples where a straight employee leaves a job and the new hire is gay. Does that sound reasonable?
Did the new gay tech guy in Designator Survivor bring any gayness to the role that was essential to the narrative? I have no idea. But I would ask: did the original tech guy provide any essential straightness?
I also see that when Designated Survivor got cancelled by ABC and Netflix picked it up, at least 3 or 4 original cast members got dropped over contract and money issues and were all replaced.
I doubt that Netflix replaced all the ejected straight ABC cast members with 4 new gay characters.
(Although that would be a brilliant plot twist: to see the DG team infiltrated by 4 gay activists! Intriguing! I would watch the shit out of that.)
I guess I’m saying that I don’t see the problem with a character being gay and not having his gayness be featured as a plot point.
I can testify, as the only gay editor at AD, my job as a plot device around here is exhausting and not at all satisfying to the overall AD narrative.)
One more reaction to your excellent reply:
Once again, I never saw a minute of Sabrina the Chilling Adventure Girl. But I think it’s not usual in stories about heroic protagonists that the victims they save are often vulnerable in one way or another. Are the inner lives of any victims that get rescued ever explored very deeply? I can’t think of many.
I guess I don’t see why it’s bad or “unnecessary” to include a trans kid as the victim of bullying. It’s a reality that happens 1000 times every week in this country.
(Might it even be strange if Sabrina is in the habit of rescuing vulnerable victims but she neglects to ever give a shit about any trans kids?)
Short answer (yay!) : Okay you have schooled me about the presence of minority and LGBTQ characters popping up unexpectedly in TV series that you watch.
Did they ruin the episodes they were in? Did they fuck things up for audiences just by being gay or black?
I sure hope not. What would that say about the people who are annoyed by characters who fail to be straight and white?
(Do not ever challenge me to a duel of TL;DR! :))
The Hays Code forbade certain content from ever being portrayed directly onscreen.
You offer the example of Ghostbusters, yet you do not illustrate how doing an all-female Ghostbusters was a reaction to some kind of restriction placed on filmmakers ala the Hays Code. Ivan Reitman’s son subsequently released a film that was decidedly not that. It just so happened that before that, some filmmakers wanted to make an all-female Ghostbusters. It sounds like you wanted something like the Hays Code to prevent that from happening. That the 2016 Ghostbusters failed and convinced some people that it was due to racism/sexism doesn’t have anything to do with much. The movie trailer and the movie itself did received a monstrously disproportionate amount of negative feedback though, almost like there was a movement that wanted to apply something like the Hays Code to it as well.
It also sounds like you are against colourblind casting? As in, “Belle cannot possibly be anything other than Caucasian.” Again, that type of thinking is much more aligned with Hays Code mentality than anything you’re arguing against “wokeism.”
And, TV shows have nothing to do with the Hays Code.
You sound triggered after all these years.
Your comment on DIsney Updates forces me to mention that I love watching old films that are now considered offensive. It’s a good reminder of where we once were as it’s too easy to forget.
But then there are films like Green Book which are outdated by 20 years the moment they are conceived.
Disney has taken to including a foreword on certain older films saying that they include things that are now considered offensive by modern standards, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Aladdin among them. Personally I find this approach preferable to burying them and pretending like they no longer exist: if anything it could foster discussion on the subject
Sometimes I wonder if people think their kids are just plain stupid–for example, there’s a children’s book prize that used to be named after Laura Ingalls Wilder and is no longer, due to some of the racist attitude and behavior in the books. When I read the books as a kid in the ’60s and ’70s, though, I just shrugged and automatically knew that, while certain things might have happened way back then, we just don’t do them today, and went on reading. I knew minstrel shows weren’t A Thing during my time, and that Ma shouldn’t have thought that the only good Indians were dead ones, etc., and enjoyed the books for showing me a time in history where things were very different, but that families were still pretty much the same.
I guess the one good thing about getting older is perspective, and developing a good sense of it while not resorting to moral relativism. Just my take…
I do not believe in erasing or ignoring the past simply because the beliefs of some (let’s be honest, MOST) people do not match our own. By modern standards the vast majority of people who lived and are not dead would not be considered worthy or good people. In order for any sort of judgment to be made on the past history must be graded on a curve
Take for example, Theodore Roosevelt. If you had a Time Machine and went back and brought Teddy to the present day he would be, far and away, the most cartoonishly racist person you’ve ever met in your life. Yet if you were to go back to his time you would quickly discover that he was one of the most progressive, forward thinking people alive. Now consider Christopher Columbus, a man whose oppression and treatment of the natives he encountered during his voyages and governorship of the Indies that he was seen as a monster by people EVEN WHEN HE WAS ALIVE. The Spanish crown stripped him of his titles and threw him in prison
It is not fair to apply a modern progressive, and rigid ideology to those who are dead and have no opportunity to speak for themselves; we must judge them by the moral standards to which they were held when they were alive. Of course we can make judgments such as “slavery is bad and it is right that it was abolished” or “the Holocaust was horrific event that must never be forgotten” but people are tricky. No one person is perfect, and what a person did yesterday that is not longer seen as “good” must be taken into account in a different manner then simply “they were bad.” One must wonder what we do today that is considered just and good that our descendants will curse us for tomorrow
Also I personally didn’t hate Green Book. Was it the best film of the year? Absolutely not, nowhere even close to close: that honor belonged to Cold War, First Reformed or Eighth Grade. But it wasn’t the Devil incarnate like so many people acted like it was
Cold War and Eighth Grade. Both unique, both spectacular.
Didn’t care for First Reformed. There was an extremely stupid moment just to further the plot along that was completely unnecessary. It drove me nuts.
The suicide? The lying on each other dream sequence moment? What are you referring to exactly?
It’s a small moment. After the suicide when Ethan Hawke returns home he somehow knows to look under the piano (or wherever the letter was hidden) I have no clue how he knew to look for it or that there would be anything at all. Him even sitting at the piano at the moment is odd.
I don’t remember that moment but it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it
It’s a minor moment. But without it, there would be no second half of the film.
I’ll take your word for it. I may be due for a rewatch
I doubt your opinion will change. What annoyed me was how unnecassary the moment was. There are thousands of logical ways to have done it.
I suspect something got edited out and no one caught the plothole later.
Same here on Green Book.
There’s no way in hell you could make Blazing Saddles now, which completely proves the movie’s point–Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor were taking the piss out of everyone and saying out loud all those things that “shouldn’t be said in public.” Once you’ve flushed all the roaches out from under the sink, it’s then that you realize how easily you can squish them, and what better way to do that than laughing at them? It’s when you try to keep the ick hidden away that the roaches have the chance to keep breeding…
My comprehension is fine, I think, but appreciate the concern. I’ll double check. Yes, right, it’s all made up. There’s nothing to it at all. Thank you for single-handedly determining that such a phenomenon really does not exist. Baffling.
I wasn’t arguing it doesn’t exist, but thanks for projecting. You sound triggered.
Hey Bobby, was that you I saw getting scolded at AV Club?
No, not me. I’ve never been there. I follow three movie sites – Jeff, Sasha and Jordan.
Then someone has adopted your persona there
That’s interesting. I hesitate to even go down that rabbit hole to investigate but thanks for letting me know. You mean they are using my avatar and Disqus name?
Not the same avatar, but the same name. There’s only one of you, dude, this aggression will not stand.
I just went over there and was able to easily locate the imposter. Looks like it’s not a Disqus account but rather something specific to their site. Perhaps it’s time to change my avatar (even though that person is using a zoomed out version of the same pic).
Good plan.
Have a great New Year if we don’t talk the rest of this year.
You too! See some good movies!
oof
Snappy retort!
Now about those examples. Got any? Let’s hear ’em, old sport.
Because a lot of us are quite bored and borderline annoyed to keep hearing how all the Oscar movies are “woke” but none of you wild-eyed Woke Cops can back up your accusations with any evidence. You just stand on the street-corner windmilling your arms hysterically, shrieking “You’re All Infected With the Woke Mind-Virus and You’re All Too Woke to Know It!!!”
I’ll make a list for you, Bobby.
I’m sure you’ll salivate over a few titles immediately.
So it will be fascinating and amusing to watch you explain how women objecting to being raped is “woke.”
I’m intrigued to hear you clarify your opinion that the presence of an actor onscreen who’s not white is “woke.”
Here’s your list. Go ahead and expose all the woke elements in these brilliant movies with your idiotic and rather repulsive Woke Litmus Test.
Banshees of Inisherin
Top Gun Maverick
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Avatar: The Way of Water
Women Talking
Elvis
Babylon
TÁR
All Quiet on the Western Front
She Said
Aftersun
Bardo
The Batman
Bones and All
Cha-Cha Real Smooth
Decision to Leave
Empire of Light
The Inspection
Living
RRR
The Son
Thirteen Lives
Till
The Whale
White Noise
The Wonder
Fablemans is woke because it shows that Jews are more than just bankers.
Cha-Cha real smooth is woke because it shows autistic children are worth loving.
RRR is woke because it shows animals are happiest while killing English people.
White Noise is woke because it has LCD Soundsystem on its soundtrack.
Empire of Light is woke because it had poetry.
All Quiet on the Western Front is woke because it dared showed us what Germans were like before they became Nazis
Bones and All is woke because it showed us what life could be like if we ran out of tofu.
Top Gun is woke because it showed the next generation
Banshees of Inisherin is woke because it showed Colin Powell can pull off anything, including playing a white Irishman in a knit blue turtleneck sweater.
Aftersun is woke because it shows that lesbians can be depressed just like everyone else.
The Inspection is woke because it has cute men (this goes for Devotion as well, but interestingly not Top Gun.)
Everything Everywhere is woke because it cast someone from Glee.
The rest are decidedly not woke.
Given that he’s (a) Black and (b) dead, I’d be impressed as all hell to see Colin Powell play a white Irishman…
(Low-hanging fruit, I know, but it was too good not to crack a joke about. Also got a laugh out of Bones and All and tofu, so there’s that too.)
From what I can see, the people who use “woke” as an insult apply it to anything that doesn’t fit their very limited ideas about people, their behaviors, and the ways we should react toward each other. This includes, to name a few: Black/Asian/POC generally in major roles in front of/behind the camera; likewise women and LGBTQ+ people; plots demonstrating how cruel people can be to each other, and how pointless/wrong that is; anything they think makes white Americans, especially men, look bad or not be the hero–pretty much anything that might remind them that there are all kinds of people who are just as competent, sometimes more so, and that they just might not be able to coast on being “free, white, and 21” anymore. Sometimes I think that’s the worst bit in their minds; they’ve felt entitled to the good things in life all along, and the idea that someone they consider “lesser than” also getting their share fills them with rage and fury. They see anyone else getting something they think they deserve, and rant as if it were food being snatched off their own plates, feeling that if they can’t have something, then no one else can have it, either, and they’ll cut off their own noses if it means keeping someone “lower than them” from getting a whiff of what’s cooking. Meanwhile, someone else just hauled a huge-ass pot into the kitchen and is planning an even bigger feast for everyone, while the pissy “anti-woke” brigade in the dining room is smashing all the dishes, breaking the tables, and stealing the silverware; I’d call it childish, but even little kids usually behave better than that. Maybe not everyone’s going to get the caviar and fois gras, but there’s still going to be plenty of food and drink, and we can add more leaves to the table, so fitting more people in isn’t a problem…unless, of course, some people want it to be.
I have no idea why some white people can’t handle the truth. I assume it’s because they’ve lived an unsuccessful, unhappy, closed existence. They should be pitied (in addition to being derided)
https://media0.giphy.com/media/gXhBZfzijya76/giphy.gif
“Banshees of Inisherin is woke because it showed Colin Powell can pull off anything, including playing a white Irishman in a knit blue turtleneck sweater.”
Would watch and enjoy. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/390e2b7b05fa301d6aaad4ff97a86227352480837543acf38e170cdeb87c1a9b.jpg
There would have to be a scene with Colin Powell sitting in front of the town council justifying his killing of Jenny.
Ryan, I did not say the Oscar movies were woke. My very brief comment agreed with Sasha that “wokism” or “identitarianism” is actually a thing. If you believe it’s all a fantastical, fine. I have no intention of spending hours dissecting the dozens of films you listed above to benchmark them against a woke meter, which is not how I view films. At the same time, I do not go through life with blinders on and am aware of trends and cultural phenomenons when I see them. I’ve seen every film on that list and at a subject matter level I wouldn’t define any as “woke.” I do think that a few fit into the zeitgeist, like She Said (excellent) and Women Talking (not excellent), which is not to say they are woke.
“…none of you wild-eyed Woke Cops can back up your accusations with any evidence. You just stand on the street-corner windmilling your arms hysterically.”
So it will be fascinating and amusing to watch you explain how women objecting to being raped is “woke.”
I’m intrigued to hear you clarify your opinion that the presence of an actor onscreen who’s not white is “woke.”
Really, Ryan? Based on the few words in my reply above, don’t you think that’s going a little bit far?
And a final note — I work in a Fortune 500 company where “wokism” and “identitarianism” are definitely on the radar screen all day and every day, and the company has radically shifted its hiring practices, internal affinity committees and employee compliance with these things (all good and I participate), now at the forefront of and in the fabric of everything we do. You are either onboard or out. That is the reality in the corporate world today. If you do not think that this trend informs films, fine, but please don’t tell me that it does not exist.
The actual issue with the acting categories is the “category fraud” that is also mentioned. Lead awards should be given to actors who carry their films, who are on set almost every day and set the mood for the set. Supporting awards should be given to scene stealers who elevate their films and who have the power to adapt to the tone and rhythm of a cast with only a few scenes.
How can anyone anywhere in the world think that Rooney Mara is supporting in Carol? The fact that Alicia Vikander, Daniel Kaluuya, Viola Davis, Mahershala Ali (green book) all won supporting oscars for leading roles really takes the fun out of the supporting categories for me. I understand that there are some performances that could go either way (Christoph Waltz) but some of these placements were just ridiculous.
Non-gendered acting categories is just part of a political movement that has gone too far and will inevitably suffer a backlash. And I say this as a reasonably liberal person who abhors the surge in extremist right wing politics that has occurred over the past decade or so
yes
We agree completely.
Maybe not so “off topic”.
Just seen “Strange World” (**** / B) which has been maligned so much as a “woke” film. Liked it a lot, had minor problems with certain blandness – and a character being killed off without any reaction of the rest – but I thought it was refreshing to see so much diversity that never felt forced to me – specially given that this world is complete fantasy – and that the main character being gay NEVER was an issue.
More of this, please. Also, further proof that Avatar’s overall message doesn’t need one billion dollar to be told.
Just for the record…
“Time” has been doing the top 10 performances of the year for a while, without any distinction between leading and supporting, nor male or female.
Meaning… it’s not the end of the world… it’s just that we are too used – and like – to having FOUR winners rather than just 2.
Note: so far, I am torn between giving ex-aequo to Yeoh and Quan or go for de Armas, if I have to pick THE performance of the year (from what I have seen… and no, I haven’t seen Tár yet)
I hope Lesley Manville makes the “Time” list for 2022’s performances!
my pick for 2020 was Bakalova, same as in 2006 was Sacha Baron Cohen… I think the only chance that two different actors from a same franchise would be my #1 performance of the year (obviously in different years). Thinkig twice, I should probably attempt a 1970-present… There’s an actor that probably would repeat for the original film and the sequel: Ewen Bremner for both Trainspotting films…
Here’s a solution. No more winners. Just nominees. Everybody gets a prize.
Here are the ten best performances of the year. You all get a gift bag for being you.
Don’t all the presenters and/or nominees at the various award shows get a really impressive gift basket, or have they cut down on those since the IRS started taxing them?
Just tried to watch the Batman. The whole thing is kind of built on a false premise. The woke film tries to look the other way from the truth. The truth being that societal breakdown is caused by legalized gay marriage. This Hollywood movie wouldn’t dare even touch that subject!
Throw in the fact that everyone talks at half the pace normal humans do and you got a real downer.
Robin erasure.
Hey, I’m still here, damn it!
Um…you didn’t mean me? Oh…
*slips away quietly*
So who wrote this open letter? Also, a few points:
They mention the Grammys, which though perhaps not as notable in its field (I don’t know but that’s the perception I’ve gotten), it is still the Oscar-equivalent of the music industry and mentioned right alongside it in things like EGOT. So at least that should count.
To make an obvious point: if we have sets A and B, it must apply that the largest value in the combined set of A and B is at least as large as the largest value in set A and the largest value in set B. Thus, you’re merely talking about sentiment, and that sentiment probably has a lot more to do with custom (“lead performance” might feel like less of an award because you’ve never actually had to deal with a “lead performance” award) and a dislike of the notion of gender-neutral categories than it is about whether the actual achievements are lesser (because once again, they are by all logic not lesser).
What you’re describing isn’t a “woke” agenda infiltrating Hollywood, it’s the death of the monoculture and changing viewing habits. And no choice made in the acting categories at the Oscars is going to change that or hold it back.
But not everyone’s intractible experience of life is as a male or a female. If you argue this as the reason why the acting categories must be gendered, then isn’t that equivalent to saying that nonbinary people shouldn’t be in those categories, and thus should be ineligible for the Oscars completely? Thus by demanding a specific intractable life experience held as separate, you’re saying that another intractable life experience isn’t worth being considered as separate or as anything else.
You could make that same argument about age, ethnicity, sexual orientation and so many other things. Should awards be divided by those groups as well, at which point we would have hundreds of acting categories?
I would also note that this argument of basically “these characters are inherently men or women and thus can only be played by men and women and this should be acknowledged” which the open letter makes seems to me to be in conflict with Sasha’s previous argumentations (for example in a piece written here three months ago) that straight people should be able to play gay characters. If the gender divide is so inherent in the core of the act of performance that we must even underline it when giving awards, then why is it acceptable for those kinds of lines to be broken in terms of other comparable parts of a person’s identity?
Unisex categories is a bad idea. The Oscars are a promotional platform designed to drive publicity and ticket sales for movies. Having a Best Actor and Actress offers more opportunities for hype. Unisex categories would be a step toward the real monoculture where we don’t even have separate sexes and everybody is the same. That is the future you think is inevitable. It is not. It is total insanity and it will never happen. It is anti-human and anti-nature. Besides biologically speaking there are only men and women. What happened to science?
That being said, if an actor or actress was born a man but identifies as a woman (or v/v) they perhaps could be allowed to put themselves up for the category they identify with. It would then be up to the voters to decide.
Regarding all this crap about gay men only playing gay men (etc) …I’m against it. Acting is about transforming yourself into another human being. Who you are in real life should not matter. There should be no such boundaries.
They’re not unisex categories. Acting categories are the only ones gendered right now. They’ll simply be un-gendered. That’s all. They would be just like all the other categories. Would you call those categories unisex? I mean, why would you? That’s ridiculous. And why would making the acting categories just like all the other categories affect the marketing and promotion of films? The actors will still be nominated, you know. And you seriously believe recognising a fraction of the population will see society collapse? There were many similar dire predictions made every time there was a push to recognise a marginalized group, like the liberation of black people, women and gays. Society will collapse if these groups get their rights, were the predictions. Absolute nonsense! And why would that happen just because the Oscars drop their gendered/ghettoised, patronising categories? The Grammy awards did that years ago and nobody cared. And many other fields don’t do that. If anything, the Oscars and film awards are the exception, not the norm. How on earth is dividing men and women a good thing? I think the Ayatollah would be blushing right now.
Regarding all this crap about gay men only playing gay men (etc) …I’m against it…
This is a fake controversy that does not exist in the minds of sane people.
It primarily exists in the minds of bug-eyed right-wing hysterics who are forever on the hunt for something to be hysterical about — and if they can’t find anything to be pissed about, they concoct something.
Straight actors playing gay characters (and gay actors playing straight characters) is no problem at all with any gay people I know — especially among gay moviegoers, and extra-especially among gay moviegoers who care about awards-caliber movies.
Some of the most beloved LGBTQ-themed movies of the past 20 years have featured straight actors playing gay characters. Those movies are beloved by gay movie-lovers and those performances are beloved by gay movie-lovers.
Anyone who knows anything about contemporary queer movies knows this. Anyone who knows anything about LGBTQ human beings knows this.
We LGBTQ people have enough genuine threats from MAGA shitheads in real life to worry about — without letting ourselves be taunted into a fake debate about absurd fabricated distractions invented by MAGA shitheads.
EDIT: Straight actors playing transgender characters is a different and more complicated issue altogether, involving an entirely more sensitive layer of complexity. I don’t feel like trying to explain that — and anyway, anyone who can’t see the potential problem is not going to suddenly understand it, no matter what I may say to explain it.
This is a fake controversy that does not exist in the minds of sane people. It primarily exists in the minds of bug-eyed right-wing hysterics
This controversy has absolutely nothing to do with MAGA anything. It has to do with radical progressives pushing buttons. I know that gay men don’t care about straight men playing gays because I’m gay and I couldn’t give one crap. And I also have no problem with straight actors playing transgender. Vanessa Redgrave was great as Renee Richards. Imagine a woman playing a man who becomes a woman. That is an acting challenge.
how many gay characters have Antonio Banderas portrayed, for example?
Off the top of my head…
Labyrinth of Passion
Law of Desire
Philadelphia
Interview with the Vampire
Pain & Glory
Conversely, how many straight characters has Tom Cruise played?
beware, you could be sued. Ask Trey Parker and Matt Stone
If he did, I would confront him in the bathroom of the courthouse where there will be a secret camera and the resulting footage will be used as evidence in my favor.
I’ve heard it suggested that the real problem may come down to being asexual/aromantic (ace/aro), and that would be a bigger problem than simply being gay or bi. People get being LGBTQ+; what they don’t get is complete lack of interest, which most people seem to interpret as being somehow “unnatural.” People in society at large usually stay pretty quiet about it (I have friends in the category); I can only imagine the pressure put on a leading performer in that regard.
I, obviously, concur:)
I assume everyone is gay already. It’s the only way to stay sane!
Do you come here often? You really should. You value add so much my friend with a posting like this one. Good stuff.
To be clear, I don’t think that straight people should be barred from playing gay characters (partially because we’re pretty much just guessing these people’s sexual preferences anyway, partially because the real argument that someone arguing like this might actually refer to is whether out gay actors get parts and the actual solution is to just give them more parts in different kinds of roles and movies). I was arguing that the ideas that the open letter (and thus Sasha as someone who signed it) is claiming to be true (basically that gender and performance are so tightly wound together that they can’t be separated, even the phrasing of it is something along the lines of whether men could play these women) don’t work in line with previous comments from Sasha, and thus there is a logic inconsistency because in one case, “acting is acting”, and in another it is not. I personally think the reasonable way to solve it is to not discuss gender as a binary notion that can’t be separated from an actor but if Sasha wants to think of it like that, then it would seem logical that their opinion on people playing gay parts would be just as much about how gay actors bring an intractable life experience to playing gay characters that must be underlined constantly so that we don’t accidentally make mistakes about who these characters are.
Your point is correct, and I understood exactly what you meant the first you wrote it in the above comment. The problem here is that consistency, among other things, has left the chat long time ago.
For what it’s worth, the people I’ve heard do the most pissing and moaning about “only X kind of people should play X” have been on the left end of the spectrum; the MAGAts, from my observation, are more interested in doing away entirely with the sexually diverse, which is clearly wrong and Not OK. The leftists, OTOH, fall into two groups: (1) the people who simply want to see LGBTQ+ performers get more and better opportunities; and (2) the gender/sexual absolutists who insist that ONLY gay men should play gay men, ONLY transfolk should play transfolk, and so on and so on and so on. I’m far more inclined to agree with the former than with the latter; if someone is a good actor or actress, their sexual orientation shouldn’t matter in terms of the character, and they should have just as much of a chance of snagging such parts as cis straight actors.
While I sympathize to a point with the second group, it’s only to a point–I think they’ve seen too many cases of, say, white performers playing Asian characters, or pretty people playing ugly people, or skinny people playing fat folks, got pissed off about it because there were actors who fit all the necessary categories but who didn’t get a chance, and declared that you should have to be part of a particular group to play a character from said group. While I understand it to a degree when we’re talking about race or ethnicity, to me it falls apart when we get into issues such as sexual or gender orientation. As Laurence Olivier supposedly said to Dustin Hoffman on the set of Marathon Man, “It’s called acting, dear boy–you should try it sometime!” It’s one thing to have a Black character be played by a Black actor (although it usually seems to be Asian parts where this becomes a problem), but I’m just not convinced that sexuality should be approached in the same way. Straight people can play LGBTQ+ folks and vice versa; we see it all the time. I think what I’m trying to say is that sexuality can be a consideration when casting, but it shouldn’t have to be obligatory, as long as enough talent and competent people are given a chance to prove themselves.
Weight and size are a whole different thing; perhaps a fatter actor could have been found for The Whale, but a 600-lb. actor would probably have found it difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with the rigors of filming. As a Person of Size myself, I don’t have a problem with Brendan Fraser playing the part at all, but a lot of fat folk (and yes, “fat” is the preferred term) are all bent out of shape about both the casting and the fact that the movie exists at all, seeing it as a slur against fat people in general, and I suspect that may hurt Fraser’s chances, which is unfortunate. We shall see…
(Hey, Ryan, look me up if you’re ever in Boston, and I’ll bring some homemade baked goods along to have with coffee–I have a reputation in certain circles for my baked goods. *grin*)
Could not agree more.
Complete insanity. These miserable, risible Ninotchkas must be stopped.
I HATE the idea of a gender neutral category, it takes the fun out of everything. How about they ADD a “Best overall lead performance “ to the existing four acting categories? That’ll keep everyone happy in the end.
How does that make anyone happy? The people who don’t want non-gendered acting categories will think of it as a redundant prize that is still pushing the agenda of non-gendered acting categories, and those who want non-gendered acting categories will feel that it actually doesn’t solve any of the issues they have with the gendered acting categories
How do you come up with a list? And can it include those who are also nominated for another acting category? And doesn’t the overall award make the others redundant and second rate?
Imagine they made a Lead category with 10 slots and 2 winners and a Supporting category with 10 slots and 2 winners. They could finagle a Male Lead winner, Female Lead winner, Male Supporting winner and Female Supporting winner, Lol.
Could Moonlight have been directed by a straight white man?
Because, you know, life experience doesn’t matter.
If you follow your argument to its logical conclusion we should have “Best White non-Handicapped Straight Performance by a woman who has achieved menopause but not given birth and was never really loved by her parents.” Frances McDormand would have 12 Oscars!
———
If acting categories become genderless, they should simply give out two awards. If this is done in random order we can argue for decades which person got more votes!
Remember when there was this big controversy over Jaye Davidson? I’m surprised that’s the last time it has happened.
What’s the significance of an actress winning in a gendered category? It shows that female actors are valued as much as male actors? But what about other categories? Are actresses the only female filmmakers that are valued and need this quota? Is there more value to winning these awards against fellow women than against men? I mean, it’s not like in sport, where physical attributes give men a big advantage. It seems it’s only film awards where there this gendering going on. In other fields, outside of sport, it’s seen as patronising and not helpful to women. You’re either for gendering all categories or you’re not for any. And you’re either in favour of gendering things in general or you’re not. You’re either in favour if dividing men and women or you’re not. Ypu believe in making an exception for acting categories because that’s the way it’s always been. That’s the power of tradition, conformity and nostalgia. In order to make compromise in such a delicate situation, I supported the LAFCA decision to have two non-gendered categories and still hand out two awards in each category, probably to both genders. But people cried foul and couldn’t accept that we were trying to have our cake and eat it, too. It seemed they cared more about the categories being gendered than the female and male actors getting two awards each. If push comes to shove, I’d rather have a single non-gendered category in Lead and Supporting over four gendered categories that exclude those that don’t belong in either category (or those not comfortable enough to declare their true gender) and patronise women as if they can’t compete with men. The only way out for the Oscars and other major award shows is to downplay gendered categories. They could maybe make the acting categories genre, like they do at the Golden Globes, but add Supporting categories and take away gender names this time. That would still allow them to give out four acting awards and could also still keep gender parity, if they so wish.
Hi, just popping in for a quick second to say that gendered acting categories are only useful as a marketing tool for studios who currently have 4 opportunities to exploit an acting win and hopefully drive people to see their movie. Going down to 2 winners only hurts them for that reason, otherwise it really doesn’t matter whether they make this change or not. Ratings for the awards show are going to be down either way. Enthusiasm will be down either way. This will not be the reason why.
actually, the “there can be only one” mentality helps to increase the tension… and they could do this…
Best Lead Performance
Best Supporting Performance
Best Vocal/Motion Capture Performance
Best Stunt Performance
There, 4 winners!
But what if they did genre categories instead of gender based ones? The Golden Globes already has a Drama and Musical/Comedy for Lead acting performances. Why not expand that to the Supporting categories and just drop the gender names? Genre instead of gender, is the way forward, I think.
Why get rid of gender categories at all? One of the great joys and mysteries of life is the difference between and the war between the sexes and we should celebrate it and promote it. They are going to kill all the fun in life with this castrated socialist utopia they are trying establish. It is oppressive and anti-life.
Because it’s not relevant. Why should they be separate when we could easily judge all acting in one category? Or are they simply who portrays a man or a woman best awards?
If only Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep feel the same about their irrelevant Oscars. Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn should be rolling in their graves about how patronized they have been by the Oscars.
Because the proponents of a gender-less world at the Oscars are not interested in fun and mystery and entertainment. Or even diversity, really. They are interested in sending a message through a worldview where there are no filters, no distinctions, no gender, no fun, no life. Only messages.
you might be on to something, both winners are usually in dramedies so nothing will have to change when you look at it.
Matt Damon could FINALLY have an acting Oscar for Best Actor Comedy or Musical in THE MARTIAN!
There’s a lot of ways around it. They don’t need to be in the straight jacket of gendered categories. The Grammy awards are a clear example and Golden Globes are the closest and most obvious. If it’s about not reducing the amount of awards given out, then there are obvious ways to do that. I mean, they can even expand the categories and hand out more awards, if they want to. The Globes give out six acting awards right now. The Oscars can match that or stick to four. Genre based categories is an obvious option if you want to maintain the same number of acting awards. But I’m sensing some people will still be obsessed with gendering acting categories and it might shock you to know that it’s the same people who claim to not care about a person’s gender, color or sexuality. Why should a person’s performance have anything to do with their gender? It’s all about the performance and as long as that is appreciated and rewarded, what their gender is doesn’t really matter. Rewarding an actor for their gendered performance is as absurd as saying why isn’t there a Best Lead Actress/Actor by a POC. Or by a gay. I mean, Timothee Chalamet (first name rhymes with surname) would have won an Oscar for CMBYN if there was a category at the Oscars for Best Lead Actor by a (probably) straight actor playing a gay character.
Sure. Going by your initial argument, why don’t we have all genre-based categories for cinematography, production design, editing, sound and visual FX since “genre is the way forward”? You can have a total of 80 Oscar categories and PIXELS could have won an Oscar for Outstanding Visual FX Comedy or Musical, like it deserved!
You can do the same logic for the gendered categories. Where do you stop? Apparently, it’s where they feel comfortable. Leaving in acting for the moment is probably the right call. They did used to have multiple categories before so it’s not unusual as you seem to think. It’s just that this time it might actually have useful purpose rather than being indulgence.
I’m old enough to remember the shameful era when Sound Editors were not allowed to drink from the same water fountains as Sound Mixers. Now look how far we’ve come.
Between 1949 and 1967, black and white costume designers were forbidden to associate with color costume designers. Legend has it, when the two costume categories were merged, the Oscars collapsed in such disarray, fkn Doctor Doolittle got a Best Picture nomination. Can you imagine?
It’s a thousand wonders that Hollywood survived those tumultuous times.
I think the rot started after Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture. John Wayne was disgusted by that, and he had enough when Sacheen Littlefeather made her infamous speech denouncing Hollywood’s depictions of Native Americans. Wayne knew it. If only they had listened to him and didn’t stop him from attacking Littlefeatger on stage, none of this would have happened.
I thought about this (adding musical/comedy to Oscars) as I read through, though, it wouldn’t be the same. Generally, the roles they are playing are male/female, so why split into just genre without the gender? Maybe screenwriters need to be more defining with the gender of their characters…?
The Globes separate the acting categories into both genre and gender. You can keep the genre and get rid of the gender. You will still have four winners and they will probably have both genders, in one firm or another. It kills the quota issues and makes it competitive. I think female performances are as good, if not better than men’s, so I’m confident they will win as many if not more than men.
Yes, I understand what you’re suggesting, I just don’t know about the equality factor. Like, would you raise the noms to 6 and make sure it’s equal with men, women and non-binary roles? Or it’s a free for all…?
I guess there are a variety of ways it can be done…
It depends on the system they choose. BAFTA seems well prepared for that as they already nominate six in each categories and juries select at least three of the nominees. That’s an easy way to ensure gender parity. SAG is a committee, although a large, so they might be able do that as well. But it seems more than likely that they will all go to six nominees in each category if they want gender parity.
I can’t wait to spend the next 70 days discussing who wins the Best Stunt Performance Oscar in place of Best Actress. Should it be the Stunt(wo)man playing Shang-Chi or the Stunt(wo)man playing Doctor Strange?? In fact, I think there should be Best Stunt Performance (Drama) and Best Stunt Performance (Comedy or Musical) categories! That will make the Oscars SO MUCH more prestigious and fun!!!
No reason to narrow acting accolades. Four categories it should remain.
Yes, and maybe make them genre based instead of gender based.
Since there is literally zero evidence AMPAS is even considering such a thing, we should all sleep a bit more soundly.
But some people have nightmares 24/7.
there is no evidence I am going to be kidnapped and buried alive either but the thought of it does kind of scare me
I am agog
I am aghast
FeelingBlue and I agree at last?
Michael Drew and Roy Williams, authors of the very legitimate Pendulum, are exactly the sort of geniuses we should all trust to examine history and culture. Many people are saying that Michael Drew (author of The #1 Way to Increase Your Close Rate) is literally just a marketing guy who sort of huckstered his way into an income stream of mid-tier speaking engagements and that Roy Williams (The Wizard of Ads: Turning Words into Magic And Dreamers into Millionaires) is just a business consultant who can technically put words on a page. But many people are wrong. Real people, who are the vast majority, agree that their keen observations are not ahistorical pudding at all! Rather, they are worth their weight in Oscar gold.
Also, nothing the pitiable Republican Party (which does not wield any legislative or executive power in any state or municipality) has said or done regarding LGBTQIA people has any comparison to the might and terror of an Los Angeles Times editorial pushing for some awards shows to abolish magic. I have never heard of Florida
Let’s start a new drinking game! Every time the word “woke” or “The Left” appears in a column here, you have to take a shot of Patron. And no sipping either! You have to down a straight shot like you’re Bukowski on a bender.
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Dude, are you trying to give people alcohol poisoning?
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This is why I play with 8 balls
I started that drinking game a while back–other phrases included “Jennifer Hudson,” “Twitter” and “Film Twitter”–and I’ve been drunk for years.
I am already drunk, just before starting to read 😉
Personally I don’t think that’s quite hard enough. Either take a hit of crack or a shot of heroin. Or both if Woke and The Left appear in the same clause.
I don’t think there can be an equal conversation on a website that forbids people pointing out the racist or transphobic opinions. The policy itself is already racist and transphobic. Terrorists also don’t like being called terrorists.
yeah, I don’t like being called terrorist… you know… “You LOVE us”
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I didn’t read this, but imagine being so upset at an organization for wanting to make up for years of inequality. So much so that you tried to twist the reasoning behind it into anything but the true intention. Oh yeah, that’s what the GOP do with everything—I almost forgot.
Years of inequality? What inequality? How is giving both female and male actors (who, unlike directors, DOPs, writers, composers and so on, are SEVERAL, in a movie) the SAME chances to be nominated unequal? Should we consider them the same just because ANY difference is “problematic” or unequal?
Why must there always be some sort of social injustice to fight?
We’re talking about the Oscars, an awards show. Should a show intended to celebrate, highlight and – let’s not forget – publicize (among the many professionals) the best actors in the industry renounce its gendered acting categories, thus lowering the numbers of actors awarded and people watching, because it’s offensive?
Honestly, I’m trying, but I don’t understand the reasoning.
See, I can actually agree on how dumb this is as actor and actress just seem better and too rough a chance a fine female performance ignored for male ones. Also agree that highly unlikely Oscars or Globes ever do it, if no other reason than you know the actors themselves aren’t going to be happy about a change like this costing possible awards and the producers too.
Just wish point could be made without once more wrapped in this paranoid “wokeism is new religion” nonsense Sasha keeps pushing because some legitimate points to be made on this.
You must be able to see their game, surely? It isn’t about equality or supporting women. That would be contradictry to their history. No, it’s about trying to win the culture war and crushing trans people is one of the ways they think of doing that.
this woke agenda is killing media. and I cant wait till that happens. so it can be reborn without this nonsense
Yeah, let’s burn it all and start from scratch.
Exactly how is it “killing media”? WTF does that even mean?
(off topic, Patrik. But can you tell me if you deleted a comment you made yesterday about the screenplay for EEAAO? I thought I saw it but now it’s gone 🙁
Can we ask a question?
Which of last year’s 10 Best Picture nominees were ruined by “the woke agenda”?
CODA?
Is being deaf too “woke”?
The Power of the Dog?
Is being a tragically damaged closeted gay man part of “the woke agenda”?
Belfast?
Friendships torn apart but families brought together by Civil War raging at their doorstep? Is that the disgusting “woketopia” I keep hearing about?
Which of this year’s 10 most likely Best Picture nominees are ruined by “the woke agenda”?
Explain to me, Henrique.
Explain to me like I’m a kid in Florida with a gay schoolteacher who’s not allowed to tell her students that she’s gay.