How To Degender Award Shows, According To A Very Serious Non-Binary Person

Whether it’s Bella Ramsay stealing our hearts in The Last of Us, Sam Smith with their unholy music talents, or Emma D’arcy’s undeniable power in House of the Dragon — nonbinary transgender talent across the entertainment industry is rising and shining. But the gendered binary of many award categories is preventing these incredible performers from gaining recognition for their work.

Obviously, award shows and indeed the entire entertainment system could do with an equitable overhaul. Fixing the industry from the ground up to address issues of gendered pay gaps; rampant nepotism; classism; and systemic exclusion of marginalised people from non-white and LGBTQ+ backgrounds would be the ideal.

But I am but a single non-binary movie lover with neither the time or resources to tell people 5000 kilometres away how to fix their broken systems. What I can do is pitch my (increasingly unhinged) suggestions on how we degender award shows. So, let’s go.

Pitch 1: Genre Over Gender

Hear me out: instead of pitting men and women against each other and adhering to a strict silly binary, let’s just go by genre. Who had the best comedy performance? The best horror? The best family drama? Best performance in an adapted screenplay? All it would take is determining the common genres of nominated films and performances and go from there.

This style of degendered categorisations is already a feature of the Grammys, TV Critics Awards and the MTV Movie awards. Not only have those award shows continued to run smoothly, they’ve allowed non-binary performers to be nominated and awarded without compromising their identity. In other words: it’s not that hard. 

Besides, just imagine how much harder actors would have to work if biopics and ‘inspired by true story’-type films had their own category? Why are actors who are essentially impersonating, put in the same category as those giving original performances? Austin Butler’s Elvis accent can be found at most joints you’ll walk into in Vegas, just saying.

Pitch 2: The True Gender Is: Winner

If you want to know who’s the best, award the best. Simple as that. No separate categories for men and women. Binary? Kill it! If you really want to know who gave the best performance in film that year; there can only be one award per category.

Not only does this do away with the binary, it also has the added benefit of cutting tedious award shows runtimes by half. 2 awards? 2 genders? No, only one gender and that gender is: winner.

Pitch 3: No More Awards For Anyone

Did you know that the very first Oscars were cooked up to stop Hollywood’s workers from unionising? Studio mogul Louis B. Mayer caught wind of creative workers wanting to unionise and what’s a union buster who doesn’t want to look like an asshole to do?

In 1927, Mayer created the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, offering membership to non-union actors with the promise of a fine PR boost and the chance to win a nice trophy. Almost a hundred years later, the Oscars are still here and thriving. Unions in Hollywood..? Not so much. 

Not to sound like the angry gay socialist that I am, but I just don’t think giving these people the chance to dress up and maybe win a little statue every year is benefitting anyone all that much. Is it fun to judge those fancy ’fits? Absolutely, but you know what’s even more fun? Fair work practices. Until Hollywood has them, what’s the point?

Pitch 4: Live Reenactments

There’s no way to know for sure how much of an “award worthy” performance is solely down to the actor, but I’d say not much. Despite what actor-centric marketing and auteur theory would have you believe, the perception and reception of any given performance is the result of hours of collaboration between writers, actors, cinematographers, editors and crew who pieced together take after take to get the performance just so.

So, the only true way to determine if an actor’s performance is actually good is through live, unfiltered re-enactment that is then democratically voted upon by the public. All nominated actors — regardless of gender — must get up one by one and re-enact a key scene on live television. Then, we vote.

This’d be kind of similar to how your Year 12 drama monologue was marked, but instead of three weary moderators deciding a 17 year old amateur’s fate while sitting at a make-shift trestle table in your school’s sweaty hall, it’ll be you voting on whether these professionals can actually do the job they’re paid millions for.

I feel like this idea would work perfectly in conjunction with number 2, actually. One winner in each category, gender be damned, voted on by the audience. At worst, it will probably have the same amount of accuracy, legitimacy and fairness as the current system — minus segregation by gender. At best? Democracy!

Pitch 5: Whose Award Is It Anyway?

My final pitch is this: An annual Whose Line Is It Anyway meets Squid Game actor battle royale. For those thinking this is just my previous pitch, but more chaotic — you’re 100% right. Competitors wouldn’t just be attempting to recreate the performance they’re nominated for, however. No, no, no.

If you are at the top of your game, the alleged “best” in the biz, then you must prove it. And, surely, if you are the “best”, you’re the best regardless of the task, context or (of course) your gender. My proposal? Every year, actors nominated for these awards must compete in a series of completely randomised performance-oriented challenges designed to test their prowess in their craft.

So, as I said, like Whose Line Is It Anyway, but far more gruelling and exposing. Maybe actors must reenact scenes from each other’s nominated performances? If the actor is truly the best then the other actors’ attempts at reenactment will fail miserably. Who decides? The public, of course.

With every challenge, actors are eliminated either by vote or by failure. Last actor standing is the winner. I think we can all agree this is my best idea yet. 

Setting my many glorious ideas aside for a moment: at the end of the day, talent is talent and quality is quality. Awards should be given to those deserving of them, without the caveat of gender or compromising someone’s identity. We can do way, way better.

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This is an opinion piece, written by Merryana Salem (they/them), a proud Wonnarua and Lebanese–Australian writer, critic, teacher and podcaster. They are on most social media as @akajustmerry.