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“Let Women Compete for Best Actor” Good idea?
Nominations for the Academy Awards are in, and the safest prediction is that everyone will find something to complain about. But of course the Oscars are not “fair.” They have always been more about spectacle and hype than about the legitimate recognition of talent. That’s been clear at least since “Wings” beat out “Sunrise” for the top award in the very first Oscar ceremony in 1929.
For more evidence, consider the best actress category. I don’t mean the nominees, or past winners ?but the category itself. There is no reason to divide the acting competition into male and female divisions.
Distinguishing between lead and supporting roles is reasonable. Separate categories for best dramatic performance and best comedic performance, like those in the Golden Globes, also make sense. What Reese Witherspoon does in “Legally Blonde” is qualitatively different from what Judi Dench does in “Iris.” Ms. Dench’s performance is more easily compared to Russell Crowe’s in “A Beautiful Mind.” So why, under the Oscar rules, does Ms. Witherspoon go up against Ms. Dench, while Ms. Dench is protected from competing against Mr. Crowe (and vice versa)?
One argument is that in male- dominated Hollywood, a category of one’s own affords women the only chance they might have to be recognized at all. As any actress will tell you, great parts for women as rare as the tartare at Spago.
Men get juicier roles in more important films. That’s why every year there are worthy male performances that get shut out of the nominations in the face of extensive competition, while the actress races are usually padded out with one or two second-raters. In a unisex category, even talented women might be forsaken entirely.
But this situation is hardly unique to acting, which actually offers women more opportunities ?and better recognition ?than most professions honored at the Oscars. No one would have thought it bizarre if Julia Roberts had beaten Russell Crowe in a hypothetical showdown last year. But what if Steven Soderbergh had lost in the best director category to Nancy Meyers, whose “What Women Want” was the most popular film of 2000 directed by a woman? She was not nominated for an Oscar. The female directors of “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Rambling Rose,” “Orlando” and “Clueless” weren’t nominated, either.
In the 73-year history of the Academy Awards, women have been nominated for best director exactly twice. Yet the motion picture academy would never consider creating a category for “best directress.”
Even in fields where there are more women, they tend to fare poorly against men. Of the 146 writers nominated for an Academy Award in the last decade, for example, only 16 have been women. No one favors separate awards for male and female screenwriters.
And if the idea is to recognize professionals who tend to be ignored in Hollywood, then there ought to be a separate award for black actors. You think women have it hard in Hollywood? Only one black actor, Sidney Poitier, has ever won the top award (he won for best actor in 1963 for “Lilies of the Field”), and only 13 have ever been nominated, compared with more than 300 white actors.
It would be preposterous even to consider a black actors category. Is best actress really any less demeaning?
The Academy Awards indulge in gender segregation because the Oscars are, first and foremost, about glitz. Actresses are more in the public eye than almost anyone else in Hollywood. No offense to the male actors in their monochrome tuxes, but on Oscar night, it’s the women who bring the glamour. Audiences want to see this year’s dresses and hairstyles. Studios want female stars to help them sell tickets.
That’s the real purpose of the Oscars. The motion picture academy should stop pretending otherwise – unless it plans on eliminating the best actress category.
