MTV plans to scrap gender-specific categories for movie and TV awards, making their accolades based on performance, rather than gender, a direction the Grammys went several years ago.
Some of the categories in their upcoming May 7th ceremony will include:
- Best Actor in a Movie,
- Best Actor in a Show,
- Best Hero, and
- Best Comedic Performance, to name a few.
This move is coming in tandem with gender non-binary star of the Showtime hit series Billions, Asia Kate Dillon, calling for the Emmys to reconsider their gendered award categories. Per Variety, Asia Kate Dillon’s letter to the Television Academy stated:
“The reason I’m hoping to engage you in a conversation about this is because if the categories of ‘actor’ and ‘actress’ are in fact supposed to represent ‘best performance by a person who identifies as a woman’ and ‘best performance by a person who identifies as a man’ then there is no room for my identity within that award system binary. Furthermore, if the categories of ‘actor’ and ‘actress’ are meant to denote assigned sex I ask, respectfully, why is that necessary?”
