The night the Spirit Awards took place in their first ceremony with gender-neutral categories, Saturday Night Live took up the topic on his “Weekend Update” segment.
“As this year’s awards season gets under way, there is a growing movement to get rid of the gendered categories of Best Actor and Best Actress,” said Colin Jost, before delivering the punchline, adding: “And instead call them for Best Actor and Best Actor Paid Less.”
Though SNL given the category names, the conversation around gender-neutral categories at award ceremonies is real. Earlier this year, director Sam Mendes said it’s something that’s “inevitable.”
“I have total sympathy with that, yes, and I think it may be inevitable in the end,” he said in a BBC interview. “I think that’s the way it’s moving, and I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”
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Mendes added: “For me, people forget with awards, I think it happens all the time, they use it as a bellwether for the industry, but the truth is that awards are a TV show,” he continued. “You know, awards are there to promote movies. If that movie wins an award, I’m more likely to go see it, and that’s what you’re doing there. It’s not about yourself, it’s about not about the art or craft of the industry, especially about selling movies.”
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Emma Corrin, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, hopes awards shows will get rid of gendered categories.
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“I hope for a future where that happens,” they told BBC News in November. “I don’t think the categories are inclusive enough at the moment.”
Watch the segment of Weekend Update featuring the joke about gender-neutral award categories above and the second segment below.
