Emmy organizers open dialogue on whether it is time to scrap gender specific awards
The organizers of the upcoming 68th Primetime Emmy Awards this year are now currently in talks about eradicating their gender-specific categories.
American actor, Asia Kate Dillon, who has been nominated for an award this year, asked the organizers about the purpose of giving awards based on gender. Dillon is the first actor to portray the first gender non-binary character on television, Taylor Mason on Showtime's television series, "Billions".
Scrapping gender-specific awards has now been done on a few of the award ceremonies aired on televisions. According to BBC, the annual National Television Awards was the first one to do so when it removed its best actress and actor awards in 2008 and replaced it with best drama an serial drama performance. The ceremony winners are chosen through public votes and this year, the two awards were both won by female actresses.
The annual Grammy awards is also noted to recognize artists and musicians with no distinctions of whether the recipient is female or male. Its big awards include Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year. The Grammys currently has 80+ awards and none of them are gender-specific.
The Emmy and Grammy awards are both bestowed by The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Now that the Emmys has recently named its nominess for its upcoming ceremony this September, change of rules are reportedly considered to be hapenning before the main event. Like the Grammys, it could change its gender-specific awards to just one category.
Dillon is the first actor to question the Academy on the neccesity for using best female and best male on the awards they give. Upon her request, Dillon stated that the Academy showed support and mentioned that it is anyone's right to submit under any category. In the end, Dillon chose to be categorized under best supporting actor category, believing that 'actor' is a non-gendered term.
