So the Dutch made their BAFTAs "gender neutral" and guess who won all the acting categories?

[aweegc]

This year the Dutch equivalent of the BAFTAs announced the acting prizes would all be "gender neutral".

Award ceremony last night.

Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor awards for film went to two men.

Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for TV awards went to..you guessed it, two men.

As the article below points out, there's a glaringly obvious correlation to the types of roles written for women and the quantity of in-depth ones available for them too. I'd add that there are also less roles for older, experienced women to play, unlike men and how that influences the entire industry for women (filters more out at a younger age).

Maybe this will spur on better roles for women..? Still, even if that's the case, it's unlikely to change much next year given the time it takes to write, produce, edit and air (never mind finance). So I wonder if next year the judges will need to be a little less "gender blind" and make sure a woman appears there too, or they're going to have "gender neutral" awards that look even more..sexist..than they do today!

The article is in Dutch but Google translate can help.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/10/01/gouden-kalf-voor-de-veroordeling-a4060463

A long history of female authors adopting male or neutral noms de plume, including JK Rowling.

When you start to see the lack of roles for older female actresses it becomes very apparent. Or perhaps it would be better to say the lack of 'casting' of older actresses as there are more often roles that could and should be played by an older actress. In 'The Last Kingdom', Alfred's wife was played by an actress a couple of years older than her on-screen daughter (and they both looked the same age).

@Truthlikeness

When you start to see the lack of roles for older female actresses it becomes very apparent. Or perhaps it would be better to say the lack of 'casting' of older actresses as there are more often roles that could and should be played by an older actress. In 'The Last Kingdom', Alfred's wife was played by an actress a couple of years older than her on-screen daughter (and they both looked the same age).

That's not entirely accurate. They were close in age in the most recent seasons, but in the first season the daughter was an infant and the actress was probably about the right age to be her mother.

It's a problem for a number of the roles in that show because the story covers a long period of time. The Uhtred actor started out too old for the age he was in the show, and now he's too young.

Films don't even pass the Bechdel test, never mind having the main protagonist be a woman.

I'm sure Dutch MRAs found the awards results hilarious.

@LobsterNapkin.

That's an interesting observation about film, vs painting and writing. In the visual arts we can almost always tell men from women. This is sometimes used for effect when a person is cast in the role of the opposite sex.

Just thinking out loud:

If authors were anonymous, could we tell if they were male or female? Does it take more skill to create a convincing character of the opposite sex? Do female authors and painters bring a different perspective? I tend to think so.

@toomanytrees

If authors were anonymous, could we tell if they were male or female?

www.boredpanda.com/male-authors-writing-about-women/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

[quote toomanytrees]@LobsterNapkin.

That's an interesting observation about film, vs painting and writing. In the visual arts we can almost always tell men from women. This is sometimes used for effect when a person is cast in the role of the opposite sex.

Just thinking out loud:

If authors were anonymous, could we tell if they were male or female? Does it take more skill to create a convincing character of the opposite sex? Do female authors and painters bring a different perspective? I tend to think so.[/quote]
I think they do to, and often you can make a good guess about the sex of an author. Though IME it isn't usually about whether they write good opposite sex characters, it's something else about their style that tends to be different.

It's not a 100% thing of course, I've always thought that if I didn't know better, I'd think P.D. James was a male writer, though I couldn't say why.

However, I think in an awards type situation, you could compare a book written by a man or women and do so quite reasonably. Ursula Le Guin vs Frank Herbert, for sci-fi, a hard choice but nothing to do with their sex.

But comparing the best male dance performance with the best female dance performance is another thing altogether, because they are different, how they use their bodies is different. And I kind of feel acting is very similar. Singers too, maybe.

@LongBlobson

Thanks for that reference . The second one on the list: ouch. I'll now think of this every time I see the phrase, "people with vaginas".

@LobsterNapkin

Thanks for your reply. I agree it is pretty clear cut in the performing arts.

Do you think in an awards situation that the sex of the judges might matter? They might look for different things?

@LobsterNapkin. That's a fair point in this show, but it happens often enough in others. They also could have cast an actress more similar in age to Uhtred (10 years older than Aelswith) to allow the range in ages to work more effectively. There didn't seem to be any attempt to age her - she doesn't even have grey hair in the last season and is supposed to be mid-fifties?

nmwa.org/support/advocacy/get-facts/

A study of the top 18 art galleries in the US found 87% of their collections were by males (I’m sure there’s a statistic about a high percentage of naked women being in pictures in art galleries but can’t find it).

www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/jan/13/uk-report-reveals-disgraceful-gender-inequality-in-the-arts

Things aren’t any better in performing arts (although this article makes some references to NB etc so I’m not sure who they’re on about at times) but 8out of 10 women have had to turn down work because of caring or parenting responsibilities.

[quote Truthlikeness]@LobsterNapkin. That's a fair point in this show, but it happens often enough in others. They also could have cast an actress more similar in age to Uhtred (10 years older than Aelswith) to allow the range in ages to work more effectively. There didn't seem to be any attempt to age her - she doesn't even have grey hair in the last season and is supposed to be mid-fifties?[/quote]
I've think they made some minimal attempts, but nothing very significant. She's not a very "young" looking young person, so maybe that is part of why they chose her? They haven't gone to much effort to make Brida look older either, but then they didn't try and make her look younger in the first season when she was supposed to be a young teenager.

My sense is that overall they haven't worried too much about ageing any of the actors, so maybe it's a production decision.

It is common to use younger actresses for roles in general, and older men, I agree. Part of that is probably down to differences in men's and women's ageing process. and part not. Though I've felt over the last few years that there have been more roles for older people overall. Trying to appeal to the post-war generation, maybe?

[quote toomanytrees]@LobsterNapkin

Thanks for your reply. I agree it is pretty clear cut in the performing arts.

Do you think in an awards situation that the sex of the judges might matter? They might look for different things?[/quote]
Maybe, but hard to say in what direction. I am a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I pay a lot more attention to male actors because I like to look at them, so I'd probably be a bad judge for an award show.

I think television has a lot more scope for good roles for women, so much film is now action-oriented stuff. (I guess that's true for men too, though.)