Théâtre awards: "best identifying..."

[WarriorN]

Eddie Redmayne and Lily Allen win WhatsOnStage theatre awards https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60521462

So categories are now based on performative sexist stereotypes but woe betide an actor plays the part of a "queer" character where they themselves aren't queer.

But if you're not actually female you can win the female award.

Not v inclusive for non binary.

Izzard now has x2 the chance to win an award.

The whole thing is laughable, not least that photo of Refmayne that captures him full Zoolander 🤣🤣. What a dick.

The way I understand it, it’s the character that is “male identifying”. How do we know how the fictional character of Emcee identifies? Has anyone asked he/him/they/them? What about the original author? What was the intention? Has anyone tried to posthumously trans the fictional character yet? So many questions…

So it's awarded to the character not the person?

But how many women ever play male characters? Would they be allowed given it all has to be "authentic?"

Still means Izzard can do both.

Absolutely fucking laughable

Any character portraying a woman who's dealing with the harder aspects of being an actual woman is then "female identifying" which is appalling. Women don't identify into domestic abuse for example.

So it's awarded to the character not the person?

I think the “male-identifying” part is awarded grammatically to the role, not the performer. It doesn’t say

male-identifying performer it says

best performer in a male-identifying role

So the role of Emcee is male-identifying. You have to play the role as male-identifying. I’m assuming if Redmayne had played the role of Sally he would have been eligible for best performer in a female-identifying role.

I’m also wondering why I’m bothering to figure it out when I couldn’t care less about such navel-gazing nonsense 🤣🤣

I've no idea how a role gets to identify as anything. Not being sentient.
The wos awards have always been a bit of a joke and now totally laughable.

Theatre has been absolutely in the vanguard of pushing this ideology and I think it's because it is such a white, middle class privileged public school medium. The vaguely-defined 'genderqueer' and 'queer' and 'trans' has given privileged white kids something they can claim makes them edgy and other, a supposed minority they can identify into just by saying they do and changing their pronouns, and, crucially, claim some of that arts funding and commissioning that is supposed to be used to to help genuinely underrepresented groups like black or disabled or working class people into the arts, and thus tick those diversity boxes with minimal effort and without having to stray out of its middle class comfort zone.

What a mouthful of a prize name.
Theatre has had males and females playing females and males since Shakespeare’s time - cos it’s acting. Let’s think why Shakespeare did that?!
Of the top of my head the men playing women (Bertie Ahern in Matilda, Michael Ball in Hairspray) are cartoonish. Women have played more serious roles (for example in Shakespeare) because the play is male role heavy. Also women have wanted to play male roles because of the default hag/whore roles for women.

What will be interesting is when they are stunning and brave enough to give the top two acting prizes to two men or two women.
Actually there are some modern plays where the character’s sex isn’t implicitly stated. Does that mean you have double the chance?
What a mess.

I would love to hear Miriam Margoyles’ view on Eddie winning a ‘MIRIAM’.

@NotBadConsidering

The whole thing is laughable, not least that photo of Refmayne that captures him full Zoolander 🤣🤣. What a dick.

Absolutely! He's finally managed MAGNUM.... 🤯😱 🤣

But if you believe in genderism you can’t possibly know how a fictional character identifies. Gender is an internal feeling. Will all scripts now have to have a bit where every single character tells us that they are a woman/man inside and out or vice versa? Going to be quite a boring part of the film.

And no prizes for non binary

@Blogblogblogblog

I would love to hear Miriam Margoyles’ view on Eddie winning a ‘MIRIAM’.

100%! She's just glorious.

I'm still baffled that gender separated awards (in any capacity) are supported. Removing gender and sex from the awards is far more progressive (albeit I am aware at the negative impact this could have on women, but Adele at the Brits has given the scenario some hope).

Well, imagine if historically in theatre and cinema we had also had 'best directress', 'best cinematographess' and all those categories too: it would have made the industries confront the lack of opportunities in all those aspects too, where women are still woefully underrepresented.

Ivy interesting comment. I suppose the thing that is different is that, more so in cinema, the roles played by women and men are so different that they are not comparable. Also the fact that historically women had so little dialogue compared to men. Geena Davis set seejane.org up to study the differences and I remember seeing the results a few years back. I think it has changed quite a bit in the last few years. At last!

How many women play male identifying roles? It's become a bit of a thing for actors to play female parts, i.e. David Suchet as the 'a handbag?' lady in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Also what about NB? They'll need to do a category for that, but then the overall wins will be less balanced gender wise.

Do the luvvies really care though? Predictably, a lot of gender woo nonsense in this realm. Good luck to them.

The importance of separate categories is that although it may seem old fashioned it's still a good way of doing things and it's not just about the winners, the nominees count too.

Reducing the nominees means less chances for actors and actresses to be recognised for their work, a nomination is still a big deal.

If the open category still has the traditional 5 nominees then it won't be an even spread sex wise.

There are many gender neutral categories though but that's more because there are less women working in other industry roles and we all are aware of the struggles of representation.

Best male, best female actually ensures equal representation.

@Blogblogblogblog

I would love to hear Miriam Margoyles’ view on Eddie winning a ‘MIRIAM’.

Don't understand the "MIRIAM" reference; but MM is a full believer of TWAW and in 2020 described JKR's views on gender as "rather conservative", and said, "‘If you seriously want to become a woman you should be allowed to. You can’t be fascist about it. I think it’s confusing."

Youmade it’s an acronym of the award title which shows what a mouthful it is. I think she would find it quite a laugh.

I'm a backstage theatre professional and academic currently at a conference in the USA which is absolutely giving me the rage! Totally agree that gender woo has taken hold in our business as we are predominantly white middle class people looking for a way to identify out of privilege. This event is all white people banging on about equality and diversity in theatre while black people serve them drinks and empty the bins. Being 'queer' means you can claim to be just as oppressed. I used to love the tolerance and open minded attitude of theatrical people when I started 30 years ago. Now I feel like I need to do something different for my own sanity.