The Indie Spirit awards have just solved a problem that didn't exist.
The awards show’s top honchos have announced that, starting in 2023, the acting prizes will go gender-neutral, merging the male and female acting categories into one.
“We’re thrilled to join the other festivals and award shows that are already moving to celebrate great acting without reference to gender,” Film Independent president Josh Welsh said in a statement. “We’re also happy to welcome non-binary performers into the Spirit Awards without forcing them to choose to identify as male or female.”
And just like that, the Spirit awards have opened the door for predictable outrage if a male actor were to win and a female actress wins nothing — did they not think about this before announcing today’s changes?
It’s actually been argued that this would hurt women as most meaty acting roles are for men, so they would have a better chance of winning every time. Although, in the age of virtue signaling, this could also mean that rewarding a woman with the award could be perceived as unearned and deliberately done due to her gender. It’s a lose-lose situation for all, they just don’t know it yet.
If anything, the problem and lack of gender parity should be solved within the industry, in creating better roles for women. Performance is subjective. So what happens when the best performances are all male? I mean, just from a numbers perspective, there are still more male-led films than female, so, technically, there will be a greater chance of the acting award going to a man, and yet, if you're only rewarding men then there will be the predictable perception of sexism.
However, on the flip side, if you're attempting to appear impartial by deliberately selecting women then you'll appear to be pandering. Again, there is no winner here.
The plan is to expand Lead Performance and Supporting Performance into 10 nominee categories. What if there are, for example, 7 male and only 3 female performers nominated one year? Again, imagine the backlash. What the awards shows need to have is as little controversy as possible. The amount of backlash and squabbling that happens every year due to political activism has turned mind-numbing at this point.
Of note, the Spirit Awards also changed the eligibility rules from films with a budget of $20 million or less to now $30 million or less. This paves the way for “Everything Everywhere All At Once” to be eligible for the 2023 awards.
It’s also about ratings. The Indie Spirit Awards have nobody tuning into the telecast. Last March, their ratings were so low that they didn’t even make the Top 150 Cable shows of that day.
Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's "You Can See Everything" has been in theaters for, what, three days? And it's already the highest-rated feature film of all time on Letterboxd.