Sam Mendes is trying to get some Social Justice points by making the case for gender-neutral Oscars. His “Empire of Light” was a total awards dud this past year, banking on a clunky rendered race relations story, and now he just sounds desperate.
Mendes told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg he has "total sympathy" for the idea of nixing the Actor and Actress categories at the Oscars. “That’s the way it’s moving. I think it’s perfectly reasonable,” Mendes added.
Meanwhile, a Goldderby poll of Oscar viewers has 80% of the people who answered AGAINST gender neutral categories. This is a number that reflects how industry people are completely disconnected from actual reality.
In November, Patricia Arquette did make some very good points about the negatives of going gender neutral.
Actress Emma Corrin, who identifies as nonbinary, has led the charge in installing gender-neutral categories, with written op-eds in major media outlets. Corrin played a female character in “The Crown” (Princess Diana) and was submitted under the Best Actress category at the Emmys — this clearly rubbed her the wrong way.
Why do some find it so hard to embrace the differences between women and men, what each brings to the craft. The Oscars are losing relevance on a yearly basis, and turning them into a pointless cultural dumpster fire is not the answer to getting back that already-lost relevance.
Acting races are the only categories with equal representation. We do not live in a genderless world. Acting roles are not interchangeable. Emma Corrin and others need to deal with that reality.