MTV salutes movies, TV shows

LOS ANGELES - Film hit “Beauty and the Beast” and Netflix newcomer “Stranger Things” were Sunday night’s big winners with two trophies apiece as MTV partied with its Movie & TV Awards show.

For this, the 26th edition of what was formerly known as the MTV Movie Awards, TV was added to the mix. “Stranger Things” was decreed the Show of the Year, and its cast member Millie Bobby Brown was named Best Actor in a Show.

“Beauty and the Beast” was the Movie of the Year, with its star, Emma Watson, the Best Actor in a Movie.

But the awards had another trick up its sleeve, introducing a policy of breaking down gender barriers, as men and women competed jointly in the acting categories.

The policy was put into practice at the top of the show by presenter Asia Kate Dillon, who proudly noted she has been able to break down gender barriers as “the first openly nonbinary actor to play an openly non-binary actor on a major TV show,” Showtime’s drama series “Billions.” (A non-binary person is someone who doesn’t identify with either gender.) Then she presented the award to Watson.

“Acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and that doesn’t need to be separated into two different categories,” Watson said in receiving her trophy.

A new award, Best Fight Against the System, went to the film “Hidden Figures.”