MTV awards take step in direction of gender equality
Staging an awards show is an art form. It requires a balancing act in maintaining relevancy without resorting to gimmickry, in creating social media buzz without taking away from the honours given out.
This is the task for producers of tonight’s first MTV Movie & TV Awards, to be hosted by Workaholics’ Adam DeVine. The network’s revamped show was once limited to the movies. But the changes go beyond adding TV to the fold.
The awards show is getting rid of separate categories for male and female performances in its acting categories. And it is adding an element of politics to the show by changing its best fight category to best fight against the system.
“We’re taking a fresh look at everything we’re doing across the brand and want to lead culture,” MTV president Chris McCarthy said.
“Part of that is acknowledging that this event was always about celebrating great content and stories and characters that our audience loves.
“With changing platforms and consumer habits, a lot of that content and those characters aren’t just in film anymore.”
The first MTV Movie Awards took place on June 10, 1992. Following a year when films such as Point Break, Terminator 2 and Boyz n the Hood debuted, the awards show set out to be unique in recognizing the best Hollywood had to offer from the fans’ perspective. In the show’s 26th year, such an approach persists as the network’s audience continues to drive the many changes in the show when it airs live Sunday from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The addition of television shows, scripted and otherwise, is allowing for some unusual matchups in some categories.
In the best duo category, for example, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg of VH1’s Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party and Lakeith Stanfield and Bryan Tyree Henry of FX’s Atlanta are nominated against Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya and Lil Rel Howery and Beauty and the Beast’s Josh Gad and Luke Evans, among others.
“Adding TV was a logical evolution of the show, especially around where our audience is in terms of where they’re consuming content,” says Garrett English, the show’s executive producer.
“There are no borders anymore in terms of where content is delivered and how people are enjoying it and we’re happy to be able to support the evolution of those constructs as they become less relevant.”
Some of the other shows landing nominations in categories with movies include ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat and the CW’s Jane the Virgin nominated with Oscar winner Moonlight for best American story; HBO’s Game of Thrones and NBC’s This Is Us, nominated in the tearjerker category with Moonlight; and Netflix’s Stranger Things and Luke Cage nominated with Hidden Figures and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the best hero category.
As always, blockbusters — often ignored by the Oscars — get MTV respect. Suicide Squad, The Lego Batman Movie and Logan all have nominations, along with Beauty and the Beast, Moana and Get Out.
English points out that the awards show “always was avantgarde, an irreverent celebration of film.”
Now the collapsing of the best female performance and best male performance categories into two best actor categories — one for movies and another for TV shows — is being called an industry first. All performers, regardless of their gender, compete together for the top acting honours.
The best actor in a movie award will open the show and be presented by Billions cast member Asia Kate Dillon, who this year wrote to the Television Academy questioning the group’s gender-specific acting categories.
Dillon identifies as nonbinary — a gender identity falling outside the boxes of man or woman.
At the Emmys, Dillon will be considered under the actor category. “When given the choice, I use ‘actor’ because it’s [historically] gender neutral. I use ‘performer’ when not presented with a choice,” says Dillon, who calls MTV’s decision to do away with binary categories a positive step forward. “Binaries, whether it be man and women, actor and actress, black and white, were created to separate us, to create an us and a them,” Dillon adds.
MTV’s McCarthy calls gender-divided categories “antiquated,” pointing to recent studies that say younger generations are more likely to identify as LGBTQ than heterosexual.
“We not only want to respond to that, but we want to reflect it and at our award show is the biggest way,” he says
MTV, English says, has “always pushed the boundaries of what an award show is and what variety television should look like.
“This is again an evolution of that because our audience doesn’t see those gender walls the same way anymore.”
The audience of coveted 16- to 24-year-olds also prompted the augmentation of the best fight category into best fight against the system, in which Get Out, Hidden Figures, Mr. Robot, Luke Cage and Loving are all nominated.
“Young people have a spirit of activism that we haven’t seen since the ’60s, and we see great stories and characters transcending because they are fighting the system that is oppressing them versus just a physical fight,” McCarthy says.
With the changes, the hope is that MTV Movie & TV Awards errs on the side of relevancy.