MTV awards go genderless
Changes reflect society’s acceptance of fluid gender identity and areas of actual content consumption
Staging an awards show is an art form. 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 ahead for producers of today’s first-ever MTV Movie & TV Awards, to be hosted by Workaholics’ Adam DeVine. The network’s revamped show, once limited to the movies, will now recognise content across visual platforms.
But the changes go beyond adding TV to the fold. The awards show is getting rid of separate categories for male and female performances, de-gendering its acting categories. And it’s 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 — the shows, events and the tent-poles — and want to lead culture,” MTV president Chris McCarthy says. “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 a unique space to recognise the best Hollywood had to offer from the fans’ perspective. No critics. No academies. No guilds.
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 from LA’s
Shrine Auditorium.
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 tear-jerker 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 avant-garde, 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 sex or gender identity, can now compete together.
To show the importance of this change, the best actor in a movie award will open the show and be presented by Billions cast member Asia Kate Dillon, who made news earlier this year after writing a letter to the Television Academy questioning the group’s gender-specific acting categories. Dillon, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns “they” and “them”, identifies as nonbinary, or, as they say, “a gender identity falling outside the boxes of man or woman.”
With the changes — and performances by Big Sean, Pitbull, Noah Cyrus and others — the hope is that MTV Movie & TV Awards errs on the side of relevancy.
“We’re taking a fresh look at everything we’re doing across the brand...” CHRIS MCCARTHY | MTV president