On the same pedestal

A mixed bag of responses comes from the television and film fraternity regarding MTV’s attempt to drop gender-specific awards in order to promote gender neutrality.

In an attempt to promote gender neutrality in television and films, MTV has announced that it will drop gender-specific awards and will instead split actors in TV and film categories. The move comes as a follow-up to Grammys back in 2011, which did away with gender-specific categories for singers, collaborations and groups.

For instance, the nominees for this year’s best actor in a movie include Taraji P. Henson, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Kaluuya, James McAvoy, Hailee Steinfeld and Emma Watson.

While the move is considered to be a landmark in terms of facilitating equality between male and female actors in films and television (who have often complained about disparities in the pay scale), there are numerous other arguments that actors have come up with, regarding the attempt.

Mayank Gandhi

Mayank Gandhi, actor and winner of MTV Splitsvilla Season 7
I t is a good thing that they are at least considering bringing gender equality in award shows. But I see them creating a lot of complications because of this as well. In films, most projects are male-oriented while in TV, most serials are female-oriented. So, are they going to give one award combining TV and films? If not, then the chances are that more male actors will be nominated for film awards while more actresses will be nominated for TV awards.

Mishal Raheja

Mishal Raheja, actor
According to me, it’s a progressive step and a nice way to look at the future of gender neutrality. Setting this as a parameter or criteria, and giving them in the jury’s hand is a fantastic idea! It’s a new avenue for everyone to think about and focus on their work, irrespective of gender. At the same time, the jury has to ensure that the right work is recognised.

Vivek Dahiya

Vivek Dahiya, actor
I personally like the classic categories with two different winners for male and female category. I feel that by combining the two, we may take away the honour for being nominated, as we can’t have 12-15 nominations for just one category. Being nominated itself is a matter of honour and there are performers whose careers have shifted into overdrive once they were nominated. It’s good to keep separate categories, I feel.

Shweta Tripathy, actress  
The roles portrayed by women are very different from men. We are a different gender for a reason. I think there should be different categories. What Emma Stone did in La La Land was so different from what Ryan Gosling did. You can certainly compare any performance, but if you can award more talent in different sections, why not do that?

Anyway, I don’t think our nominations are fair enough and in that case, I really don’t know how much faith I can put in the jury. For example, Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a revered figure in the international film festivals — where his performances get standing ovations — but in India he is not even nominated. This makes no sense to me. Obviously you feel very nice on receiving awards but I don’t trust awards so much as I feel they are not given to the right talent. According to me, real award is the love of the audience.

Saumya Tandon

Saumya Tandon, TV actor
Gender neutrality is a good thing but unfortunately, there are very few films in Indian cinema, which are female-oriented. We have only some films like Queen or Kahaani which are women-centric. This is very less in comparison to what the content of Indian cinema in totality is. Having said that, I hope that gender neutrality was more in terms of the kind of concepts people pick up. I think this attempt is very lopsided in terms of the work that women have to do in films today, and it’s not going to be fair. Also, if actors and actresses are divided into TV and film categories, are they going to compare TV actors with films actors? It would be like comparing apples with oranges!

Brent Goble

Brent Goble, actor, dancer & weapons instructor
I think it’s a welcome change. I am concerned about certain performances being left out. I know in my experience, I idolised certain male action heroes because I could relate to them and I am sure it’s the same for women relating to the female actresses and their journeys on screen. I just want (the committee) to make sure that all the acts are included and everything is taken on a respective experience. Only by doing that will we be fully able to justify the concept.