On the afternoon of Dec. 8, while the Los Angeles Film Critics Association was voting for its 2024 winners and announcing the results category-by-category on social media, TheWrap received an email from a movie producer saying that we should write a story about how nongendered acting categories are hurting actresses.
It gave me pause, and the writer’s point seemed to make sense a few minutes later when LAFCA revealed that its honorees for the best supporting performance were four men: Yura Borisov for “Anora” and Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain” were the two winners, while the runners-up spots went to Clarence Maclin for “Sing Sing” and Adam Pearson for “A Different Man.”
No Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez,” no Isabella Rossellini for “Conclave,” no Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor for “Nickel Boys,” no Saoirse Ronan for “Blitz” …
In its third year of nongendered categories, the critics had voted in men and left out all the actresses who would have had a shot under the old actor/actress split.
But then, one minute later, LAFCA announced the results of its balloting in the lead performance category. This time, Mikey Madison for “Anora” and Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths” were the winners, with Demi Moore for “The Substance” and Fernanda Torres for “I’m Still Here” the runners-up.
Sorry about that, Ralph Fiennes and Colman Domingo, Adrien Brody and all the other dudes with leading roles and awards hopes.
So does it all even out in the end? I decided to look at the most high-profile awards bodies that have moved to gender-neutral categories, a step that has reportedly been discussed by the Oscars and Emmys, but has yet to be implemented by the topline shows. I looked at the Gotham Awards, which shifted to gender-neutral categories in 2021; the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the LAFCA, which made the move in 2022; and the Berlin International Film Festival awards and Canadian Screen Awards, which did it in 2023.
The conclusion: Yes, it pretty much does even out in the end, except that women have had a slight upper hand so far in the admittedly very small sample size.
The Gotham Awards has an unusual slant to its awards: Women have a decided advantage in nominations, but men take most of the wins. Over the last four years, women have received 44 nominations while men have 33, but awards have gone to six men and three women.
(We didn’t include the Gothams’ Breakthrough Performer category, which has always been gender-neutral and has always skewed heavily female.)
The Indie Spirit Awards are more evenly split: Women have a slight advantage in nominations, 32 to 27, while wins are equal, 4 to 4. (The picture of Colman Domingo presenting the 2024 lead performance award, above, is a bit misleading: There’s only one woman among the five pictured nominees on the screen behind him, but the other five nominees were all women.)
With the L.A. Film Critics, eight women and four men have won awards in gender-neutral categories — and if you include runners-up, the tally is 10 men and 14 women. The Berlin Film Festival has skewed almost completely toward women, with actresses winning three of the four awards in 2023 and all four earlier this year. And the Canadian Screen Awards has nominated more men in its four gender-neutral acting categories, 17 to 15, but wins are evenly split, 2 to 2.
Overall, in the five awards shows we tallied, women led in nominations, 112 to 88, and in wins, 24 to 17. Does that prove that gender-neutral categories won’t become problematic in the long run? Of course not, because there’s not enough history here to draw real conclusions.
And this doesn’t take into account the effect of asking nonbinary actors to choose between an actor or actress category, which in 2023 caused “Yellowjackets” star Liv Hewson to not submit an entry “because there’s no space for me.”
It’s only one of many gender issues swirling around this year’s awards race, and in time, some kind of new approach seems all but inevitable. If gender-neutral acting categories are ever adopted at the Oscars, it would no doubt seem to be a seismic change to almost 100 years of tradition — even if the statistics support the idea that neutrality doesn’t necessarily bring inequality.
