I cannot imagine how bad Twitter would be if a man won two years in a row

Such a dumb fucking idea. Think of all of the discourse around the Best Director category ever year and multiply that by a thousand. This should never, ever, ever be done.

As for non-binary actors, why not just nominate them in the category that’s best fitting for the character they’re portraying? There hasn’t even been a non-binary actor that I can think of that would ever even be up for an Oscar anyway, I don’t see why we should change nearly a hundred years of an awards category just for rare fringe circumstances.

Pretty sure there was an award show that did this and all the winners ended up being men. It’s a bad idea. Keep it the way it is

Seems like a cheap way to save on trophies

This is completely unfair because Meryl Streep would never stop winning.

That’s what I always suggest when I hear women saying they want to be called “actors” instead of “actresses”…but god forbid men to win for a couple of years in a row, right? That would be sexist…come on! These exaggerations just end up drawing attention away from what really counts. That goes for gender, race, sexual preference, etc. All fanatics are idiots. Including far-right…and far-“woke”.

If men and women were in the same category every year women would never win.

We already saw how this goes this year, the industry just nominates all men

Sure, why not? It's either what people want, or malicious compliance.

Do it. I want to see the trainwreck

Haven’t the Grammy’s always operated in a genderless fashion? It would be fine.

The true problem, from a ratings/audience perspective, is that you’d be losing out on opportunities to give the famous people awards, which is largely what people are tuning in to see. Most of the awards given out on Oscar night go to people you’ve never heard of, so to lose the chance to highlight more A-listers is pretty risky, from a ratings perspective.

But in terms of the practicality of it? Of course they should do it. As Chris Rock noted in his opening monologue, during the 2016 Oscars: “it’s not track & field. There’s no reason to separate the performances based on gender.”

These Award Shows talk about diversity and the image tells you all. These ideas don’t pan out

Nuanced question requires nuanced answer. (And the article does a pretty good job and breaking down the pros/cons.)

For me, I think it should be a long term goal to eliminate gendered categories. However, doing so recklessly would carry a lot of risks and has to be careful.

First off, there are non-binary actors. I see some other users dismissing this, and while it shouldn't be a conversation-ender it's absolutely ridiculous to just dismiss this aspect of the debate.

Has a non-binary actor ever been in contention for an Oscar before? I mean, probably, the idea of being openly non-binary is relatively new in contemporary society, so any actors who have been non-binary in the past would probably be closeted or not even be familiar with the term and just feel forced into a gender identity that didn't fit. So okay, let's get at the real question --

Has an openly non-binary actor ever been in contention for an Oscar? So far, no, but for the reasons stated above it's completely silly to pretend this isn't a possibility in the future. More and more people are openly identifying as non-binary. Denying them a proper slot at awards shows is essentially barring them from that discourse.

Can a non-binary actor simply select whichever category "best fits" them (as another user suggested)? There are so many completely obvious problems with this. For one, it would further the general belief that non-binary identities aren't "real." For another, I could see it hurting an actor's chances if voters are uncertain which category to nominate someone in. (Stanfield's supporting nod shows it isn't as simple as "choosing" a category for yourself.) In the article, a specific example is used of a Tony performer withdrawing their name from consideration as they didn't want to compromise their identity. That's not a choice we should be forcing on people -- "you want an award? Great, first you need to accept a certain dose of body dysmorphia just to be considered."

Of course, there are obvious pitfalls: the two biggest being the fear that this would limit opportunity for female nominees (because there are usually far more male roles, although the current awards season is a promising exception); and that there would be fewer acting awards altogether which is certainly a sacrifice (one which I would see as a bad thing although this isn't a given).

The latter point is easy to address: make more categories that aren't to do with gender. You can go the way of the Globes and split drama/comedy (ugh), or maybe split split performances based on a real person or previous work vs entirely original performances (interesting), or create more tiers in role-importance (e.g. best lead, best co-lead, best supporting, best brief supporting). Several awards shows also have a breakout performance category.

Can argue endlessly about which of these make sense or provide the best opportunities (I'd prefer not to split on genre lines if the Globes are any indication of how that goes down), but the point is that there are alternatives that create four non-gendered acting categories. We also desperately need a voice-acting category by the way, just saying...

Buuuut the former point, about opportunities for women, is... a real concern. And there's not an easy answer for that, since it's largely an industry problem more than an awards show problem (despite internet discourse always focusing on the awards shows' issues).

So... I'm conflicted. I'd hate to say there should be a rule that at least two genders need to be represented in each category, but that might be the easiest way. Honestly, I don't actually think we'd frequently find ourselves with 5 nominees of all the same gender (although in the 2020 show it may have happened) but the threat of 4 male nominees multiple years in a row, or all-male winners or some such, is definitely a threat and we shouldn't pretend it isn't. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine ever having 5 female nominees or all-female winners. This industry is very male-leaning...

Anyway, that was long, but since all the other comments are just "how stupid," I felt like pointing out that it's not stupid or a simple question. But Reddit likes dismissing things that aren't easy to answer, so y'know, that's to be expected.

It's one of those band-aids that will -- and should -- be pulled off eventually. I say for something like the Academy Awards, they have Best Actor/Best Supporting Actor have no less than 5, upwards of 10 nominees just like Best Picture.

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Several females have won best director in the Oscars 90 year history.

If women don't get 51% of the trophies, they will complain.

Award shows aren't about equality. That's the point!