Marvel’s ‘She-Hulk’ Actress Jameela Jamil Wants To Keep Gendered Acting Awards, Proposes Giving Non-Binary People Their Own Category “Rather Than Open The Door For Hollywood To Completely Shut Out Women”
As the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has begun debating whether or not to appease the growing number of non-binary actors and their fans by eliminating gendered acting awards, Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law actress and noted social justice activist Jameela Jamil has proposed that the Academy instead give them their own separate award category in order to prevent women from being “completely shut out” of Hollywood.
Raising the topic on June 17th via a lengthy post published to her personal Instagram account, Jamill questioned, “Just asking. Would it not be better to give non-binary people their own category rather than open the door for Hollywood to completely shut out women given the known disproportionate amount of men vs women winning at award shows?”
“If we now have enough non-binary talent to restructure entire award shows, which is great, then we should add rather than run the accidental risk of erasing no?” she further pressed.
“I say this as an audience member because I am not going t[o] be nominated for an Oscar anyway, obviously lol,” the Good Place actress clarified. “I have no horse in this race.”
“It is a shame that this disparity exists in the first place,” Jamil then acknowledged. “But it does exist. It is blatant and it makes the news every year within awards shows. I have learned during my 18 years of activism, that while some backlash is inevitable and indeed helpful, some of it only muddies the waters and slows down progress.”
“I feel as though we will see a growing ire from women who get shut out of award opportunities (again not me, I am frankly not talented enough to care about this from that place!)” stated the Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin actress. “Because we have created only one spot for a winner amongst 10s of thousands of actors, in a world that favors men.”
“I don’t think it will help women or NB [non-binary] people to minimize the amount of winners,” she continued. “We should look to expand the number of winners. We should look to expand the possibilities that both GNC [gender non conforming) people and women have a fair shot in the industry that has for a long time struggled to treat others equal to men.”
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In the post’s final slide, Jamil admitted that though she “was terrified of even writing something as benign as that in this climate of social politics,” her confidence in her assertion was bolstered by the fact that “it appears a lot of you agree.”
“Thank you for taking my best intention to heart and for giving me the benefit of the doubt,” she said. “I want everyone to win! To build the world we want to have to work incrementally with the world we actually have first. If we leapfrog with utopian ideals that ignore current proven systems we collapse everything we are working towards.”
Continuing her argument in the post’s caption, Jamil explained, “This is regarding the Oscars looking to get rid of gendered acting awards. As we see with the director award which is genderless, it’s rare to even see a woman nominated never mind win.”
“I want to open more doors and create more tables, not narrow the opportunities for everyone, including GNC people,” the actress declared. “If we do Athlete of the year, without gender, it is highly unlikely that aside from the odd year of affirmative action, for optics, that anyone other than a cis man is going to win, because they dominate that world.”
“They generate the most income for the industry, get the most attention and are the biggest stars/names,” she then recognized. “And yes, that is frustrating, but as I said in these slides, we cannot bank on utopian changes, we have to work incrementally to create change and visibility.”
“The same exists across most industries in the world,” Jamil added. “More visibility, more categories, more winners to represent more people.”
“I posted this on main because thousands of people in my DMs asked me to, because they agree with this, but for some reason feel too afraid to say it publicly,” The former Legendary judge detailed. “That is ridiculous. This is a post about inclusion, not exclusion. It’s about making more space. About adding seats to the table. We need to be able to ask and discuss these things with love, compassion and honest logic.”
“Saying let’s do away with awards shows entirely isn’t an answer to this,” she argued. “Please just don’t write if ‘burn it all down’ is your only response. Awards shows aren’t going to go away, they’re a part of this industry, they make some people happy, they enjoy watching them, it celebrates art, and provides frivolous entertainment sometimes in a pretty bleak doom scrolling world. I don’t especially care about awards, but I do see the light entertainment value and I do like seeing someone who has made amazing contributions, be recognized.”
“Watching Olivia Coleman make awards speeches is all I watch on YouTube because she’s hilarious,” Jamil concluded. “It’s a bit of fun. Please just let me know solutions, beyond destruction. I’m genuinely trying to get to the bottom of something. I want us to be realistic and logical. Thank you.”
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