Ageism at the Oscars?

[BoSoxGal]

[Big RR]

Back to the OP, I think the producers of the films/studios have a pretty big hand in which actors/roles are considered leading/supporting when they lobby for the nominations.

edited to add: if I remember correctly, the actor who played the old priest in Going My Way (I think his name was McGwire) was nominated for both best actor and best supporting actor (which he won while Crosby won the best actor, I think) for the same role in the same film.

Second addition: It was actually Barry Fitzgerald; http://oscarmovs.com/goingmyway.html

[Andrew D]

Why reserve one award for a man and one for a woman in the first place? Why not just "Best Human Performer" -- i.e., "Best Actor" -- "in a Leading Role"?

[rubato]

For economic reasons.

Eliminating one gender in each category would reduce the total economic value of the Oscars.

Not fucking likely.

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

The whole Academy Awards have politicized themselves long ago...

[thestoat]

Why reserve one award for a man and one for a woman in the first place

Maybe to remove the tendency to bias (there is enough bias towards the young and good looking as it is). If there was just a "Best thespian" award then there would probably be a skew towards men winning. Then there would be arguments over if that was endemic misogynism or because there were more men in leading roles, and it would taint the awards.

Rather like in the UK, where Labour (maybe Tories too) say there must be x% of women in the party, and in cases have discriminated against men by drawing up all women shortlists. If I was female, I wouldn't feel good about myself winning a place that way, and you do get background rumbles of "she only got that because she is a woman".

[rubato]

Why reserve one award for a man and one for a woman in the first place

Maybe to remove the tendency to bias (there is enough bias towards the young and good looking as it is). If there was just a "Best thespian" award then there would probably be a skew towards men winning. Then there would be arguments over if that was endemic misogynism or because there were more men in leading roles, and it would taint the awards.

Rather like in the UK, where Labour (maybe Tories too) say there must be x% of women in the party, and in cases have discriminated against men by drawing up all women shortlists. If I was female, I wouldn't feel good about myself winning a place that way, and you do get background rumbles of "she only got that because she is a woman".

There is a brief period in history where that is true.

But once the institutional biases against women are gone then women are accepted as having earned their place.

More than 20 years ago women became about half of medical school admissions based on merit alone and we stopped hearing that kind of crap.

Any institution which has not reached that point is behind the curve.

yrs,
rubato

[thestoat]

Any institution which has not reached that point is behind the curve.

There's plenty of them out there

[rubato]

History takes a longer time than you think it will, sometimes.

yrs,
rubato