In May, MTV’s decision to create a “gender neutral” award for Best Actor at the MTV Movie and TV Awards was presented as a progressive step in the right direction.
In her acceptance speech, Emma Watson, who won Best Actor for her role in Beauty and the Beast, said, “The first acting award in history that doesn’t separate nominees based on their sex says something about how we perceive the human experience.” She added that, to her, the gender neutral award “indicates that acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes — and that doesn’t need to be separated into two different categories.”
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