Conversation

I don’t pay any attention to the Oscars anymore. I haven’t even heard of most of the movies that were nominated last week. But I perked up when a man was nominated in the Best Actress category.

I won’t see this movie. I don’t care. I don’t care about drug dealers or deranged men who think they are women. Well I care but only because of how we celebrate them, rather than treat them as the mental patients that they are, in need of help and care — yes, but not to be treated as social justice warriors/heroes.

Men have played women before. Women have played men or “trans” people before.

Linda Hunt played a man in The Year of Living Dangerously and won an Oscar in 1982. In the women’s category. Because Hunt is a woman. Dustin Hoffman was nominated for a best actor Oscar in the 1983 awards for playing Tootsie, a man who pretends to be a woman to get acting parts. (Sounds like Gascón). Robin Williams played Mrs. Doubtfire, a crotchety English nanny, and got hired by his ex-wife to be their children’s babysitter. He was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1994. In the men’s category. Because Williams was a man. And lastly, perhaps the most salient example, Hilary Swank played Brandon Teena (a “trans identified” female) in Boys Don’t Cry and won an Oscar in 1999. In the women’s category. Because Hilary Swank is a woman.

Why does it matter that Gascón — a man — was nominated in the women’s category? Should there even be a men’s and a women’s category for best actors when there is no advantage (like in sports) for men vs women? Maybe there shouldn’t be. But there are. And if there are two separate categories, and there are actually fewer great roles for women than men, then women should win in women’s.

The Oscars by Jennifer Sey

Juan Carlos Gascón has been nominated in the Best Actress category for his role as a "trans-identied" drug dealer in the film "Emilia Pérez."

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