amelia_tkc5cua7kgv6's profile

5 Messages

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282 Points

Wednesday, January 1st, 2020 10:33 PM

4

Non-Gendered Acting Roles

IMDB. It is now 2020. Why are we still gendering actors? No other job category requires a gender. Why should actors? 

Please provide a non-gendered option for people who prefer their gender to be removed from their work. (i.e. everybody).

Thanks,
Amelia

41 Messages

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1.9K Points

5 years ago

Obviously each professional should provide that information in the manner she or he wants. For the great majority of users of this or other sites, what you call gendered acting roles are a great help.
In Spain where I live, there have always been ACTRICES and ACTORES, and few people would have it any other way. Plus we have Presidentas, directoras and so forth.
The same goes for other European languages I know.
No-one should feel slighted by this, but if they do, let them just 'do their own thing.'

5 Messages

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282 Points

He, She or They*. Gender is not binary. I understand this is difficult in the Spanish language though because almost everything is gendered to be masculine or feminine. (Or so my Spanish speaking friends tell me)

Champion

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4K Messages

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244.1K Points

5 years ago

Amelia, problem goes both ways. Arguably word "actor" is non-gendered, per se, but many perceive it as, traditionally, a "male" word and argue that we crucially need feminitives, because original words are implying that professions are dominated by men. 

In Ukraine, for example, feminitves for most professions were just recently introduced, so we do have a feminitve for "director", among other things. It is considered by most a progressive move, so it's interesting to see that the very opposite is in demand in an English-speaking world. Although, of course, there are specifics attached to this situation in acting, which could merit for its own book or article. 

I do think that the middle grounds and other options are needed too and for multiple reasons: many times while adding names from end credits there are some cases which need further re-checking in terms of gender and that still might not help, leaving contributor with the only option of assuming actor's gender, which is not exactly a great thing on many levels.    

5 Messages

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282 Points

The problem is, you can't select 'Actor' on IMDB without being assigned he/him pronouns. 
I agree that the word Actor is gender neutral. But IMDB's system is not.

Champion

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3K Messages

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72.5K Points

5 years ago

I'm guessing not everyone wants the gender removed from their profession. It's going to take a while for sites like IMDb to catch up to gender not being binary. It's a legacy from their origination which was decades ago.