The Award for Unnecessary Awards Category Goes to ...

As the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences mull over their choices this year, I pause to ask one, perhaps impertinent, question about the best actress category: Why does it exist?

After all, there is no award for the best screenplay by a woman. Sofia Coppola wasn’t nominated as best female director. There’s no award for a best picture by a woman producer. Why are there separate acting awards divided by gender?

There doesn’t appear to be anything about acting skill that is gender-specific. In fact, many women insist on being called actors and bristle at the designation of “actress” because they believe it to be demeaning, like the term “authoress.”

A writer is a writer, and an actor is an actor. Aren’t these gender-designated categories just relics of a less-enlightened time? There are no separate categories based on race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual preference or any other element of diversity. Why not best performance by a Latino in a leading role?

It’s worth noting that women haven’t been burning their SAG cards to protest gender-specific awards categories. The reasons aren’t hard to figure out. Thanks in part to the prevalence of action pictures with a worldwide audience, fewer women get starring roles, or even substantial supporting roles, than men. Male stars have more box office clout. Having their own categories means that more women are more likely to get more attention, which helps all women actors.

So the inevitable conclusion is this: The best actress (and best supporting actress) award is an affirmative action program that redresses contemporary imbalances and historical inequalities that otherwise would continue.

Black actors may not be nominated in the numbers they deserve, but when they win, they really win. Denzel Washington was not the best black actor, nor was Halle Berry the best black actress. They were the best, period. But the Oscars have gender-specific acting awards today because these awards have always been there, because the press and public like them and because nobody seems to want it any other way.