Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 February 7

= February 7 =

Why grammy split some awards into male and female is this some sort of handicap??
Why grammy awards (on some awards), academy awards (on actors awards), and others awards split into male and female is this some sort of handicap? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.89.155.111 (talk) 17:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * In crowded, popular fields like singing and acting, splitting the categories into male & female allows you to give out more awards, which makes everyone happy. —Kevin Myers 17:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That's probably why they did it, but there's nothing intrinsically different about the acting that males do as compared with the acting that females do. The male/female split for the acting profession makes as much sense as having awards for left-handed and right-handed performers, or gay and straight ones, or married and single ones, or Jewish and gentile ones or ....  In fact, it makes even less sense than some of these, as the PC police would have us refer to them all as "actors" anyway, regardless of their sex.  Try splitting the costume design or direction or film score or make-up awards into males and females, and see how far you'd go, after the gales of uproarious laughter have subsided.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a pretty logical break-point. Males and females sing differently, so it can be difficult to do a straight across comparison. It makes sense for acting too, as the roles available for females are dramatically different than the ones for females. It's a little more diverse now, but it would not be at all fair to compare an actor from the 1930s straight across to an actress from the 1930s. They had completely different expectations and available roles.
 * "Costume design" could conceivably be split up into "costumes for females" and "costumes for males", I don't see what that would provoke "gales of laughter", but it would be awkward, because the costumes are usually judged as a complete set. A costume is no good if it doesn't match the costumes being worn by the other characters. Same with makeup. APL (talk) 02:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * 202 is incorrect. I don't have a reference, but I'd say over 80% of Hollywood movies (the main recipients of the Academy Awards) have a male protagonist and male villain, which is where the Best Actor awards are generally drawn from; uniting the "Actor" and "Actress" awards would lead to male dominance of the "Acting" category overall.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Unlikely. More than 20% of Hollywood movies are RomComs, and they rarely have the two main actors both male. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Then the PC police should just shut up, and let us refer to male thespians as "actors" and female thespians as "actresses", exactly as the Academy does, and exactly as most normal people do anyway. It is ridiculous to see encyclopedia entries describing people like Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, and Meryl Streep as "actors", because of some misguided latter-day thing about avoidance of discrimination.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   19:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know about Meryl Streep for sure, but if the the other three were alive and someone called them an "actor", they would probably slap the questioner or at least tell them they need glasses. Regarding male/female roles, you do get some role-reversal occasionally (consider Xena, for example), but acting is typically going to follow traditional male/female assumptions. Costume design is awarded for an entire film, not for individual actors in a film. Likewise for an award like Best Song. The problem of apples-and-oranges mixing can be seen in the British talent show where Susan Boyle finished second to some hip-hop dancers. A little bit like having some sort of "ultimate Super World Series Bowl", with the New York Yankees playing against the New Orleans Saints. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Or comparing a reasonably faithful portrayal of "Shakespeare"'s play Romeo and Juliet in the 1968 film version, with West Side Story, which, whatever its other merits, was hardly that. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That's more like apples and pears. My favorite part of West Side Story is where the hero gets stabbed once, by what looks like a pocket knife, and goes into death throes, meanwhile singing "There's a Place for Us" (not to be confused with, "A Time for Us"). Why am I getting this deja vu all of a sudden? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

title of a YouTube video
hi. does somebody the title of this soundtrack? --84.185.78.35 (talk) 20:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The instructions for getting the title of the song and the song itself are right there in the video commentary (the text that shows up with the video)... wiki:AGF can be so frustratingly difficult sometimes... TomorrowTime (talk) 22:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I saw that as well but my guess is that the OP doesn't want to go through all that rigmarole to get the title, which seems fair enough to me. --Richardrj talkemail 23:40, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Your guess seems like a logical one as it does seem like a lot of unnecessary work, but maybe the OP should have pointed that out, then. We're only human, after all. I don't think we have a mindreader here. Argh, AGF, AGF. TomorrowTime (talk) 23:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I knew you were going to say that. Woogee (talk) 07:57, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's also possible the IP is subtly spamming for that original composition. Got us all to watch it, don'cha know. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:12, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * man.... of course i followed the instructions, but i didn't got an answer, like the other users too ;) so i decided to ask you..... xoxo--84.185.78.35 (talk) 12:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Aha, so you were being spammed just like the rest of us. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Try Shazam. --Richardrj talkemail 12:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)