Talk:Actor

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[edit] Actress as bad English

No, sorry. A word that has been in common usage since the 17th Century does not become 'bad English' simply because of 21st Century revisionist thinking. If you want to make a note of your reasoning, do that, but you can't just simply write something about accurate grammar as if that is common knowledge. The argument against the use of 'actor' for females in the latter part of the 20th Centure was sexism, not grammar. 22:39, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

It is good to know that time turns wrongs right. Do English nouns have gendered endings? No, they do not. And yet we have evidence that attempts to give some English nouns gendered endings (my favorites are professress, negress, and lawyeress) have been sucessfull. Does that change the structure of the English language? I guess only for actor/actress and waitor/waitress. If "actress" is good English, then so is "doctress", "editress", and "professress". We will have to develop words like "Americanne" and revive ones like "juress". It would be much simpler to acknowledge to faults of our ancestors (they tried to impose Latin grammar onto English) and rid our language of these fiesty hold-outs. -Acjelen 04:27, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
Don't shoot the messenger. I am not responsible for the lack of guardianship of the English language. "Flammable" is apparently a word, and how an envelope becomes 'self-addressed and stamped' is beyond me. The fact is that 'waitress', 'stewardess', 'temptress', actress' and 'negress', and 'jewess' were all successful; the latter two having been dumped, I would guess, because of racism, not gramatical incorrectness. Quill 01:26, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
"Do English nouns have gendered endings?" Yes, some do. Actress is a good example of one. Misodoctakleidist 01:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Actress is probably not yet in the realm of "bad english", but as for formal writing, most style guides recommend using gender-neutral versions of job titles.--Fallout boy 12:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Some style guides advice against split infinitives and other nonesense. Style guides don't represent some sort of eternal truth. Languages change - get used to it.Misodoctakleidist 01:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • "Actress" is actually a much less sexist term to use than "actor" when describing a woman. To use a masculine (or masculine-sounding) term even for the women of a profession indicates that the profession is masculine, even when a woman is holding it. For example, "lawyer" sounds neutral, but to call a woman a fireman instead of a firewoman or firefighter would insinuate that it is a job for men, though currently being held by a woman. A man is an actor, a woman an actress. What is sexist is the belief that femininity in a word implies patronization. Polyhymnia
Calling a woman an actor is not sexist. The reason using words like "fireman" is considered sexist is because the word "man" is explicity in it, implying that only men can be firefighters. An "actor" was a completely gender-neutral term (and whether it sounds masculine is subjective from one person to another) until someone came up with the idea of adding -ess and -ette to the end of every job title to create a female version. Just look as this style guide [1]. If you argue that the femininity in a word implies patronization, how does that make "lawyer" any different? (Would "lawyeress" or "lady lawyer" be more appropriate?)--Fallout boy 05:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
It's not sexist and in formal writing "actor" is advocated by some as preferable, as indicated in the Teeside reference, but I disagree with your argument. The suffix "or" changes a verb to a noun and creates a masculine word, with it's feminine equivalent using the suffix "ress" or "rix". It wasn't that "someone" invented this. This is how the English language was created and evolved and other languages took a similar path. "Or" is traditionally used to indicate male professions or roles and this was the original intent despite the fact that the significance of the meaning has been lost over time. "Actor" was never "a completely gender-neutral term" and whether or not it sounds masculine is not purely a subjective matter. The origin of the word is masculine and the masculine character of the word survives. The gender neutral suffix is actually "er", but the word "acter" has never existed. So "dancer", "runner", "swimmer" etc are gender neutral words, and that is also the difference with your "lawyer" example. "Aviator", "executor", "mediator", "doctor" and "actor" are male terms regardless of the fact the actual profession or role is no longer exclusively male. This is supported in part at Wiktionery [2]. Is it necessary to be arguing over semantics when the word "actress" is very much a commonly used word? Although I dispute your reasoning, I agree that "actor" is acceptable and with time is gaining even more acceptance as a gender neutral term, even though it's not, but I disagree that "actress" is unacceptable. Rossrs 01:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Regardless, 'actress' is still used precisely because it does distinguish female members of the profession. Award ceremonies spring to mind. Jon.baldwin 01:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I prefer actor. — Skinnyweed (Talk | contribs) 17:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added what I hope is a neutrally worded section on the matter. The article previously said baldly that "actor" referred to a male. I know several female actors who would disagree strongly. By the way, as I cited in the article, the Oxford English Dictionary says "ACTOR was originally used for both sexes" (under the entry for "actress"). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Women who feel the need to refer to themselves as Actors must have issues. Actor and Actress have the exact same meaning, aside from sex. They are completely equal! Do females feel that males act better? Is that why they feel the need to describe themselves as such? If feminists are so proud to be females, why do they feel the need to describe themselves as men? --Hayden5650 11:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, I have never been so happy that I am not American. I'm in New Zealand, where our actors are actors and our actresses are actresses, and are proud to be as such. We have chairmen and postmen, firemen and policmen, stewards and hosts, and we also have chairwomen, postwomen, policewomen, stewardesses and hostesses. Our young men are Masters, and our young women are Miss, whilst grown and married are Mr and Mrs.

What's next in America? Are woman going to stop being wives and refer to themselves as Husbands also? Thankyou God for not making me American. --Hayden5650 11:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's Rosie O'Donnell . . . 169.199.113.167 02:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear whatever next? Actor and actress have been used side-by-side for such a long time, what is the commotion about? It is not sexist - it's just one of those ideas by people looking for something new to complain about - the term racism is also getting way out of hand.
I've worked with many females in the productions I've been in, and all of them are proud to call themselves 'ACTRESSES'. You say to them, 'Is this what you want to do when your older?' and the always reply along the lines of 'Yes, I want to be an actress.' END OF STORY. (You'd sooner refer to people like Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Emma Watson and Imelda Staunton as actresses rather than actors...) Lradrama 07:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Might I suggest that the term "Actor" denoting a female be labelled as an Americanism, or perhaps American English. I am British and the usage there is not common, indeed it sounds ridiculous. It even sounds absurd in an American context as the Academy Awards themselves include a "best actress" category. As the job is identical for both sexes perhaps a duel title Actor/Actress (if possible) could serve as a comprise and a mention of PC thinking within the article itself might allow people to decide for themselves. --Philip Corner 01:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization

There's a discussion going on about subcategorization of film actors at Category talk:Film actors. NickelShoe 22:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

The next time someone decides to vandalise this page, I would really appreciate it if they at least made it clever.

Yeah. Then whoever did the clever vandalism would have the pleasure of feeling witty for the five seconds before the vandalism is reverted. Russian F 00:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acting Awards revision

There needs to be a specification that the acting awards listed in the "Acting awards" section are of the Western side of the world. This section does not reflect international viewpoints as there are plenty of other foreign acting awards. --WongFeiHung 00:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing "This article or section does not cite its references or sources".

I think that with over 30 references and sources it's time to remove this template now, and I have done so. JohnClarknew 22:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Player as a term for actors

Right, there's been ongoing feuding about the term player for a few days now, and it's getting out of hand, with reverts that will culminate in a war if we're all not careful.

Player IS a term for actor, but it was more used in the past centuries than it is now. Actor is more the unisex version nowadays, describing men and women. That means that player can be included in this article. I'd prefer it not to be in the introduction for this reason though. The intro. sentence includes 'The term actor (or actress). If we add 'player', then we'll have people adding 'thespian' and what not, and we'll have a rediculously long list.

Player and what-not is fine elsewhere in the article for now. Lradrama 10:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Get real, player is not a term for actress or actor. When was the last time you heard people speaking of 'the players in the movie'? If you want an article about playing, create it, but keep it out of actor/actress, along with the sentences saying that 'actress' is marginal in use. --Hayden5650 11:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players" as a obscure playwright had it. The phrase "bit player" meaning minor actor is still in common use: for example [3], [4] and [5]. Its a legitimate historical and current term that is used, as Bill reminds us, for both men and women. Please stop trying to impose your own political view on this article. Gwernol 11:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

There you are! Thanks for that Gwernol. It's quite obvious you're fighting a loosing battle Hayden5650, because that's at least 4 people who've supported the addition of "player" in the article (from what I've seen on the history and this talkpage). You are abviously in no way aquainted with acting - leave this article alone if you can't edit it sensibly. Lradrama 12:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Well said. A note to all editors, just because you personally have not heard a term doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are some older movies where the cast is credited as "players" as well. However, off the top of my head I can't think of what they might be. Olivier's Hamlet, maybe. At any rate, it's a real term and I think Gwernol and others have magnificently demonstrated that. However, I would like to see the "The words actor and actress" section better sourced. -- MisterHand 13:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Being an aficionado of film noir, I see the term "player" used in the credits in almost every noir I see. See for yourself. High Sierra, The Public Enemy, etc..Parable1991 17:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. In the early days of sound film, actors were almost always credited as "players".Celtic Emperor 00:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


Case settled then. Player is a term for actor. Thanks to everyone who took part in the discussion. Lradrama 08:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


I disagree with masculine-only use of the word actor in this article. The word actor according to my dictionary [the Macquarie 3rd edition (C) 1997] says that actor is a gender-neutral noun. The -ess of actor form in my dictionary exactly says "a female actor" rather than "feminine form of actor".

Also, did you realize that actor according to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/actor is being describes as an epicene (gender-neutral) noun.

Like the word player, actor is an agent noun (i.e. nouns derived from verbs plus -ar/-er/-or, or nouns sharing same form as the verb like author, clown, host). It is logical and lingually uniform to treat all agent nouns as gender-neutral without exception. I am a fan of gender-neutral language, and I consider to always be bad English to don't treat all agent nouns as epicenes. My little rule includes but not limiting to words such as actor, host, waiter, etc.

There is another and also epicene word which is a synonym to the word actor, it is thespian.

On Google: I have received about 2,550,000 Google hits on female actor, and about 2,060,000 Google hits on male actors, as for the word thespian (synonym of actor), I have received about 1,060,000 Google hits)

Did you realize Wikipedia uses a patchwork of "male actor"/"female actor" (politically correct) and "actor"/"-ess" (politically incorrect) here and there. An example of "male actor"/"female actor" on Wikipedia is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_television_actors and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_male_television_actors and there is a mixed example on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_movie_actors

Thankyou for contributing to this discussion. Well backed-up arguments are always valued here. So, basically, you are saying you support the use of female actor rather than actress and that you support terms like player and thespian? Lradrama 14:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I see that these debates are a few months old now, but there is a semantic distinction that hasn't been touched on between player and actor; the distinction has 'played' a significant role in the history of drama in many different periods - look at Robert Weimann's discussion about the shifts between "common players" (rouges, vagabonds and undesirables subject to incredibly harsh legal penalties) to "excellent actors" (sanctioned, aristocratically-supported, sedentary for the most part), which relates to self-presentational performance vs. personated representation, in Shakespeare's time. There is a similar dynamic in Stanislavski's choice of terms to describe his approach to acting - Igrat' vs. Deistvovat' or to play and to act; they mean very different things to him and imply very different conceptions of theatre and the art of acting. That both terms are still current is clear from what's been said above; that they are used disproportionately is also clear; but there are lots of historically-determined and ideological and aesthetic valencies in that disproportionate use, which mean that they are not mere synonyms for one another. We have two words because they grasp two different sites of shifting meaning. It's the job of an article in a project like this to trace those shifts and differences, not to either pretend one term doesn't exist, nor to pretend they mean the same thing. DionysosProteus 04:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gender usage

I came across this page by chance just now and was surprised at this section. I realize that worldwide usage may be different, but I certainly don't think that the gender-neutral form of "actor" is confined to American feminists. All of my dictionaries, for example, define it as a gender-neutral term (including Merriam-Webster, Heritage, Longman, even the compact Oxford.) I frequently hear the term "actor" used for women, and it does not stand out as a political statement. This section is not a neutral description of current usage. To suggest that one should use "player" to avoid some sort of controversy is absurd, and detracts from the integrity of the article. –Taranah 22:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is the first on this talkpage. Up there ^ Lradrama 08:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I read that discussion but I was commenting specifically on the content of this section. Perhaps I should have appended this above, but the existing discussion appears to be primarily about the history of the word and whether or not the term "actor" should be considered as sexist, or whether feminists are crazy, or why Kiwis are more enlightened than Americans. I just wanted to point out that this section of the article is inaccurate at present. Right or wrong, many non-feminists use actor as a gender-neutral term these days. I grant that usage in the U.S. may be different than elsewhere, but it is certainly not only feminists who use it in this way. The fact that so many dictionaries define it in gender neutral terms also suggests that usage has changed. (If I should post further comments above instead of here, I will do so. I am also happy to move this existing bit up there, but wasn't sure what the etiquette was on retroactive-edits of talk pages.) –Taranah 22:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with what you're saying. Actor is the general term for both sexes (as is player and thespian), but 'actress' is still widely in use to describe female performers, and I do not think it should be omitted from the article. Look at Wikipedia articles describing female actors; 'Magge Smith/Julie Walters, etc is an English (film, television and stage) actress.' However, all suggestions and objections are very, very welcome, and Taranah, you can still write your comments down here, it's OK. Lradrama 08:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what exactly is this sentence supposed to mean?

"Actress" remains a commonly-used word; However, whilst it was traditionally used in the context of the performing arts to refer to male performers only, it is now frequently used to refer to both men and women.

Now "Actress" is being used to refer to men also? Since when? Ospinad 16:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

That clearly indentifies as a mistake. I will change it. Thanks for bringing the matter to attention. Lradrama 14:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Erm, where is that sentence in the article exactly? Lradrama 14:49, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Kwthsik.jpg

Image:Kwthsik.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 03:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Translation, Please?

What does the foreign language text at the beginning of this talk page say? Translation required. - Ageekgal 04:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it. Absolutely know-one except someone who just happens to know that language will understand it, the person who put it on hasn't replied and the talkpage simply looks a mess. No time for things like that. Lradrama 14:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I is Japanese, and starts "I am" (watashi wa) but my many year ago high school Japanese class does me little else for a translation. --TeaDrinker 16:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)