- This is the 28th year for the awards and the third to combine movie and TV awards.
- The MTV Awards has received a lot of attention for removing gender distinctions in the categories.
- The MTV Movie & TV Awards will be held on June 17, 2019.
The MTV Movie and TV Awards was formerly known as the ‘MTV Movie Awards’ but it was updated to include television shows last year. The ‘Movie’ part of the awards has gone on for 28 years now. The addition of television shows is partially a reflection of changing viewership trends and the high quality of many television programs. At some point, it’ll be tough to make a distinction between the two once the analog broadcast industry dies off and all visual entertainment is available ‘on demand’. It’s also a reflection of MTV’s ownership–they’re owned by Viacom who has a major financial connection to the TV industry. Viacom’s majority owner is National Amusements (80%) which also owns 80% of CBS after it was spun off in 2006. National Amusements’ majority owner is Sumner Redstone–he’s a longtime power player in the media business and also owns Paramount Pictures and a bunch of other things under the Viacom umbrella.
Last year, the MTV Movie and TV Awards were broadcast live in 2017, but was pre-taped in 2018 and presumably will be once again this year. The MTV publicity for the show is vague saying only that the ‘show will air’ on Monday, June 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. This year’s show will be hosted by Zachary Levi who starred in the Shazam! movie released earlier this year. Not surprisingly, he is also nominated for an award in the ‘Best Hero’ and ‘Best Comedic Performance’ categories. The nominees for the Awards are chosen by MTV ‘suits’ with the winner determined by viewer voting. Viewers are able to vote daily though there’s no transparency about the tabulation process. That always raises the concern that the outcome might be predetermined and particularly since MTV’s ownership hierarchy has a vested interest in making sure that certain shows and films ‘get over’.
SHAKE UP IN AWARD CATEGORIES
The MTV Movie and TV Awards got a lot of press a few years back for eliminating the gender specific term ‘actress’ from their categories. Men and women are both eligible for what was called the ‘Best Actor’ categories last year, but these categories have been renamed to ‘Best Performance’ this year. So far, there’s not been a mad rush by Hollywood to jump on the MTV ‘gender neutral’ bandwagon. On one hand, the change makes sense just like at some point the term ‘comedienne’ for ‘female comedian’ fell out of usage. Both genders are referred to now as ‘comedians’. On the other hand, actors–male and female–are a very egocentric sort. The change also means fewer awards to go around and that might become an issue. Additionally, change happens slowly at the upper echelons of the entertainment industry so it’s not a huge surprise that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and similar groups haven’t followed along.
The progressive gender designations notwithstanding, there isn’t much about the MTV Movie and TV Awards–or MTV for that matter–that could be construed as anything other than safely mainstream. The award categories have experienced some revision in recent years as well. ‘Best Duo’ was renamed to ‘Best On-Screen Team’ and has now apparently been eliminated altogether. ‘Best Documentary’ morphed into ‘Best Music Documentary’ and then back to the original title. The ‘Best Tearjerker’ category has been eliminated along with ‘Best American Story’ and ‘Next Generation’. ‘Best Host’ was eliminated but is back again though the reasoning why is downright inexplicable.
The ‘Best Reality Competition’ award was reworked into ‘Best Reality Series or Franchise’ and then revised again into ‘Reality Royalty’. A category for ‘Most Frightened Performance’ added last year along with a new category called ‘Scene Stealer’ but the latter has been rebranded as ‘Best Breakthrough Performance.. The most telling change is the neutering of a category called ‘Best Fight Against the System’ to merely ‘Best Fight’. It apparently didn’t dawn on the awards show producers until a couple of years ago, but MTV now is ‘the system’ and has been for many years.
Here’s the official SPORTS INSIDER betting odds for the 2019 MTV Movie and TV Awards:
MTV MOVIE AND TV AWARDS 2019 BETTING ODDS
BEST MOVIE
Avengers: Endgame -150
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse +350
BlacKkKlansman +600
Us +600
To All The Boys I've Loved Before +600
BEST SHOW
Game of Thrones +115
Riverdale +175
Haunting of Hill House +450
Big Mouth +700
Schitt's Creek +700
BEST PERFORMANCE IN A MOVIE
Lady Gaga/A Star Is Born -125
Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody +250
Lupita Nyong'o/Us +500
Sandra Bullock/Bird Box +700
Amandla Stenberg/The Hate U Give +700
BEST PERFORMANCE IN A SHOW
Emilia Clark/Game of Thrones +100
Elisabeth Moss/The Handmaid's Tale +250
Kiernan Shipka/The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina +250
Jason Mitchell/The Chi +1000
Gina Rodriguez/Jane the Virgin +1000
BEST HERO
Robert Downey, Jr./Avengers Endgame +125
Brie Larson/Captain Marvel +225
Maisie Williams/Game of Thrones +225
Zachery Levi/Shazam! +900
John David Washington/BlacKkKlansman +900
BEST KISS
N. Centineo and L. Condor/To All The Boys... +165
C. Mendes and C. Melton/Riverdale +250
J. Momoa and A.Heard/Aquaman +250
T. Hardy and M. Williams/Venom +550
N. Gatwa and C. Swindells/Sex Education +550
BEST COMEDIC PERFORMANCE
Awkwafina/Crazy Rich Asians +125
Zachary Levi/Shazam! +175
Dan Levy/Schitt's Creek +350
Marsai Martin/Little +750
John Mulaney/Big Mouth +750
BEST VILLAIN
Josh Brolin/Avengers: Endgame +110
Penn Badgley/You +300
Jody Comer/Killing Eve +300
Lupita Nyong'o/Us +600
Joseph Fiennes/The Handmaid's Tale +600
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Awkwafina/Crazy Rich Asians +150
Noah Centineo/To All The Boys I've Loved Before +175
MJ Rodriguez/Pose +300
Haley Lu Richardson/Five Feet Apart +700
Ncuti Gatwa/Sex Education +700
BEST FIGHT
Captain America v. Thanos -125
Arya Stark v. The White Walkers +200
Becky Lynch v. Ronda Rousey v. Charlotte Flair +500
Captain Marvel v. Min-Erva +750
Ruth Bader Ginsburg v. Inequality +1000
MOST FRIGHTENED PERFORMANCE
Sandra Bullock/Bird Box +150
Alex Wolf/Hereditary +200
Victoria Pedretti/Haunting of Hill House +300
Rhian Rees/Halloween +650
Linda Cardellini +650
REALITY ROYALTY
Jersey Shore: Family Vacation -125
The Bachelor +250
Vanderpump Rules +500
The Challenge +700
Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta +700
MOST MEME-ABLE MOMENT
Colton Underwood jumps the fence -175
Asia O'Hara's buttery finale fail +250
The Lilo Dance +550
Ray J's Hat +1000
The Notorious RBG +1000
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Surviving R. Kelly -125
RBG +150
At the Heart of Gold +750
Minding the Gap +1000
McQueen +1000
BEST HOST
RuPaul Charles -235
Trevor Noah +300
Nick Cannon/Masked Singer +750
Gayle King +1000
Nick Cannon/Wild 'n' Out +1000
BEST REAL LIFE HERO
Serena Williams -135
Roman Reigns +200
Ruth Bader Ginsburg +500
Alex Honnold +1000
Hannah Gadsby +1000
