Daily Times

In addition to some modified categories at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, the network announced a major change on how they will refer to their iconic trophy.

In a new interview, MTV President Chris McCarthy said the iconic “Moonman” is out, and the “Moon Person” is in.

“Why should it be a man?” McCarthy told the New York Times. “It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be transgender, it could be nonconformist.”

The move comes after MTV eliminated gender-specific categories at both their refurbished MTV Movie & TV Awards and the upcoming Video Music Awards; the network replaced Best Male Video and Best Female Video with the new Artist of the Year award.

At the MTV Movie & TV Awards, the Best Actor in a Show and Best Actor in a Movie categories included both male and female nominees, with ‘Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown and Beauty & the Beast’s Emma Watson winning the awards.

“The first acting award in history that doesn’t separate nominees based on their sex says something about how we perceive the human experience,” Watson said during her acceptance speech. “Acting is about the ability to put yourself into someone else’s shoes – and that doesn’t have to be separated into two different categories.”

McCarthy also revealed that MTV is currently developing a reality series showed We Are They about a group of gender-nonconforming young adults’ coming-of-age moments.

Additionally, McCarthy detailed the network’s plan to revive Total Request Live, which MTV initially announced in April. TRL will officially return to the network’s studio overlooking Times Square in October, with a rotating cast of five co-hosts replacing stalwart Carson Daly. The show will air daily for an hour, but McCarthy hopes the program expands to two or three hours as it finds its footing.

Published in Daily Times, August 2^nd 2017.