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I have just seen, on facebook, a photo of her in 1965 and the text reads
"British actress Helen Mirren 1965. At rehearsal playing Egyptian queen Cleopatra in the National Youth Theatre at the Old Vic. She was born Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov in London."
Our entry is sourced to a New Yorker article/interview, which is more reliable than a facebook page. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:24, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The article should say "actress" instead. —theMainLogan (t•c) 14:47, 15 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Why? Actor is a gender-neutral term. It means "One who acts". It can apply to men & women. -- SteveCrook (talk) 14:57, 15 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Then why do the categories say "actresses" instead of "female actors", "women actors", etc.? —theMainLogan (t•c) 20:05, 16 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Because they're still behind the times :) -- SteveCrook (talk) 09:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah it's an oddity. Standard wikipedia rules state we go with common name. In English female actors are near universally called "actresses" and that rule applies to all other actresses on here. Mirren is referred to as an actress by almost all the media.
She herself has said she wants to be called an actor. Now normally on wikipedia that sort of thing is largely ignored - there are exceptions around nationality and increasingly around questions of transexualism and new names etc. But nowhere else is one allowed to insist on referring to a profession in a different way.
All I can tell you though is that if you follow wikipedia's good prctices and change it to actress, even if you find 10 or 20 reputable, international sources to back it up, you'll come under sustained attack and have it reversed and run this risk of your account being banned. Over the years quite a few others have tried but a hardcore of obsessives who claim that normal English is "behind the times" have decided to use Mirren's article as a means to advance a political feminist agenda and so far have managed to get away with it. It's a pity as it undermines the notion of wikipedia as an apolitical, well sourced approach to truth, but I suppose nothing is perfect. 2A00:23C7:988:6601:B58B:2CFA:9765:DE29 (talk) 22:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
