Rachel Zegler wins Best Action Movie Star… but is Songbirds & Snakes an action flick?

When the People’s Choice Award winners were announced on Sunday, there were a number of predictable categories: yes, Barbie would win Movie of the Year, Taylor Swift would win top female singer and Rachel Zegler would win Best Action Movie Star of the Year for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Wait, what? Is the prequel even an action movie?

According to the People’s Choice Awards, yes, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is indeed an action movie, right up there with John Wick: Chapter 4, Dead Reckoning and last year’s Marvel installments – you know, actual action movies. Sure, Songbirds & Snakes has some quasi-thrilling scenes, but there’s probably a reason that we didn’t once mention the word “action” in our review…

So, let’s take a look at who Rachel Zegler beat out: Tom Cruise, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Brie Larson, Chris Pratt, Keanu Reeves, and even one of her co-stars, Viola Davis. We’re not saying one is more deserving than the other here, just that Rachel Zegler was placed in the wrong category and there is a bit of ignorance as to what “action” is. But since there is no category for Best Action-Adventure That Works in Too Many Musical Numbers, perhaps they found where they placed her to be the most comfortable…

As we all know, things can get a bit loose when awards organizations begin to separate categories. While the People’s Choice Awards do feel off base here, the biggest guilty party has always been the Golden Globes, who divide lead acting and Best Motion Picture categories between drama and comedy. Remember when The Martian was nominated as the best comedy movie of 2015? Or when Michelle Williams won Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for My Week with Marilyn? And that’s not even going into other issues with category fraud relating to screen time, which goes all the way up to the grandest awards stage of them all: the Oscars – but that’s another problem for another article.

Do you think Rachel Zegler deserved to be in the running in the action category? If not, was there another she should have been in? Give us your take on the matter in the comments section below.