On Sunday, January 5, millions of viewers tuned in to watch the 77th annual Golden Globes, celebrating the year’s most impressive entertainment. While host Ricky Gervais told the Hollywood audience not to use acceptances “as a platform to make a political speech,” many artists, mostly women, did use their privilege and spotlight to express political messages.
Among them was Michelle Williams, who received a Golden Globe for actress in a limited series for her role in FX’s “Fosse/Verdon”. Williams implied how abortion rights are critical to success and implored women across the country to vote for themselves and their lives.
“I’m … grateful to have lived in a moment in our society where choice exists because, as women and as girls, things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice.” She said she’d tried “to live a life of my own making … sometimes messy and scrawling, sometimes careful and precise, but one that I have carved with my own hand. And I would not have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose.”
She added, “So women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote, please do so in your own self-interest. It’s what men have been doing for years.” She paused for audience cheers. “It is what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them. Don’t forget we are the largest voting body in this country. Let’s make it look more like us.”
Another emotional speech was given by actress Kate McKinnon as she presented Ellen DeGeneres with the honorary Carol Burnett Award for excellence in television. “In 1997, when Ellen’s sitcom was at the height of its popularity, I was in my mother’s basement lifting weights in front of the mirror thinking, ‘Am I gay?’ And I was. And I still am. But that’s a very scary thing to suddenly know about yourself. It’s sort of like doing 23andMe and discovering you have alien DNA. And the only thing that made it less scary was seeing Ellen on TV.”
McKinnon went on, providing clarity on the very real impact of representation on young lives. “She risked her entire life and her entire career in order to tell the truth, and she suffered greatly for it. … If I hadn’t seen her on TV, I would have thought, ‘I could never be on TV. They don’t let LGBTQ people be on TV.’ And more than that, I would have gone on thinking that I was an alien and that I maybe even didn’t have a right to be here. So thank you, Ellen, for giving me a shot at a good life.”
In another acceptance speech, actress Patricia Arquette pleaded the public to vote in 2020.
“I know tonight, Jan. 5, 2020, we’re not going to look back on this night. In the history books, we will see a country on the brink of war, the United States of America. A president tweeting out a threat of 52 bombs, including cultural sites. Young people risking their lives traveling across the world. People not knowing if bombs are gonna drop on their kids’ heads. And the continent of Australia on fire. So while I love my kids so much, I beg of us all to give them a better world. For our kids and their kids, we have to vote in 2020, and we have to beg and plead for everyone we know to vote in 2020.”
Source : LA Times 1/6/20
