Red carpets have always been a clash of fame, sponsored content and super-cute shoes. The red carpet is where huge, powerful industries — celebrity, fashion, Hollywood, media, beauty, publicity — meet. Now that the curtain is finally being lifted on some of the grimy underbelly of Hollywood, we feel it’s more important than ever to not treat awards shows as silly things for silly people.
Given the enormity of our cultural reckoning in the last year with how women are treated in the workplace, on the internet and in Hollywood, we want to take a fresh look at how we cover this stuff. We have some plans about how to recognize the cultural moment — and would love to hear from readers about what you would like to see (and not see).
I’ll be very interested to see where this goes. I don’t watch red carpet coverage (and won’t do it anymore myself) because it is so vapid. I hope they ask people on the red carpet about why the projects were so important to them and what they hope people will think about what they see. And that they give credit to the hard work of the designers they are wearing, too.
I’m excited to be returning to Los Angeles for the Critics Choice Awards, which will be broadcast on Thursday, January 11, 2018 on the CW. Please tune in as it will be filled with stars and surprises. Host Olivia Munn will preside and the show includes awards for movies and television.
Many people were given awards at the 2018 Golden Globes, but there was just one winner and that was the #metoo movement and the cause of women’s equality. From the sea of black gowns that women attendees wore as a sign of the “Time’s Up” movement to the barbed comments from host Seth Meyer, presenters like Natalie Portman and Reese Witherspoon, the theme of the night was that discrimination and abuse will no longer be tolerated and women’s voices will no longer be silenced. As Meryl Streep said, ““We feel emboldened in this moment to stand together in a thick black line dividing then from now.” (The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan points out that many women declined to give credit to their designers on the red carpet. This is something of a mixed message as on one hand they want to be seen as more than mannequins representing the designers, but on the other hand, as creative artists they should respect the work of the designers and their staffs that made their finery, well, fine.)
Many of the women who attended brought non-celebrity activists with them including the founder of the #metoo initiative, Tarana Burke. Several speakers emphasized that the movement is inclusive of people outside the Hollywood celebrity community.
Unquestionably the show’s high point was Oprah Winfrey. It was fun to see some of the biggest stars a bit abashed when they took the podium to accept their awards and saw her sitting in the front row. Winfrey herself took the stand to accept the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille award, the first black woman to receive it. Her nine-minute speech was stem-winding, spell-binding, and just plain thrilling. The Baltimore Sun called it “a moving jolt of moral authority.”
Winfrey spoke about being a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of her mother’s home, waiting for her to come in from cleaning other people’s houses, and seeing Sidney Poitier receive the Oscar for “Lilies of the Field,” realizing for the first time that even for a poor black girl, the possibilities were endless. She spoke to the girls out there now, who needed to get that message from her.
Many of the most significant awards went to stories about women, including HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” Amazon’s “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Hulu’s “Handmaid’s Tale,” and the film “Lady Bird.” Portman noted in presenting the Best Director award that all of the nominees were male, excluding “Lady Bird’s” writer/director Greta Gerwig.
Men of color made some news as well, with Sterling K. Brown (“This is Us”) as the first black man to win Best Actor in a Television Series and Aziz Ansari became the first South Asian man to win Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
Meyers was a capable host, making some pointed jokes and some welcome points during his monologue and then getting out of the way. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association made some progress in improving its reputation with million-dollar grants to two journalist organizations, including one of my favorites, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Some of the other highlights: Amy Sherman-Palladino’s heartfelt “Spanx, oy” comment when she accepted her award for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Carol Burnett and the Thelma and Louise team up of presenters and the tribute to Kirk Douglas not just as an actor but as a fearless advocate in breaking the blacklist, underscoring the evening’s themes of integrity and justice.
“Unrest” is a very personal story of the misunderstood and underestimated disease of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Filmmaker Jennifer Brea was a Harvard PhD student soon to be engaged when she was struck down by a mysterious fever that left her bedridden. As her illness progressed she lost even the ability to sit in a wheelchair, yet doctors insisted it was “all in her head.” Unable to convey the seriousness and depth of her symptoms to her doctor, Jennifer began a video diary on her phone that eventually became the powerful and intimate documentary. Once Jennifer was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), she and her new husband, Omar, were left to grapple with how to shape a future together in the face of a lifelong illness.
Follow the hashtag #UnrestPBS and add your own story.
