An indelible evening that celebrated women, from leading the conversation on sexual harassment to owning the characters of winning films and TV shows. This year’s Golden Globes was all about posed fairplay
Oprah Winfrey gave a movement-defining speech. Natalie Portman threw shade at the all-male directing nominees — while presenting that award — and then Geena Davis did the same for the actors. Barbra Streisand scoffed at the bleak fact that she remains the only female director to win a Golden Globe — and that was 34 years ago. Some of the highest-profile actresses brought female activists as their dates. And nearly every soul wore black in support of the Time’s Up movement and as a statement against sexual misconduct in Hollywood.
For once, everyone was listening to what the women of Hollywood had to say. And it all went down at — of all places — the Golden Globe Awards.
Yes, that boozy, questionable stepsister to the Academy Awards became the epicenter of a movement and the promise of a future where women are no longer content to be the industry's side show, the arm candy, the people sporting the barely there dresses to promote their barely their roles (and paychecks). From the red carpet to the winners table, men took a backseat. “It’s been a difficult year for our industry,” Reese Witherspoon, one of the champions of the Time’s Up initiative and the idea to wear black to the awards, said backstage with her Big little lies co-stars. “I think there was a collective feeling that it wouldn’t be business as usual.”
And indeed, the 75th Golden Globe Awards, held Sunday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel wasn’t business as usual. For one, it looked quite different from years past with attendees sporting all-black duds on the red carpet and speaking about issues that matter to them, to the unusually blunt skewering of an industry in flux by first-time host Seth Meyers.
“It’s 2018 — marijuana is finally allowed and sexual harassment finally isn’t,” Meyers said at the start of the show. “For the male nominees in the room tonight, this is the first time in three months it won't be terrifying to hear your name read out loud.”
But the Harvey Weinstein jabs mostly stopped there — the night wasn’t about the men who have been brought down by accusations of sexual misconduct, and no one encapsulated that better than Winfrey, who brought the often chatty and distracted crowd in the ballroom to rapt silence and even tears with her barnburner speech accepting the Cecil B DeMille Award for lifetime achievement — the first black woman to do so. She weaved together her own personal narrative and memories of seeing Sidney Poitier win an Academy Award when she was a girl, with the story of Recy Taylor and the #MeToo movement into the most memorable, and moving moment of the evening.
“For too long women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men,” said Winfrey. “But their time is up. Their time is up!”
Even the night’s two big winners, the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Big little lies, were notably female-focused. One, Three Billboards, about a mother avenging the rape and murder of her daughter, won best picture, drama, best actress, drama, for Frances McDormand, best supporting actor for Sam Rockwell and best screenplay for writer-director Martin McDonagh. The other, a tale of complex women and domestic abuse, Big little lies, won four awards, including best limited series, best actress for Nicole Kidman and best supporting actress for laura Dern.