Acceptance speeches - Gratitude or Bully Pulpit
I watched the entire Golden Globes Award show tonight. I expected La La Land to do well but not to sweep all seven of the awards it was nominated for. Is this a tribute to how good it is, or simply the Hollywood Foreign Press Association membership (all 90 or so of them) feels about musicals?
What prompted me to blog about this tonight before I go to bed is the acceptance speech Meryl Streep gave in accepting the Cecille B. DeMille award on this night.
You can read the entire text of her remarks here. I don't disagree with any of her sentiments and had I been in the audience I would have joined in applauding her comments. Here is one excerpt.
"But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose. O.K., go on with it."
The question in my mind, is it appropriate to use the stage at an awards show to deliver a political message? The only reason the people in that room and a large segment of the worldwide audience aren't taking issue with her remarks is because they share her beliefs.
What if an award winner were to get up in front of this audience and delivered a speech extolling the virtues of Donald J. Trump, our nation's President-Elect, instead of taking issue with what he did on the campaign trail? Almost every person who applauded her comments would have sat in stone silence, probably too polite to boo and catcall.
Partisan politics are important. Political messages are important. Engaging in resisting the upcoming attempts to limit our freedoms is extremely important. I'm just not sure that award shows is the right forum for these messages.
What prompted me to blog about this tonight before I go to bed is the acceptance speech Meryl Streep gave in accepting the Cecille B. DeMille award on this night.
You can read the entire text of her remarks here. I don't disagree with any of her sentiments and had I been in the audience I would have joined in applauding her comments. Here is one excerpt.
"But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose. O.K., go on with it."
The question in my mind, is it appropriate to use the stage at an awards show to deliver a political message? The only reason the people in that room and a large segment of the worldwide audience aren't taking issue with her remarks is because they share her beliefs.
What if an award winner were to get up in front of this audience and delivered a speech extolling the virtues of Donald J. Trump, our nation's President-Elect, instead of taking issue with what he did on the campaign trail? Almost every person who applauded her comments would have sat in stone silence, probably too polite to boo and catcall.
Partisan politics are important. Political messages are important. Engaging in resisting the upcoming attempts to limit our freedoms is extremely important. I'm just not sure that award shows is the right forum for these messages.
posted by me at 9:57 PM
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