The Academy Awards’ Time’s Up moment was a powerful tribute to diversity
The Academy Awards carved out a special moment during Sunday’s Oscar’s telecast to give light to the Time’s Up movement and the fight by Hollywood’s most powerful women to put an end to sexual harassment and inequality in all workplaces.
During the broadcast, Ashley Judd, Selma Hayek and Anabella Sciorra spoke passionately and introduced a video showing actresses and actors speaking truth to power.
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Behind the movement
The Time’s Up initiative was announced on New Year’s Day and is made up of more than 300 women in television, theater and film. This movement is in response to a scandal that rocked the nation and revealed just how many women in Hollywood had dealt with sexual abuse at the hands of studio exec Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men. The project was inspired by the #MeToo movement and is looking to combat sexual misconduct in workplaces everywhere by creating a legal defense fund that will help less-privileged women come forward and get justice.
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Reese Witherspoon, Eva Longoria, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes, America Ferrera and Ashley Judd are just some of the names involved in the initiative.
The serious and solemn moment was well received by Oscar attendees who rose to their feet with rousing applause in support for the platform calling for gender parity and a conscious change in how men treat their female counterparts in the workplace.
So far, organizers say, in two months, Time’s Up has raised $21 million for victims of sexual harassment with donations from 20,000 people, ranging from $5 to $2 million. Tina Tchen, former chief of staff for Michelle Obama, who leads the fund, says the group has received more than 1,700 requests for help. So far, Time’s Up has matched 1,250 people with attorneys to review their cases.
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Tessa Thompson said there’s also a newly formed men’s faction, and also a WOC (Women of Color) subgroup addressing intersectionality and inclusion, addressing “the issues that women of color face (that) are different from other women in our industry,” says Tessa Thompson.
Time’s Up has drawn global attention from groups across the pond in the UK following suit with support. On February 18, the British Academy Film Awards or BAFTA Film Awards also has a blackout like the Golden Globes awards, where film and television industry wore black and or pins in support of the Time’s UP movement.
Women coming together
After Oprah Winfrey‘s powerful Golden Globes speech, she brought a panel of Hollywood women together to detail their sexual abuse experience at the hands of men in Hollywood, which aired on CBS Sunday Morning.
Witherspoon opened up about having been assaulted at age 16 by a director.
“There’s moments that you have to evaluate whether silence is going to be your only option. And certain times that was our only option. But now is not that time,” Witherspoon said of the #MeToo movement.
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“We’re humans. We’re all humans,” actress Natalie Portman said. “And I think it’s treating people as fellow humans and – and it’s not because you have a daughter that you respect a woman, it’s not because you have a wife or a sister, it’s because we’re human beings, whether we’re related to a man or not. We deserve the same respect.”
The Time’s Up moment on the Oscars called for change and now it remains to be seen what impact it will have throughout the entertainment industry and beyond.
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