I started out the day yesterday watching a town hall meeting on ABC’s This Week about the Tuscon shooting. It was an incredibly moving event that showed true humanity and humility. Needless to say the ending of my day lacked both humanity and humility. This country is a wreck. An awards show with pretty dresses is always a way to forget for a moment. But the whole tenor of the comedy felt out of place in this climate.
Ricky Gervais is a funny guy. But his jokes, even though they were mostly true, felt inappropriate.
But there were some moments of note:
- Katey Sagal winning for Sons of Anarchy — I love this show. She is the heart of it and knocks it out of the park each week.
- Chris Colfer winning for Glee — a beautiful speech. This kid and this show could actually save lives and that is the power of television.
- Melissa Leo- this woman’s story always blows me away. She got fired from Homicide years ago, struggled for a long time, and now thanks to Frozen River, is a top-tier actress. I’m sure the USA Network is thrilled that they secured the deal to broadcast The Space Between which premiered at Tribeca and will air on the network on 9/11.
- Natalie Portman — while I am not a fan of Black Swan this young woman is always poised and beautifully spoken. She should be a reminder to other young actresses not to forget to go to college and get an education.
- Annette Bening — hands down one of the best speeches of the night. “I am very proud to be a part of this special film about two women who are deeply in love and trying to keep their family together.” The great thing about the accolades this film has received is that I am hopeful that we will see more of Bening onscreen. I also loved her glasses.
- Aaron Sorkin — I haven’t exactly decided how I feel about his comments on women on behalf of his daughter except that I would have liked to him to have added the following: “the next screenplay I write will actually have some women in it that you can look up to.”
- Susanne Bier wins best foreign film for In A Better World. I have to say that she seemed pretty shocked because her comments didn’t make sense to me, but she was the only female director to win and award from the stage last night.
Other thoughts
- Did a single female creative person speak when a TV show or film won? I saw women up there but I don’t recall seeing a single woman accept an award (except for Susanne Bier and Diane Warren for best song) for the best of anything other than acting.
- Lisa Cholodenko has taken the gayest film of the year and made it the most mainstream film of the year and that is an impressive feat. I really hope she gets money up front to write and direct her next script.
- Where the hell was Kathryn Bigelow? Even though she didn’t win last year it would have had meaning to have her in the room because we would again be reminded that no women were nominated for best director.
- Lastly, I kind of missed Meryl Streep. It doesn’t feel like awards season without her.
