Awkwafina celebrated a historic win at last night’s Golden Globe Awards. The “Crazy Rich Asians” breakout was named best lead actress in a movie comedy/musical for “The Farewell,” making her the first woman of Asian descent to take home the honor.
“I actually just heard that fact, and it was pretty mind-blowing,” the rapper said backstage. “It feels incredible, but I think there’s also this other feeling that you want there to be more. I hope this is just the beginning.”
Written and directed by Lulu Wang and based on an actual lie, “The Farewell” centers on a family who decides to lie to their grandmother about her terminal diagnosis.
Icelandic composer Hildur Guonadottir also made history last night. She became the first solo woman to win a Globe for original score, landing the trophy for Joaquin Phoenix-starrer “Joker.”
Guonadottir
The evening’s other highlights included “SNL” mainstay and “Bombshell” star Kate McKinnon paying tribute to Ellen DeGeneres, the recipient of this year’s honorary Carol Burnett Award for excellence in television. The “Spy Who Dumped M” actress revealed how DeGeneres’ decision to come out influenced pop culture and McKinnon’s own self-esteem. “In 1997, when Ellen’s sitcom was at the height of its popularity, I was in my mother’s basement lifting weights in front of the mirror thinking, ‘Am I gay?’ And I was. And I still am. But that’s a very scary thing to suddenly know about yourself. It’s sort of like doing 23andMe and discovering you have alien DNA. And the only thing that made it less scary was seeing Ellen on TV,” she said.
McKinnon continued, “She risked her entire life and her entire career in order to tell the truth, and she suffered greatly for it. … If I hadn’t seen her on TV, I would have thought, ‘I could never be on TV. They don’t let LGBTQ people be on TV.’ And more than that, I would have gone on thinking that I was an alien and that I maybe even didn’t have a right to be here. So thank you, Ellen, for giving me a shot at a good life.”
DeGeneres
DeGeneres also emphasized the power of television — and its ability to transform lives — during her acceptance speech. “All I ever wanted to do was make people feel good and laugh, and there’s no greater feeling than when someone tells me I’ve made their day better with my show or that I’ve helped them get through a sickness or a hard time with their lives,” she said. “The power of television for me is not that people watch my show, but that they watch my show and then they’re inspired to go out and do the same thing in their own lives. They make people laugh or be kind or help someone that’s less fortunate than themselves and that is the power of television and I’m so, so grateful to be a part of it.”
Williams was named best actress in a limited series or made-for-TV movie thanks to her portrayal of actress and dancer Gwen Verdon in FX’s “Fosse/Verdon,” and used her time at the podium to address a women’s rights. “I’m … grateful to have lived in a moment in our society where choice exists because, as women and as girls, things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice,” she observed.
Williams
The four-time Oscar nominee explained, “I’ve tried my very best to live a life of my own making, and not just a series of events that happened to me. But one that I could stand back and look at and recognize my handwriting all over. Sometimes messy and scrawling, sometimes careful and precise. But one that I had carved with my own hand. And I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose. To choose when to have my children and with whom, when I felt supported and able to balance our lives as all mothers know that the scales must and will tip towards our children. Now I know my choices might look different than yours,” the “After the Wedding” star acknowledged, “but thank God or whoever you pray to that we live in a country founded on the principles that I am free to live by my faith and you are free to live by yours.”
Williams urged women from the ages of “18 to 118” to vote and to do so in their “own self-interest. It’s what men have been doing for years,” she said, “which is why the world looks so much like them. Don’t forget we are the largest voting body in this country. Let’s make it look more like us.”
For the fifth year in a row, the Globes’ Best Director category was composed entirely of male nominees. Ava DuVernay is the last woman to receive a nod for Best Director. She was recognized in 2014 for “Selma.”
