The anti-harassment movement has taken the United Kingdom by storm. Less than a week after the BFI and BAFTA introduced new anti-bullying/anti-harassment guidelines, the BAFTA Awards were dominated by Time’s Up. News has also broken about the launch of the UK Justice and Equality Fund, an anti-harassment campaign that counts Emma Watson, Emma Thompson, and Keira Knightley among its supporters.
Similar to last month’s Golden Globes, Sunday night’s BAFTAs saw many of its attendees wear black in protest of widespread sexual misconduct in the film industry. Attendees including Gemma Arterton and Andrea Riseborough brought social justice activists as their guests. Arterton was accompanied by Eileen Pullen and Gwen Davis, two of the women who organized the 1968 Ford Dagenham walk-out. Riseborough’s guest was UK Black Pride co-founder Phyll Opoku-Gyimah. Gemma Chan brought Everyday Sexism Project creator Laura Bates and Naomie Harris attended with journalist and human rights worker Afua Hirsch.
Time’s Up was also a recurrent theme in the ceremony’s speeches. Host and “Ab Fab” actress Joanna Lumley referenced the current movement’s ties to the Suffragettes. “A century ago, the Suffragettes laid the groundwork for the kind of dogged resistance and powerful protest that is carried forward today with the Time’s Up movement, and with it the determination to eradicate the inequality and abuse of women the world over,” she remarked. BAFTA chair Jane Lush called for 2018 to be a “catalyst for change” and described the industry’s persistent gender inequality as “ridiculous.”
Frances McDormand, who won the best leading actress BAFTA for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” did not wear black but lauded Time’s Up while accepting her prize. “I want you to know that I stand in full solidarity with my sisters in black. I appreciate well-organized civil disobedience,” she said.
Prior to the BAFTAs high-profile figures including Watson, Arterton, and Thompson signed an open letter pushing for an end to workplace harassment and inequality. Other signees included Harris, Chan, Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Saoirse Ronan, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. (It originally ran in The Observer, alongside another open letter from activists and figures outside the entertainment industry.)
“In the very near past, we lived in a world where sexual harassment was an uncomfortable joke; an unavoidable, awkward part of being a girl or a woman,” the letter reads. “It was certainly not to be discussed, let alone addressed. In 2018, we seem to have woken up in a world ripe for change. If we truly embrace this moment, a line in the sand will turn to stone.”
It continues, “This moment has already raised a staggering $21m for an American Time’s Up legal defense fund. But women all over the world need support and funding in order to be able to fight injustice … So, we invite you to join us in donating to the new UK justice and equality fund, to spread the word to others and be a catalyst for change.”
According to The Telegraph, Watson has already donated £1 million (about $1.4 million USD) to the UK Justice and Equality Fund. “It’s easy to dismiss harassment and abuse as being caused by ‘one or two really, really bad men’ but the UK statistics point to a much bigger and more structural problem. This issue is systemic, as opposed to individual, one-off events,” the “Beauty and the Beast” actress told The Observer after donating.
Thompson and Knightley have also made donations to the UK Justice and Equality Fund. The fund is also accepting contributions via a GoFundMe page. As of writing this, the crowdfunding campaign has already netted over £1.5 million of its £2 million goal.
All the female BAFTA winners and co-winners are below. List adapted from Variety.
LEADING ACTRESS
FRANCES McDORMAND Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
ALLISON JANNEY I, Tonya
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
I AM NOT A WITCH Rungano Nyoni (Writer/Director), Emily Morgan (Producer)
ANIMATED FILM
COCO Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson
MAKE UP & HAIR
DARKEST HOUR David Malinowski, Ivana Primorac, Lucy Sibbick, Kazuhiro Tsuji
BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
POLES APART Paloma Baeza, Ser En Low
