This was a red carpet like none before it
BEVERLY HILLS – I forgot to ask about the clothes.
The emphasis on the Golden Globes red carpet was so diametrically opposed to topics on red carpets of the past that in the midst of talking about parity, getting women on 50% of boards in Hollywood and how to protect writers of color, the question “For the record, which designer are you wearing?” fell off my radar.
I’ve covered awards season and red carpets for more than a decade, and Sunday night’s red carpet was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Everyone wore black. And we talked. Really talked. I brought up the Harvey Weinstein allegations to Joseph Fiennes, who starred in Shakespeare in Love (Weinstein produced and it won the bestpicture Oscar in 1999). He took on the question gamely.
“It sours the experience, greatly,” he said. “I’m still trying to understand the ramifications of it. But putting that aside my focus is really on those who stood up and (spoke), not to be silenced. It’s historic. It’s a big cornerstone for our industry and all other industries.”
For better or worse, uninterrupted honesty is not the way this usually works. On the red carpet, stars represent their films; reporters ID the free designer clothes; behind the scenes, power stylists jockey to hit “bestdressed lists.” Yes, you #AskHerMore. But soundbites often follow and compelling conversation is fleeting.
But this year was different. The black attire “felt necessary,” said Insecure star/creator Issa Rae, though several women admitted to a lastminute scramble.
Master of None star/writer Lena Waithe had a week and a half to get a black tux made by Asian-American designer Alba. Her wish for immediate change, she told me, was that projects by writers of color make it to the screen without being scrubbed first.
“Sometimes you get young writers of color who get shows; they come in and they’re all wide-eyed and sometimes they’ll bring in people who are more experienced to kind of take over and rewrite them,” she said. “I want to make sure people’s voices are heard pure and loud. Because our voices matter.”
Several women brought activist dates. Emma Stone and Billie Jean King slung arms around each other’s shoulders for the red carpet walk. Laura Dern held hands with Mónica Ramírez, who co-founded Alianza Nacional de Campesinas and has served as an attorney, organizer and advocate for farm worker Latina and immigrant women.
Michelle Williams talked to the press with her date, Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement. Unlike other red carpets, this time “my smile is real, my enthusiasm has been real, the tears I’ve cried on the carpet have been real,” she told me.
There lies truth behind the seams: Red carpets are a charade. A pageant. Performance art.
But Sunday reminded me of the dress code I had in high school. The goal, administrators said, was for us to focus on the work.
On Sunday, Hollywood focused on the work. Will it last? The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino prayed the newfound solidarity “doesn’t become a one-day thing and tomorrow everyone wakes up with their hangovers and they have their morning Bloody Mary and they’re like: ‘Well, that’s over with. What do we do now?’ ”
She added: “Eventually we’ve got to get some women in upper-level positions, because that’s when it really changes.”
It made me wonder: Were there any women in the room when she pitched
Mrs. Maisel at Amazon Studios?
“No,” she said. “There weren’t.”
The series about a female comic (played by Globe winner Rachel Brosnahan) in 1950s New York still made it through to a greenlight.
But in the words of the women who walked en masse in black, time’s up.
“I want to make sure people’s voices are heard pure and loud. Because our voices matter.”
Lena Waithe