Salutes and a jolt from ‘The Electric Company’
Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards gave us a clearer idea of which stars should be scripting their Oscar acceptance speeches, but the show left us kind of confused about the role of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements this awards season.
Moments that had people talking:
1. Time’s Up pins were MIA
Color came back to the red carpet (albeit in mostly muted shades) after the Golden Globes blackout, but the Time’s Up pins that so many stars sported on Jan. 7 were few and far between. Reese Witherspoon, who helped launch the women’s equality group, wasn’t wearing one on her emerald Zac Posen gown.
Get Out star Allison Williams demoted hers, pinning it to her clutch instead of her Ralph & Russo gown.
Time’s Up and “Me Too weren’t totally forgotten — they were mentioned on the red carpet and at various points throughout the show — but compared with the Globes, the SAGs were a business-as-usual affair.
2. Honoring the silence-breakers
The most genuine Me Too moment came when Marisa Tomei saluted her co-presenter, Rosanna Arquette, one of the actresses whose careers suffered after she said she rejected sexual advances from Harvey Weinstein. “We all owe you a debt of gratitude,” Tomei said.
Arquette choked up as she rattled off a list of others who have spoken out: “Asia Argento, Annabella Sciorra, Ashley Judd, Daryl Hannah, Mira Sorvino ...” Tomei added Anthony Rapp, the first man to accuse Kevin Spacey. Then Arquette added one more: Olivia Munn, who spoke out against Brett Ratner.
3. Nicole Kidman gives kudos to actresses over 40
The Big Little Lies star is having one of the best years of her career at age 50, which, as she pointed out, is novel in youth-obsessed Hollywood.
“To receive this at this stage in my life is extraordinary, and at this time in the industry when these things are going on, and for this role,” she gushed before paying tribute to actresses such as Susan Sa- randon, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Judy Davis, Isabelle Huppert, Shirley MacLaine and Judi Dench.
Kidman marveled: “How wonderful it is that our careers today can go beyond 40 years old, because 20 years ago, we were pretty washed up by this stage in our lives. That’s not the case now.”
4. An ‘ Electric Company’ reunion
The SAGs brought the power as lifetime achievement honoree Morgan Freeman was introduced by Rita Moreno, his co-star from the 1970s kids’ show. Moreno recalled one scene where “I was playing a bratty little girl with sausage curls and Morgan Freeman — Mr. Elegant, Morgan Freeman, Mr. Debonair — played Dracula. ... That was educational programming at its finest.”
After she chided Freeman to lift his black baseball cap so “we can see you,” he told the audience: “You have no idea how long I had to put up with that.”
She did offer to help him carry his trophy offstage, noting, “You have no idea how heavy these suckers are.”
5. In the best-actor category, white guys and Sterling K. Brown
Niecy Nash asked co-presenter Olivia Munn if she could announce the winner of the drama-series actor category if it was Brown. Asked why, Nash, told the biracial Munn, “Because he’s black! If it’s an Asian guy, you can do it.” Munn noted, “I think it’s just white guys and Sterling K. Brown.”
Nash got her wish, as the trophy went to the This Is Us star, who continued a running joke he began at the Emmys, where he told his co-stars, “You are the best white TV family that a brother has ever had. Better than Mr. Drummond (from Diff ’rent Strokes), better than them white folks at Webster.” This time, he expressed relief that “my white family, thankfully, is nothing like the white family in Get Out.”
6. Oscar favorites are still favored
We saw a lot of repeat winners from the Golden Globes: Sam Rockwell ( Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and Janney ( I, Tonya) in the supporting categories, Gary Oldman ( Darkest Hour) and Frances McDormand ( Three Billboards) for lead actor and actress, and Three Billboards as top film.