A worldchanging speech
This week was a huge week for women. Reese Witherspoon helped spearhead a legal fund to fight workplace harassment and discrimination, Oprah became the newest front runner for President and I found a scarf that I thought was lost forever. All round, a lot was achieved. Especially by me, specifically with regards to the scarf.
In the past few weeks and months, sexual assault has been leading the news, with almost daily revelations about our favourite television heroes, rocking a once squeaky-clean industry* and shedding light on the wide scope of sexual harassment and assault.
Thankfully, Hollywood made like the opposite of the Catholic Church and responded with a cross-industry campaign to try to finally bring sexual assault to an end.
It seemed that movie stars could do in a few months what the church has been struggling to do for years, which is make a decision that this behaviour will no longer be tolerated. Not that this behaviour won’t happen again. It will. But that there is now a universal expected standard, and sexual assault falls short of the mark.
For support and visibility of the campaign, attendees wore black to the Golden Globes and many included a pin exclaiming ‘‘Time’s Up’’. It was a widespread movement that nearly everyone attending the Golden Globes got on board with.
Everyone except Blanca Blanco, an actress I’ve never heard of who decided to wear red because that’s her favourite colour. And also because this small controversy is maybe the only way anyone will ever know there’s an actress named Blanca Blanco.
It was a bland night, mostly: people gave acceptance speeches thanking their ‘‘team’’; Kirk Douglas defied all expectations by appearing both on stage and alive.
It was business as usual until Oprah gave a speech that the public have been starved of lately, namely a coherent one.
She changed the tone of the night from inconsequential to meaningful. She spoke about the history and effect of sexual assault, particularly on people who are not white, she spoke about how it was time for change and she gave everyone in the audience a car.
It was a great moment in live television history and it felt like one to remember. There’s something to be said for a great speaker changing the public tide. The speech wasn’t strong on details about how to change the system, but it was a rousing call that the system needed to be changed and that it could. It was the best version of a speech; inspiring, dignified and not too long.
My hope is that this speech is the beginning of substantive change.
There is a history of the public being compelled by great speakers – JFK on the Berlin Wall, Martin Luther King on the Lincoln memorial, Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights – I hope this speech is similarly cataclysmic. While I don’t know how the culture is going to change, I am hopeful that it might.
Though it maybe means nothing to see movie stars all dressed in black and talking about inequality while wearing hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewellery, I was still moved by it. We’ve gone from nothing to something and at the very least that felt good.
* This is a joke. It’s meant to be read in a sarcastic tone, but I wasn’t sure if that was appropriately conveyed through the writing. Instead I’ve added this addendum. All things considered, I probably should have just thought of a better joke.
Oprah spoke about the history and effect of sexual assault, particularly on people who are not white, she spoke about how it was time for change and she gave everyone in the audience a car.