Hollywood steps up for #MeToo
Nothing was off the table as Hollywood A-listers talked about #MeToo, underrepresentation and voter turnouts
Natalie Portman took a flame-thrower to the patriarchy. George Clooney admonished the culture of fear. Emma Gonzalez implored people to vote. And host Jenifer Lewis spared no one, from Kanye West to US Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh.
Nothing was off the table at Variety magazine’s Power of Women luncheon held in Beverly Hills on Friday, almost exactly a year since The New York Times and The New Yorker published accounts from dozens of women alleging sexual misconduct by the once-powerful movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
In a commanding speech, Portman addressed the underrepresentation of women in all industries and laid out guidelines to incite change, such as donating to Time’s Up, opting against depicting violence against women in films and hiring women for positions they’re not typically considered for.
She was being recognised for her humanitarian efforts in co-founding Time’s Up, a legal defence fund that was created following the rise of the #MeToo movement to address and combat inequality in the workplace. The Oscar-winning actress was being recognised for her humanitarian efforts in co-founding Time’s Up. “Be embarrassed if everyone in your workplace looks like you,” Portman said.
Portman said Weinstein is “still free” because “our culture protects the perpetrators of sexual violence, not its victims.”
She added that the Time’s Up defence fund has served more than 3,500 people from “workers at McDonald’s to prison guards to military personnel to women in our own industry who have faced genderbased harassment, coercion and assault.”
Portman was not the only person to get a standing ovation on Friday. Eighteen-year-old Emma Gonzalez, who became a nationally recognised advocate for gun control after surviving the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, also brought the well-heeled Hollywood crowd to their feet.
Gonzalez was introduced by George Clooney who announced himself as “Amal’s husband.”
The audience, in turn, cheered. Clooney struck a more serious tone in discussing a time where fear is capitalised on — “fear of immigrants, fear of minorities, fear of strong women.”
Everyone who took the stage got a word in for a cause they were passionate about. Honouree Lena Waithe, there for The Trevor Project, said Time’s Up has had a huge impact on her life in the past year. “I’ve befriended so many women I probably would have never even met or had a reason to speak to, and I can’t remember a time in this industry when women have huddled together. We’ve all gotten on the same page,” Waithe said.