Davis, a Juilliard educated veteran of stage and screen won the award for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She is the first black woman in the history of the awards to be honoured as such. She is best known for her strong performances in Doubt (opposite the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep) and the civil right period drama The Help (with another wonderful actress, Octavia Butler). This award was given to her for her portrayal of Annalise Keating in the TV series, How to Get Away with Murder (HtGAwM).
Of course, Viola Davis' talent is indisputable; her work speaks for itself. For her craftsmanship to be recognised in this way is not only fitting, it is also most certainly overdue.
She starts her acceptance speech by quoting African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman:
"In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no-how. I can't seem to get over that line."She follows this with another statement, this time her own: "The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” Indeed. (I also love that she goes on to acknowledge Shonda Rimes, executive producer of HtGAwM, the fantastic Taraji P. Henson from Empire and Person of Interest, and equally talented Kerry Washington from Scandal).
Representation in media, in essence, visibility is still something that is being fought for on various fronts. Whether its race, as comedienne Margaret Cho bemoaning the fact that she never saw Asian people on television in the clip below:
Or realistic depictions of the LGBTI community. I've always struggled with identifying with gay characters on screen; they were primarily white, physically attractive men being portrayed by primarily white, physically attractive men. Television series such as Queer as Folk comes to mind. I felt torn between having to like it because it made strides in giving the community to which I belonged the visibility that we craved, and being dissatisfied with it because, as an Asian man, my membership to this community was somehow still veiled, or even worse, caricatured into stereotypes (e.g. 'ladyboys'; although one could argue that all the main characters in QaF were caricatures: the hypersexual Brian, the innocent Justin, the nerdy hero Michael whom were were supposed to be rooting for, the effeminate Emmett, and the socially inept Ted).
We can do better. We need people who can write better stories for us, create better parts because we are coming to realise that visibility is not enough. We also need clarity, a truthfulness about who we are. Black, Latino, Asian, gay, transgender, Aboriginal, lesbian are all adjectives that we describe ourselves, but it is not what defines the sum of our being.
A bit late, but this is still technically Day 12.
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