CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Why Viola Davis's Acceptance Speech for 'Fences' Best Supporting Actress Was So Powerful

The Atlantic: Viola Davis’s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress began with a thanks to the Academy and this observation: “You know, there’s one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered.”

Pause. Some viewers may have felt a queasy pang. Was the Fences actress about to give a sequel to Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech? Was the next line going to be “this room,” so as to stand up for the presidentially denounced entertainment industry, so as to preach for truth and inclusion, so as to spark another skirmish about whether Hollywood is too self-regarding?

No. The next line: “One place, and that’s the graveyard.”

1 comment:

Alexa James-Cardenas said...

To be honest, Viola Davis’s acceptance speech was the only part I watch in the Oscars (that and Auli'i Cravalho singing “How far I'll go”). The best words I can give to the speech was that it was human. Although, you can say it is call for diversity, but I think it was more than that. As humans we get so wrapped in Labels and associating ourselves as one way or another, that we often forget that we all live very different lives than those of our own community, of our own friends, of our family, or own brothers and sisters. And it is our individual lives that makes the human race so wondrous, and the stories we have to tell the ideal meaning of Diversity. And as Viola Davis had addressed, it is important for our stories, and the stories of those who have died, the stories of the normal counter worker, the normal day to day person who lives for the sake of living that must be heard.