Directed by Barry Jenkins, Moonlight has received wide critical acclaim with 6 nominations and 1 win (Best Motion Picture) in the golden globes alone. Starring Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, Janelle Monáe, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali, the film focuses on the struggle of an African-American man to accept one’s own identity. The 2017 Golden Globes felt quite special to me.
It felt like the first time in a long while, if not ever, that there was some decent representation, that I could look at the list of people that the establishment had deemed “the best” in television and film, and see a more diverse range of people representing the many stories that touched us this year.
Representation matters! And, I don’t just mean one token person who is not straight, white, male, and able-bodied on a show written, produced, and directed by a white male. What I mean is a plethora of people telling an array of stories in their diverse voices. What I mean is the use of the arts to expand collective consciousness and aid in dispelling the limited idea of normalcy.
I didn’t grow up thinking that my family was strange; my gorgeous multi-cultural, multi-racial family was my first understanding of the world. I only became aware that the wider world seemed to have more restrictive views of what constituted the most inclusive values in the world: beauty, love, family, struggle…
At its best, television and film, like all the arts, can be a mirror into your soul, shining a light on the deepest truths of human existence with love and compassion, inviting us to thandie received a nomination for her role as Maeve in the television series Westworld in the category of for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture Made for Television.
contemplate who we are and where we find ourselves in the world. Television has always seemed especially amazing to me because you bring the stories and characters into your home, sometimes over a period of years or even decades.
It can engender intimacy and belonging, but at its worst, it can also encourage feelings of otherness and lacking, a feeling that people who look like you don’t belong in the collective narrative or don’t deserve a space to share their stories. I inhabited this realm for a long time, and only obtained self-love through hard-learning against the popularised lack of representation.
Viola Davies (left) won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Fences. This was her first win after 4 previous Golden Globe nominations. Tracee Ellis Ross (right) won the Golden Globe for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for Black-ish.Self-love is really hard when you feel like an island; when it feels as though every message society sends is so foreign to yourself. I grew up in a society that didn’t encourage my self-love, that subliminally, and sometimes explicitly, taught me that I was not enough and that I certainly would never be “the best”.
My society taught me loathsome self-depreciation.
Television used to encourage the most negative feelings for me. But it is gradually becoming a source of delight, a place to go to feel understood and valued.
Some day Viola or Tracee or Thandie will win an award or nominated and it will just be about them.
I hope that day is near, the day when it won’t be remarkable that someone who is colourful and unique and universal can be hailed as the best at what they do and that the next woman of colour to win a Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress in a comedy or musical television series will not have to wait until 2052.
I hope that my children, whatever their colour, gender identity, or ability will be able to hold the television up to their faces like a mirror and proudly see themselves reflected and represented in the most beautiful and honest light.
For now, their wins are still also our wins. They are part of the long-awaited slow-dawning collective realisation that we, too, represent the world.
