Last Sunday, the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards was filled with passion, beauty, and most importantly diversity. Some of our favorite black actors, including Viola Davis and Denzel Washington brought home the gold for their recent roles. I’m sure I speak for all of the Black community when I say that we were beaming as we watched three of the top four honors be awarded to black actors on Sunday evening.
It was a great night for the film Fences starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Both actors won awards for their lead and supporting roles in the film. This was a special night particularly for Davis as she made history being the first black woman to win five SAG awards.
Davis used her acceptance speech to acknowledge the beauty in the stories about the lives of everyday black people.
“What August did so beautifully is he honored the average man, who happened to be a man of color. And sometimes we don’t have to shake the world and move the world and create anything that is going to be in the history book,” Davis said in her dazzling white gown.
Actor Mahershala Ali also received an award for his outstanding performance in supporting role in the film Moonlight. To make it even better Moonlight was directed by Barry Jenkins who is also a Black man.
If that’s not enough, Hidden Figures topped things off with winning most outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture. This was the icing on the cake because so many of us were inspired and emotionally moved by this film.
Of course the Taraji P. Henson gave some meaningful words about the importance of the film.
“This film is about unity. The shoulders of the women that we stand on are three American heroes: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. Without them, we would not know how to reach the stars. This story is about what happens when we put our differences aside, and we come together as a human race,” she said, as her co stars Janelle Monae and Octavia Spencer stood behind her. The three of them standing together with their awards was the epitome of black girl magic.
The SAG awards definitely set the tone for 2017 awards shows. The Oscars might want to take notes being that #oscarssowhite was created due to the lack of representation in the nominees last year. Nevertheless, the SAG awards was a memorable moment for black actors and filmmakers and we hope to see this diversity continued in Hollywood.