With the 77 annual Golden Globes having taken place on January 5 2020, political discussions and opinionated commentary filled the A-list event. The night was piled with a mix of red-carpet walking, celebrities accepting multimedia themed awards, and of course, controversial discussions from both presenters and winners. In the midst of the Iran and USA conflict, Australian wildfires, and many other serious, world-threatening issues, for many famous figures, the Golden Globes was a perfect place to express their opinions on the world events happening around them. With over 18 million viewers watching, celebrities rightfully took this opportunity to make their voice heard since they are the few in our society who have ones.
The award show’s host, Ricky Gervais (who has shown himself to be a very brutally honest and cynical host in the past), took the stage and set the mood concerning these topics by explicitly saying, “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.” This statement didn’t stop the celebrities from bringing light to recent events. For Gervais to belittle the celebrities and quiet their voices, only worsens the world’s problems in a sense. The world needs people with large platforms to raise awareness for a diverse range of topics so that people are educated and aware of all of the tragic things that are happening right before their eyes. For example, Michelle Williams took her time on stage to speak on a woman’s right to choose; whereas, Patricia Arquette got political, diving deep into the Iran tensions during her acceptance speech.
For the famous people to just sit still and look pretty at the award show, acting like emotionless robots and pretending everything is fine, is not benefiting anyone or anything. This awareness causes more people, with more access to resources and connections, to find quicker solutions to these problems, and also to simply educate the public that might’ve not been aware of these issues. Just because these celebrities are rich, certainly does not mean they are out of touch with the world, as many of them quietly have supported organizations focused on tackling big issues such as climate change and gender inequality. Leonardo DiCaprio is an excellent example of this, with him repeatedly taking action, putting both time and money into causes that he believes in.
Political issues and horrific world events don’t go away with silence, only showing the importance of people with huge audiences spreading their knowledge and opinions to the world in order to make change.
