On the Golden Globes Red Carpet, Fighting Back in Black

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/movies/times-up-golden-globes-red-carpet.html

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When Hollywood women announced that they would wear black at this Sunday’s Golden Globes in solidarity with sexual misconduct victims, it was inevitable that the plan would draw eye rolls.

Popular culture’s fascination with — and derision for — the pomp and preening baked into awards shows can’t but extend to the women fixed in the cameras’ glare.

Alternately revering and tearing down famous women for their red-carpet looks has become a blood sport. Any causes that actors and actresses might promote, from the carpet or the stage, can have the hollow ring of political messaging by beauty pageant contestants (with all due respect to the recent Miss Peru hopefuls who powerfully protested gender violence). Isn’t the red carpet at its heart a fashion show, a parade of the ultra-privileged, the land of “Good point, Cate, now let’s talk about that dress”? Doesn’t it perpetuate the objectification of women? Better to stay home, said the critics of Operation Black Gown: silently posturing in black would achieve exactly zilch.

But then an anti-sexual-harassment action plan, impressive in its breadth and created by hundreds of powerful women in entertainment, was announced on New Year’s Day. Christened Time’s Up, the initiative includes a $14 million legal fund to help victims of sexual harassment nationwide, legislation to punish companies that tolerate it, and a push for gender equality among executives at talent agencies and studios.

Asking women to wear black to the Globes was just part of Times Up’s larger vision.

“A show of solidarity at an awards show is one very small piece,” said Reese Witherspoon, who spoke to the Bagger in late December about Time’s Up. “It really is a statement that women are deeply unified, we always have been, and that we stand up for those who can’t speak up.”

The Time’s Up red carpet talking points are under wraps, but people in the know said that women, and probably a few men, will be — to use the parlance for saying pretty much anything these days — “speaking out.” (Apparently men are pledging to wear black too — which basically means swapping out their white tuxedo shirts for black ones.)

“There’s a misconception that this is a silent protest,” said Eva Longoria, who was also chatting with the Bagger about Time’s Up. “Instead of asking us who we’re wearing, they’ll ask us why we’re wearing black. We’re using that platform and using our voices to say we can change this ideology, and shatter the sexism that teaches men that women are less.”

The Time’s Up initiative, in the works for months, was largely met with roars of approval. Head honchos in Hollywood donated money and avowed their support. The growing economic might of women certainly didn’t hurt. Nor did the fact that the top three films of 2017 were led by women.

Yet some find fault in the red carpet plan, saying the extent to which women get so dolled up promotes unrealistic, male-gaze standards that are at odds with the Time’s Up core mission of fighting sexism.

“Wearing black on the runway is all well and good, but it will only make a difference when women stop dressing and showing themselves as chattel,” a reader named Harriet Levy wrote on The New York Times’s Facebook page. “We might as well still be wearing corsets.”

That comment drew both praise and predictable ripostes from people noting that it was skating dangerously near a “blame-the-victim-for-what-she’s-wearing” mentality, and that women could wear what they want. That said, many women, and men, see the red carpet as a grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it forced march driven by studio expectations and publicity demands, a repetitive dog-and-pony show that can feel endless during awards season. (It also can be lucrative for women getting paid by designers to sport their wares.)

And yet. That the quarry is coming armed to the red carpet’s shooting gallery represents a big leap from the not-so-distant days of 2015, when the #AskHerMore campaign was urging awards-season reporters to talk to actresses about more than dresses, diets and jewels.

That year, Julianne Moore and Ms. Witherspoon made news for not thrusting their hands into the E! Mani Cam, refusals that CBS News took as a “sign of a growing gender-equality push in Hollywood.” Yes, the bar for gender equality had dipped that low. Weeks earlier, the internet had a mini-meltdown over the opera gloves Amal Clooney wore to the Golden Globes; they were likened to accouterments better suited for a prom, a debutante ball or, incredibly, a pornography scene.

The #AskHerMore push, which Ms. Witherspoon helped champion, spurred more in-depth red carpet questions and a few gimmicky gems, like the time Buzzfeed peppered Eddie Redmayne and Michael Keaton with queries about Spanx. Since then, some of the more overt offenders have been retired: E! shut down its Mani Cam and, in November, broadcast the last episode of its no-claws-barred show, “Fashion Police.”

Invariably, the spotlight moved from #AskHerMore and onto other serious issues like #OscarsSoWhite, and last year’s pushback against Donald J. Trump, which is sure to carry into this year.

There’s certain to be more hashtaggable causes célèbres down the road, and many will have laudable results: #OscarsSoWhite, for one, helped compel the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to aggressively diversify its membership.

But Time’s Up is the first time that so many women in Hollywood — more than 300 actresses, agents, producers, writers, showrunners and executives — have collectively pooled their resources for the singular purpose of fighting pernicious sexism. It extends beyond speechifying to tangible solutions. Notable lawyers like Anita Hill and Tina Tchen, who was Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, are heavily involved. Prominent Hollywood women are leveraging their power to help women with less of it, and to force change. Several talent agencies have already pledged to achieve gender parity in their leadership tiers in the next two years.

Can all of this — any of it — be relayed by actresses wearing black at the Golden Globes? Maybe. Probably. At least in part. They’ll be playing the game on their own terms, and there’s power in that.