2019 Golden Globes Winners: Sandra Oh and Queer Red Carpet Looks
Sandra Oh won a Golden Globe last night for the stunning, brilliant first season of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Killing Eve, and Sandra Oh also just won the Golden Globes last night. Her charm and wit an earnestness were the only things that kept the show grounded. During her acceptance speech, the Globes co-host hoisted her trophy in the air and shouted “KILLING EVE!!!” but she also thanked her mother and father, in tears, in Korean. She snagged an Emmy in the Best Supporting Actress category in 2006 for her work on Grey’s Anatomy, but this is the first time she’s won in the Best Actress category, and only the second time an Asian American has taken home the award in the category, full stop. Oh recognized the significance of the moment in her opening monologue, noting nominations not only for her, but for Roma, Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, and If Beale Street Could Talk.
“I said yes to the fear of being on this stage tonight because I wanted to be here, to look out onto this audience and witness this moment of change,” she said. “I’m not fooling myself. Next year could be different and probably will be. But right now, this moment is real.”
That moment also included a supremely deserved win for Beale Street‘s Regina King, who used her acceptance speech to promise all her movies would include at least 50 percent women moving forward; a rightfully earned win for The Favourite‘s Olivia Colman, who thanked Melissa McCarthy for “the sandwiches” and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz for being “her bitches”; a frankly shocking win by Glenn Close, who beat out Lady Gaga and “joked” that the reason it took 14 years for her movie to get made was because it’s called The Wife; Carol Burnett holding the audience in the palm of her hand as she accepted the inaugural Carol Burnett Award; and Alfonso Cuarón winning twice for Roma.
Everything else was more of the same: Lots of POC and women presenters and some really important and merited nominations; white people (mostly men) taking home the majority of he trophies.
Oh’s comment that “next year could be different and probably will be” didn’t seem like a direct callback to last year’s Globes, where Hollywood’s most famous actresses stormed the red carpet in all black, talking #MeToo and bringing women activists as their dates, but she could have been. Less than a year after being accused of harassment and abuse by an E! stylist, Ryan Seacrest continued to smarm his way up and down the red carpet sporting a — you guessed it! — Time’s Up bracelet. (Regina King was the only winner to even mention Time’s Up on stage.) Equally problematic and delusional and a slap in the face to their roots: Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody taking home Best Picture honors.
But Oh was right, of course, that the nominations do matter; that the presenters do matter; and that while Hollywood remains a place where Billy Porter could lose to Richard Madden, the oppressive systems that prop up that bullshit are being challenged in small and consistent ways, and opportunities for generational talents like herself are opening up and allowing for long-deserved recognition.
The other real winners of the night were the looks served by the queer folks in attendance.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsUGwOqHmcO/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsVGrOgH_fy/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsU3OeVBpoi/
https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1082144776579772416
A @CHANEL dress this regal needs to be admired from ALL angles. 👑 @JanelleMonae #InStyleWBGlobes pic.twitter.com/bX5DvGtC0M
— InStyle (@InStyle) January 7, 2019
When the cat’s away… pic.twitter.com/jFu7IJ4ATW
— Lupita Nyong'o (@Lupita_Nyongo) January 7, 2019
I never expected an elevator to be gayer than the one on Grey’s Anatomy. Maybe things really do change.