Primetime Emmy Awards Analysis

The video that I chose is from this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards, which celebrates works of excellence in the television industry. It’s Viola Davis’ acceptance speech after she won the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a drama series. She became the first African-American women in the ceremony’s 67-year history to win in that category. She used this large platform as an opportunity to address the lack of diversity in the entertainment industry and what essentially stands in the way of women of color to be successful. I think she summed it up pretty clearly. “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
There’s a large issue regarding race in the American television and film industries. The problem is not that people of different racial backgrounds can’t or wouldn’t want to work in these industries. They simply have less opportunity of work than the dominant white people. And if they find jobs and produce successful works in such a limited platform then their achievements simply don’t get recognized. This is basically how white privilege works in these …show more content…
Black women are rarely taken in consideration when they’re up against white women. Just like Viola Davis in her category, Halle Barry is also the only woman to have won an Oscar in a leading role in Academy Awards’ 87-year history. Many instances like these prove that Hollywood is essentially a patriarchal, white supremacist industry. White privilege doesn’t only appear against women of color as limited opportunity of work and recognition but also narrows down the platforms in which they can make themselves heard. That’s why moments like these, when the right person gets to amplify the voices of those who share the same sentiment, become