Viola Davis's Emmy Speech

The Emmy’s is a prestigious award that so many artists try to attain at some point in their career. Viola Davis’s award for the outstanding female lead in a TV drama was ground-breaking for women of color in 2015. She stated as much in her acceptance speech. Her use of language at the root is powerful in that it is bold, brave, simple, and straight forward. She uses the rhetorical vehicles of metaphor and inclusion to help the audience visualize the line that is being crossed in the film/TV industry and that opportunity is coming.

Her opening statements in quoting Harriet Tubman, a woman whose strength many women look too, bring about how you have to be a spearhead. You have to not look at yourself as unequal to others, and in this case, white women, in the industry. You have to look at the industry itself. Tubman used metaphors of green fields and lines and white women reaching out to her smiling. There is the root comparison of where Tubman stood in relation to white women in her day which was the later 1800s during the Civil War. Viola uses this metaphor to turn it into a simile as she stands on the stage crossing the green field and entering the realm of white women so to speak.

The words are not spoken, but Viola in her language is helping people understand that black women in the industry for the first time in 2015 are seeing opportunities in the TV/film industry and breaking chains like their foremother, Harriet. Viola starts this riveting speech with, “In my mind I see a line. And over that line I see green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me.” (Harriet Tubman)

The other rhetorical language partner used with the beautiful metaphor above, is one of antithesis. Viola in her second half of the speech talks about opportunity and options that simply aren’t there. It is a struggle and a challenge for women of color in the industry when there simply are not roles written to include people. Beauty is not exclusive it is inclusive. Soraya McDonald said as much in her Washington Post article the day after Viola Davis’s Emmy win. This move for women of color to supersede each other in roles of leading ladies from Kerry Washington’s “Scandal” to Viola’s “How to get Away with Murder” series; these ladies broke a glass ceiling to show that women of color are here to stay and be recognized in TV drama. (McDonald 2015)

The language and wording used like “black is beautiful” and “roles that just aren’t there” is a way that Viola harnesses the antithesis as a challenge with her words to the fact of if you give black women options, they will enter the arena equal to their white sisters on the screen. By using simple language and tie backs to the industry she is attacking an ideal not a person. In her language she never points blame to a person, but rather to the work written. This allows for the audience to not be offended by strong words like black is beautiful and black women are strong and can hold their own in this industry if given opportunity. Equality is a word never spoken but in all the simple language of comparison and quotes used from a founding rights mover like Tubman it is present and in the forefront of the audience in attendance and on TV broadcast for this acceptance of this particular Emmy.

In conclusion, looking at this 2015 Emmy acceptance speech, you can reference Cartier’s position from her article “Black Women On-Screen as Future Texts: A New Look at Black Pop Culture” that these roles like Washington’s leading part in “Scandal” can create movement and doors opening to more roles that favor black women in the contemporary present moment in our TV drama viewing. The language of thanks and opportunity in script writing solidifies Viola’s point well that for success there must be opportunity.

References

McDonald, Soraya Nadia. September 21, 2015. ‘You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there’: Viola Davis on her historic Emmys win. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/09/21/you-cannot-win-an-emmy-for-roles-that-are-simply-not-there-viola-davis-on-her-historic-emmys-win/

CARTIER, NINA. “Black Women On-Screen as Future Texts: A New Look at Black Pop Culture Representations.” Cinema Journal, vol. 53, no. 4, Summer 2014, pp. 150–157. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/cj.2014.0050.

“2015 Emmy Acceptance Speech” by Viola Davis.