“Scandal” actress Kerry Washington got a standing ovation after a stirring speech at the GLAAD Media Awards over the weekend that resulted
The awards recognize media for their “fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the LGBT community and the issues that affect their lives.”
Washington was accepting the Vanguard award, presented by Ellen DeGeneres.
“Thank you Ellen, thank you Ellen, thank you Ellen, thank you Ellen so much,” Washington praised as she accepted her award.
She then went into her speech on the role media has played in bringing inclusion about among people who were formerly made to feel isolated.
“Women, poor people, people of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans people, inter-sex people, we have been pitted against each other and made to feel like there are limited seats at the table for those of us that fall into the category of ‘other.’ As a result, we have become afraid of one another. We compete with one another, we judge one another, sometimes we betray one another. Sometimes even within our own communities, we designate who among us is best suited to represent us and who, really, shouldn’t even really be invited to the party. As ‘others,’ we are taught to be successful we must reject those ‘other ‘others’ or we will never belong.
“I know part of why I’m getting this award is because I play characters that belong to segments of society that are often pushed to the margins. Now, as a woman and a person of color, I don’t always have a choice about that. But I’ve also made the choice to participate in the storytelling about the members of the LGBT community. I’ve made the choice to play a lot of different kinds of people, in a lot of different kinds of situations. In my career, I’ve not been afraid of inhabiting characters who are judged and who are misunderstood and who have not been granted full rights of citizenship as human beings.
“But here’s the great irony: I don’t decide to play the characters I play as a political choice. Yet the characters I play often do become political statements. Because having your story told as a woman, as a person of color, as a lesbian, or as a trans person or as any member of any disenfranchised community is sadly often still a radical idea. There is so much power in storytelling and there is enormous power in inclusive storytelling and inclusive representations.
“That is why the work of GLAAD is so important. We need more LGBT representation in the media. We need more LGBT characters and more LGBT storytelling. We need more diverse LGBT representation and by that, I mean lots of kinds of different kinds of LGBT people, living all kinds of lives, and this is big—we need more employment of LGBT people in front of and behind the camera!”
(Transcript via E! Online)
