Geena Davis receives honorary Oscar for work against gender bias
File photo of Geena Davis
As actors continue to strive for equality among genders across the entertainment industry, ‘Thelma and Louise’ star Geena Davis who founded a nonprofit research group called the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004 was honoured with an Oscar for her work against gender bias.
"However abysmal the numbers are in real life, it's far worse in fiction - where you make it up!" said Davis as she accepted the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. "We make it worse."
The actress spoke at the Governors Awards, an annual black-tie event hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the group that hands out the Oscars.
Davis, who won a supporting actress Oscar in 1989 for ‘The Accidental Tourist,’ said gender inequality on-screen "can be fixed absolutely overnight." Earlier at theDeauville American Film Festival, the actress had called the lack of female directors in Hollywood an "embarrassment".
She urged everyone in the audience to take the scripts they were currently working on and "cross out a bunch of first names, of ensemble characters and supporting characters, and make them female."
"With one stroke, you have created some non-stereotyped characters that might turn out to be even more interesting now that they have a gender swap," she said.
"Let's make this change happen," she added.
Among others who were awarded, there was Wes Studi, who was recognised for his commitment to authentic portrayals of Native Americans in films from ‘Dances with Wolves’ to ‘The Last of the Mohicans,’ and ‘Blue Velvet’ filmmaker David Lynch.
Italian writer-director Lina Wertmuller also received a lifetime achievement award from the film academy. Wertmuller was the first of just five women ever to be nominated for best director. That was in 1977 for her film ‘Seven Beauties.’
