By Lindsey Bahr, Film Writer
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.(AP) --Frances McDormand never uttered the words "inclusion rider" at the Women In Film Crystal + Lucy Awards Wednesday night in Beverly Hills, but she did cheekily place a red bumper sticker with the phrase written clearly in black capital letters on her backside. It got the point across.
Not that she needed to do a repeat performance. The concept was made instantly famous through her Oscar speech earlier this year and it proved to be a recurring theme of the evening, which saw Brie Larson making a plea for more diversity in film criticism and ABC president Channing Dungey advocating for diverse voices not just on screen but behind it too.
Larson, who was given the Crystal Award for Excellence in Film, used her platform to draw attention to a USC study published this week that found that film critics are almost 80 percent male, and largely white. Women of color made up 2.5 percent of top critics, according to the study.
"Am I saying that I hate white dudes? No, I am not," Larson said. "But if you make a movie that is a love letter to women of color there is an insanely low chance that a woman of color would get to see that movie … I don't need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn't work about 'A Wrinkle in Time.'"
She called on film studios and publicity teams to invite diverse critics and reporters to press screenings and junkets.
Larson also announced that both the Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival will, in response, allocate 20 percent of press credentials to underrepresented journalists.
Dungey received the evening's other top honor, the Lucy Award for Excellence in Television.
"Long before it was a conversation, long before it was a bumper sticker, Channing was just going about the business of making good television and making good decisions and hiring people based on their talent," said Ellen Pompeo, who presented the award to Dungey. "You feel like anything is possible working for this woman."
Dungey has been in the spotlight in the past two weeks since the sudden cancellation of "Roseanne." Although she never mentioned the show, or Roseanne Barr, and her highlight reel was absent of both, Dungey did speak about "uncertain times" and quote Michelle Obama saying "when they go low, we go high."
"When we see things happening around us that are counter to our beliefs, our actions must match our words," Dungey said, with her 5-year-old daughter by her side on stage. "That's not always easy to do."
Other honorees included the women in front of and behind the camera of "Black Panther," who got the Lexus Beacon Award. The trailblazing production had 12 female department heads out of 16 positions. "Love, Simon" actress Alexandra Shipp took home the Max Mara Face of the Future award, and Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the founder and director of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative was recognized for creating the "inclusion rider."
Smith said McDormand's Oscar night improvisation, when she chose to draw attention to the inclusion rider, changed her life.
"I have not slowed down since the Academy Awards," she said.
The event, supported by Max Mara, Lancôme and Lexus, is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the advocacy group's educational and philanthropic programs in Los Angeles. Women in Film advocates for gender parity in the entertainment industry, and Wednesday's celebration marked the group's 45th anniversary. McDormand helped introduce 22 trailblazing women in the entertainment industry, from filmmaker Allison Anders to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who all joined her on stage to a standing ovation from the room.
McDormand said she became a feminist at age 15 in 1972, when someone told her that feminism meant equal pay for equal work.
"That seemed like a good idea to me. I was also told I could have it all and lo and behold I did. But many haven't, many haven't. And we are still feminists so that means that there is not equal pay for equal work. That is not OK by me," she said. "This conversation is decades old. I have this feeling in my gut that times are changing."
Music Biopics Get Creative At Toronto Film Festival
Many of the expected conventions of music biopics are present in "Piece by Piece," about the producer-turned-pop star Pharrell Williams, and "Better Man," about the British singer Robbie Williams. There's the young artist's urge to break through, fallow creative periods and regrettable chapters of fame-addled excess. But there are a few, little differences. In "Piece by Piece," Pharrell is a Lego. And in "Better Man," Williams is played by a CGI monkey. If the music biopic can sometimes feel a little stale in format, these two movies, both premiering this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, attempt novel remixes. In each film, each Williams recounts his life story as a narrator. But their on-screen selves aren't movie stars who studied to get a part just right, but computer-generated animations living out real superstar fantasies. While neither Williams has much in common as a musician, neither has had a very traditional career. Their films became reflections of their individuality, and, maybe, a way to distinguish themselves in the crowded field of music biopics like "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Rocketman." "This is about being who you are, even if it's not something that can be put in a box," Pharrell said in an interview Tuesday alongside director Morgan Neville. Also next to Pharrell: A two-foot-tall Lego sculpture of himself, which was later in the day brought to the film's premiere and given its own seat in the crowd. The experience watching the crowd-pleasing "Piece by Piece," which Focus Features will release Oct. 11, can be pleasantly discombobulating. A wide spectrum of things you never expected to see in Lego form are animated. Virginia Beach (where Pharrell grew up). An album of Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life."... Read More