#OscarsSoWhite

We all know that there is quite a racial diversity problem when it comes to the Academy Awards. Many celebrities recognize this problem, but few do something to change it. In 1973, when Marlon Brando won the best actor Academy Award for his role in The Godfather, he declined to accept it and sent Sacheen Littlefeather on his behalf. Littlefeather is a Native American activist and of Apache, Yaqui, and Pueblo descent. As Brando’s representative, she gave a speech on the mistreatment of Native Americans in the film industry. With the development of technology and social media, celebrities have a new way to lend their opinion in situations of inequality. Actress Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) took to her Instagram last week and began #MovementMondays with the reasoning, “With all this Oscar Talk and lack of diversity I decided to start a movement and speak from the perspective of a Latina American who desires to see more Latinos onscreen.” Rodriguez also wrote about how much Latinos support the film industry yet are undeniably underrepresented on screen. Along with this explanation, she posted a picture of Oscar Isaac (The Force Awakens, Ex Machina) who is a Guatemalan-American actor and the first actor Rodriguez chose to feature in her movement. Recently, she featured Rosa Salazar who is Cuban-American and has had roles in the Divergent and Maze Runner movies. Rodriguez said Salazar has “represented the Latino community with grace and honor.” Not only is Rodriguez trying to bring some diversity to Hollywood, she’s also a very generous lady. She offered up the dress that she wore to the 2015 Golden Globes to a fan who tweeted about how much she would love to wear Rodriguez’s 2016 Golden Globes dress to her prom. While Rodriguez doesn’t actually own this year’s dress, she gladly offered up last year’s, which is just as gorgeous. The two tweeted back and forth, and it seems to be coming together. Once prom season hits, those pictures are going to plaster the Internet.

Completely Female Senate

At the end of January when the east coast was blanketed with snow and everyone was claiming they were incapable of making it into the office that day, the men of the United States Senate also decided to take the day off. I don’t mean just a few, I mean every single man that usually occupies those chambers. There are 83 men in the Senate and none of them showed up, so for one day only, the United States Senate was composed entirely of women. The male absences were not limited to only senators either, noted Senator Lisa Murkowski, “As we convene this morning, you look around the chamber, the presiding officer is female. All of our parliamentarians are female. Our floor managers are female. All of our pages are female.” A reader of the Jezebel article on this event said, “Honestly, I think it’s because as a female you are worried you’ll be judged if you don’t show up. Dudes just take for granted that they can stay home when they are sick, their kid is sick, or it’s dangerous to travel,” which is a very valid point. There were many comments in agreement with this initial comment. “This was not orchestrated in any way, shape or form. We came in this morning, looked around and thought, ‘Something is different this morning.’ Different in a good way, I might add,” said Murkowski before rounding out her speech on the surprise occurrence. Yet this unpredictable affair has me wondering what the Senate could accomplish with only women or even just more than the 17 women we currently have as senators.

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