4/19/15, 4:29 PMViola Davis Calls Out Hollywood For Lack of Diversity! - theDBZtheDBZ

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Viola Davis Calls Out Hollywood For Lack ofDiversity! (http://thedbz.com/viola-davis-calls-out-hollywood-for-lack-of-diversity/)

On Sunday night, the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards aired, and Viola Davis gave an

empowering acceptance speech that left the whole room cheering.

Davis won for best Female Actor in a Drama Series for her role in How to Get Away With

Murder. Davis was up against some serious competition, with Claire Danes (Homeland), Julianna

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4/19/15, 4:29 PMViola Davis Calls Out Hollywood For Lack of Diversity! - theDBZtheDBZ

Page 2 of 3http://thedbz.com/viola-davis-calls-out-hollywood-for-lack-of-diversity/

Murder. Davis was up against some serious competition, with Claire Danes (Homeland), Julianna

Margulies (The Good Wife), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Maggie Smith (Downtown Abbey)

and Robin Wright (House of Cards) all fighting for the title.

She used her speech as an opportunity to address the lack of diversity in Hollywood.

“When I tell my daughter at night, inevitably, a few things happen. Number one, I use my

imagination. I always start with life, and then I build from there. And then the other thing that

happens is she always says, ‘Mommy can you put me in the story?’ And you know, it starts

from the top up,” Davis said about her daughter, Genesis, wanting to hear bedtime stories where

she is put in the story.

After Davis talked about her daughter, she thanked the producers, including Shonda Rhimes, for

“thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old dark-skinned

African American woman who looks like me.”

Davis made another empowering speech at the People’s Choice Awards

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/08/viola-davis-new-york-times-classic-

beauty_n_6435712.html) prior to her SAG Awards acceptance speech, where she thanked

Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers and Peter Nowalk for picking a leading lady with her “classic

beauty,” which refers to a comment made by New York Times’ television critic, Alessandra

Stanley, where she stated that Davis looks “less classically beautiful” than Halle Berry or Kerry

Washington.

This is the second award Davis has won for her role in How to Get Away With Murder.

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