#SeeHer: the prize that is especially for women

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At the Critics' Choice Awards Ceremony, Claire Foy won the #SeeHer award for her roles that empower women

This Sunday, January 13, the critics acknowledged the #SeerHer award to actress Claire Foy, who gave a feminist speech on behalf of the empowering roles she portrayed: Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series The Crown and Janet Armstrong in the movie First Man.

The actress received the award from Viola Davis, who already won this award in 2016. In her speech, the actress stated that she sometimes wonders if she really has something to offer, and, based on Davis's acceptance speech a few years ago, she concluded that all she has to offer is herself.

"The only thing I've always tried to do with everything I've done and with any job I've been doing is do something that, hopefully, people will recognize themselves in. That they acknowledge themselves on screen in some way in which they feel some emotion, some circumstance"

She spoke in particular about the role of Janet Armstrong and the criticism she received during the filming process for playing the role of "simply the wife", on her speech she said that there is no such thing as that.

The film tells the story of Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, it also has received a good reception from critics, especially for Foy's role, who is far from being a secondary role but is as equally important as the famous astronaut. Finally, Foy said that she accepted the award with the hope that by seeing herself, she could understand and help others to see themselves as well.

You may be interested in reading: A Royal inequality: wage gap in the Netflix series The Crown

Other winners

This was the third year that this award was given, as it is a recent tribute that rewards the actresses who play a role that makes women visible in film and television productions. The idea is to promote more stories written with women protagonists to achieve more representativeness and to empower all types of audiences.

The first #SeeHer prize was awarded to Viola Davis in 2016. Like Foy, the critics granted this award for the roles she played as Annalize Keating in the series How To Get Away With Murder, where she plays a successful lawyer who must lead a group of criminal law students when they are involved in a murder; and like Rose Maxson in Fences, a film that co-stars with Denzel Washington. In her speech, she said that her greatest power as an artist is to invite her audience to her world every time she plays a new role.

A year later the prize was given to Gal Gadot for her role as Wonder Woman. This film marked without a doubt a milestone in the history of superhero movies. In addition to being the best movie of the DC Universe, which is not that popular on the big screen, the movie competed with other movies of superheroes starring men.

Gadot's role is not only a role that empowers women, it is a woman who saves the world and has the skills of an action figure, but mocks those who despise and minimize her for being a woman. In her speech, Gadot affirmed that while the wonder woman is a strong and independent woman, she is not perfect and that is what makes her real: to be able to be vulnerable and compassionate at times. She also recalled that there is still a long way to go in the task of the creators and writers not only to entertain but to inspire their audience.

#SeeHer Initiative

This recognition granted by the American critic comes from the #SeeHer movement. According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), "currently the average age, race, and body of the women represented make visible only a small fraction of the female population, which means that most women and girls probably do not they have seen themselves never reflected in the media. "

This is why the ANA has decided to do something about it and promote the proper and real representation of women in the media and advertising, because "you can not be what you do not see". In this way, through different initiatives, including this award that grants the empowering and inspiring roles, #SeeHer's mission is to increase the precise representations of women and girls in advertising and the US media by 20% to the year 2020, when the centenary of the feminine vote in the United States will be fulfilled. A year is missing for that and it will be seen.

LatinAmerican Post | Juliana Rodríguez Pabón

Translated from: '#SeeHer: el premio que galardona a las mujeres'