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Viola Davis’s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress began with a thanks to the Academy and this observation: “You know, there’s one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered.”

Pause. Some viewers may have felt a queasy pang. Was the Fences actress about to give a sequel to Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech? Was the next line going to be “this room,” so as to stand up for the presidentially denounced entertainment industry, so as to preach for truth and inclusion, so as to spark another skirmish about whether Hollywood is too self-regarding?

No. The next line: “One place, and that’s the graveyard.”

Whew. Davis’s speech quickly went viral and received wide acclaim for a lot of reasons, and prime among them was simply good writing. She opened with a question and gave an answer few would have guessed. She exploited the power of surprise, a power <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-oscars-that-thing-that-happened-at-the-oscars-and-the-rare-power-of-shock/517917/">demonstrated amply</a> elsewhere at the Oscars.

<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en">
Viola Davis' <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oscars?src=hash">#Oscars</a> acceptance speech was AMAZING. Watch it here <a href="https://t.co/fs8vScFX3b">https://t.co/fs8vScFX3b</a> <a href="https://t.co/cope2GlkKv">pic.twitter.com/cope2GlkKv</a>
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) <a href="https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/836051675681075201">February 27, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The speech also made self-evident why Davis deserves an Oscar. She seemed to be heaving with emotion, almost out of breath, and yet her words were clear and her sentences deftly paced. She gestured with the precision of her How to Get Away With Murder character Annalise Keating in law lecture, yet she showed the rawness of feeling that Mrs. Miller had in Doubt. But this was not acting. Or if it was, it was so good as to not seem like it. Which is, as Leonardo DiCaprio said from the stage elsewhere in the night, the definition of great acting.

Most remarkable: the speech’s content. Typically, memorable Oscar acceptances make explicit political points, feature gaffes, or mark milestones. But Davis’s commanded attention through the mere discussion of art, as well as through specific, heartfelt shoutouts to colleagues and loved ones.

“People ask me all the time: ‘What kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?’” she said. “And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost. I became an artist—and thank God I did—because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”

The resonance with Davis’s work was obvious: Fences is based on August Wilson’s play about a 1950s black working-class family whose members aren’t famous, who simply strive and spar against the backdrop of society and history. Wilson “exhumed and exalted the ordinary people,” Davis said; his story was “about people, and words, and life, and forgiveness, and grace.”

But the resonance with other themes of the night, and the era, was also unmissable. The Best Picture nominees included many tales of the culturally invisible and frustrated: post-recession Texans bereft of opportunity in Hell or High Water, low-level NASA mathematicians mostly forgotten by history in Hidden Figures, orphans and destitute families in India in Lion. Most notably, Best Picture winner Moonlight unspooled the tale of a poor black gay man simply surviving, an ordinary life of the sort that is portrayed so infrequently as to seem extraordinary.

So there is, in fact, politics here, though subtle. In the context of conversations about diversity and inclusion at the Oscars and in America more generally, Davis’s praise of stories about common people of thwarted dreams necessarily has a political meaning: Portraying previously unportrayed struggles means that lives other than white, straight, well-off, and/or male matter.

The point was reinforced, lightly, as she thanked her sisters, remembering, “We were rich white women in the tea party games.” They played as white and wealthy, perhaps, because that was what society had told them to fantasize about. Davis has shown the power of offering alternatives.

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entry_id: tag:thewire.com,2017:50-517944
content: "\n\n \n<figure class=\"lead-image\">\n\n \n \n \n \n
 \ \n <img\n src=\"http://cdn.thewire.com/media/img/mt/2017/02/RTS10HLK/lead_large.jpg\"\n
 \ alt=\"Image \"\n title=\"Viola Davis&#39;s Urgent
 Call to &#39;Exhume the Ordinary&#39;\"\n >\n \n \n \n\n\n
 \ \n \n\n</figure>\n\nViola
 Davis’s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress began with a thanks to the
 Academy and this observation: “You know, there’s one place that all the people with
 the greatest potential are gathered.”\n\nPause.
 Some viewers may have felt a queasy pang. Was the Fences actress about
 to give a sequel to Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech? Was the next line going
 to be “this room,” so as to stand up for the presidentially denounced entertainment
 industry, so as to preach for truth and inclusion, so as to spark another skirmish
 about whether Hollywood is too self-regarding?\n\nNo. The next line: “One place, and that’s the graveyard.”\n\nWhew. Davis’s speech quickly went
 viral and received wide acclaim for a lot of reasons, and prime among them was simply
 good writing. She opened with a question and gave an answer few would have guessed.
 She exploited the power of surprise, a power <a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-oscars-that-thing-that-happened-at-the-oscars-and-the-rare-power-of-shock/517917/\">demonstrated
 amply</a> elsewhere at the Oscars.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-video\" data-lang=\"en\">\nViola Davis' <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oscars?src=hash\">#Oscars</a>
 acceptance speech was AMAZING. Watch it here <a href=\"https://t.co/fs8vScFX3b\">https://t.co/fs8vScFX3b</a>
 <a href=\"https://t.co/cope2GlkKv\">pic.twitter.com/cope2GlkKv</a>\n— The Daily
 Beast (@thedailybeast) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/836051675681075201\">February
 27, 2017</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
 charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n<aside class=\"callout-placeholder\" data-source=\"curated\"></aside>\n\nThe speech also made self-evident
 why Davis deserves an Oscar. She seemed to be heaving with emotion, almost out of
 breath, and yet her words were clear and her sentences deftly paced. She gestured
 with the precision of her How to Get Away With Murder character Annalise
 Keating in law lecture, yet she showed the rawness of feeling that Mrs. Miller had
 in Doubt. But this was not acting. Or if it was, it was so good as
 to not seem like it. Which is, as Leonardo DiCaprio said from the stage
 elsewhere in the night, the definition of great acting.\n\nMost remarkable: the speech’s content. Typically, memorable
 Oscar acceptances make explicit political points, feature gaffes, or mark milestones.
 But Davis’s commanded attention through the mere discussion of art, as well as through
 specific, heartfelt shoutouts to colleagues and loved ones.\n\n“People ask me all the time: ‘What kind of stories do
 you want to tell, Viola?’” she said. “And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those
 stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to
 fruition, people who fell in love and lost. I became an artist—and thank God I did—because
 we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”\n\nThe resonance with Davis’s work
 was obvious: Fences is based on August Wilson’s play about a 1950s black
 working-class family whose members aren’t famous, who simply strive and spar against
 the backdrop of society and history. Wilson “exhumed and exalted the ordinary people,”
 Davis said; his story was “about people, and words, and life, and forgiveness, and
 grace.”\n\nBut the resonance
 with other themes of the night, and the era, was also unmissable. The Best Picture
 nominees included many tales of the culturally invisible and frustrated: post-recession
 Texans bereft of opportunity in Hell or High Water, low-level NASA mathematicians
 mostly forgotten by history in Hidden Figures, orphans and destitute families
 in India in Lion. Most notably, Best Picture winner Moonlight unspooled
 the tale of a poor black gay man simply surviving, an ordinary life of the sort
 that is portrayed so infrequently as to seem extraordinary.\n\nSo there is, in fact, politics here, though subtle. In
 the context of conversations about diversity and inclusion at the Oscars and in
 America more generally, Davis’s praise of stories about common people of thwarted
 dreams necessarily has a political meaning: Portraying previously
 unportrayed struggles means that lives other than white, straight, well-off, and/or
 male matter.\n\nThe point
 was reinforced, lightly, as she thanked her sisters, remembering, “We were rich
 white women in the tea party games.”
 They played as white and wealthy, perhaps, because that was what society had
 told them to fantasize about. Davis has shown the power of offering alternatives.\n"
author: Spencer Kornhaber
title_type:
published: 2017-02-27 19:45:00.000000000 Z
summary: The Fences Best Supporting Actress testified to art’s ability to
 tell the stories of regular people.
links:
- https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-power-of-viola-daviss-oscars-speech/517944/
title: Viola Davis's Urgent Call to 'Exhume the Ordinary'
carlessian_info:
 news_filer_version: 2
 newspaper: US general30
 macro_region: USA
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categories:
- Culture
url: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-power-of-viola-daviss-oscars-speech/517944/

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