HOLLYWOOD stars celebrated the power of the Me Too movement as hundreds of thousands of protesters joined women’s marches on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.
Scarlett Johansson, Viola Davis and Eva Longoria were among those to address an estimated 700,000-plus crowd in Downtown Los Angeles yesterday.
The weekend marks a year since more than one million people worldwide rallied on Trump’s first day in the White House and comes at a time of reckoning for many powerful men in Hollywood and other industries over their treatment of women.
Johansson, wearing a Time’s Up top, told marchers how the Harvey Weinstein revelations led her to consider how she was treated as a young actress.
Many of her relationships, both personal and professional, had power dynamics “so off” that she let herself be “degraded”, she said.
“I stand before you as someone who is empowered not only by the curiosity about myself and by the active choices that I’m finally able to make and stand by, but by the brightness of this movement, the strength and the unity that this movement has provided,” she said.
“It gives me hope that we are moving toward a place where our sense of equality can truly come from within ourselves.”
Davis shared her own experiences to echo the march organisers’ sentiment to encourage people to sign up to vote in November’s mid-term elections, which could deal a blow to the president.
“I’m always introduced as an award-winning actor but my testimony is one of poverty, my testimony is one of being sexually assaulted and very much seeing a childhood that was robbed from me,” Davis said.
“I know that the trauma of those events are still with me today and that’s what drives me to the voting booth, that’s what allows me to listen to the women who are still in silence.”
Longoria encouraged protesters to seize the Me Too momentum to fight for equality and decried the “sexist, racist rhetoric” coming out of the White House.
“As we build upon the momentum of Me Too and Time’s Up in this movement, we women have the world’s attention so let’s seize this moment and catalyse a permanent and cultural shift towards fairer and equal treatment in the workplace,” she said.
Alfre Woodard said people must reach across boundaries to fight for a common cause in this “dangerous and baffling hour”.
Adele shared a photo on Instagram of Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lawrence and herself holding placards as she issued a “power to the peaceful” rallying cry.
She wrote: “The most influential people in my life have always been women. My family, my friends, my teachers, my colleagues, and my idols.
“I am so grateful to be a woman, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
“I hope I’m defined by my input to the world, my ability to love and to have empathy. To raise my son to be a good man alongside the good man who loves me for everything I am and am not.
“I want what’s best for people, I think we all do. We just can’t agree on what that is. Power to the peaceful, power to the people.”
Oscar winner Natalie Portman has told how an environment of “sexual terrorism” as a teenager led to her covering up her body and “inhibiting her expression and her work”.
She recalled her coming of age as she filmed her first big project, 1994’s Leon: The Professional. “I turned 12 on the set of my first film The Professional, in which I played a young girl who befriends a hit man and hopes to avenge the murder of her family.
“The character is simultaneously discovering and developing her womanhood, her voice and her desire. At that moment in my life, I too was discovering my own womanhood, my own desire and my own voice.
“I was so excited at 13 when the film was released and my work and my art would have a human response.
“I excitedly opened my first fan mail to read a rape fantasy that a man had written me.”
As the thousands took to the streets, Trump tweeted that it was a “perfect day” for women to celebrate the “economic success and wealth creation” of his first year in the White House.
The marchers disagreed.
Anti-Trump sentiments were prominent among the placards, and so were pro-immigrant and women’s rights messages, including one reading “Girls just want to have fun-damental rights”.
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