00:00Tanya Cushman Reviewer
00:19This is sad.
00:20You know, I'm an athlete that I need help up the stairs in two-inch heels.
00:24Viola, I know what a big deal it is that you got out of bed to do this for me.
00:35But it's like that expression, fill your cup.
00:38Like, having Viola speak on your name is like filling in a 10-gallon jug.
00:46It's just this thing that I just get to sip on for the rest of my days, so thank you.
00:54The historically inaccurate critique online about the Egozi and the Dahomey Kingdom is staggering.
01:04And it's fed by the historically inaccurate narratives written by colonizers with an incentive to dehumanize us.
01:11So many of us are taught that the tenants of our history are enslavement, victimization, and savagery.
01:23Our connection to our true past has been cut off by the root.
01:28The famous novelist Achibe wrote,
01:33Until the lion learns to write, the stories will always glorify the hunter.
01:37But the beauty of the woman king is that for the first time, the lionesses got to write their own story.
01:43And it was a glorious and profound experience.
01:50We told an intimately epic story about us, black women, our strength, our beauty, our softness, our heroism, our complexity, our pain, our joy, and our mess.
02:03We got to show the incredible breadth of our humanity, the power of our sisterhood, and we got to start healing our roots.
02:12As I said in the piece, I was very intentional about casting actors from all over our diaspora.
02:18African American, South African, West African, Jamaican, Ugandan, British.
02:23We honored our differing cultures and celebrated that we are all black women first.
02:34Telling our story of our ancestors in the motherland where we are all from.
02:40We need this connective energy now more than ever.
02:43We work in an industry that too often does not see the value in our stories, in our characters, in our work.
02:50Too often we have to hustle for our worth in rooms where we are the only.
02:55And yet still we find a way to be excellent.
02:58Look at the work of our incredible honorees today.
03:03Look at the work of those around you, next to you.
03:06I recently spoke about the deep chasm between black excellence and recognition.
03:11There is no chasm here.
03:13The extraordinary LaShonda Lynch is in the Woman King because of this room.
03:18It was here that she was honored and amplified a couple years ago.
03:22And where I heard her speak her truth about who she is and what she wants to put in the world.
03:27I said to myself in that moment, I want to work with her.
03:30We need this room.
03:32We need this energy.
03:34Because we take this feeling out into the industry and the world as our armor.
03:38This room must always be a safe space.
03:41We cannot afford to ever other each other.
03:44We can compete with each other without depleting each other.
03:56Doing the Woman King taught me what true power in this industry is.
03:59It is telling our stories with each other in the way that we want to tell them.
04:04And the beauty of the Woman King is that it shows that centering black women does not mean diminishing black men.
04:11My two beautiful sons, Cassius and Toussaint, and our community got to see a strong black king.
04:17We got to see men and women fighting together against an evil.
04:21I hope that those who felt threatened by the title come to understand this.
04:32But it's more important for me to shout out real strong black men who celebrate strong black women and lift them up.
04:44Starting with my husband, Reggie Rock.
04:47He was the first to see the necessity in me telling the story.
04:55Despite the sacrifices that would have to be made, he supported me so deeply.
05:00And he pushed for the script to be reflective of my intentions.
05:04He pushed me to write the male characters better.
05:07And in doing so, we were able to land John Boyega.
05:10I saw John's viral speech during the uprising in which he was imploring black men to protect black women.
05:20He thought it was going to end his career.
05:22It made me want to work with him.
05:24John is a leading man, yet he took on the supporting role of the king
05:28because he wanted to use his power to help get this film centering black women into the world.
05:33And producer Julius Tenen, a.k.a.
05:41He was in the six-year fight with Viola and Kathy Schulman and Maria Bello to get this film set up.
05:47This was the hardest shoot of so many of our careers.
05:50And every day on set, Julius was our biggest cheerleader, encouraging us, exalting us,
05:56and seeing the beauty in everything that I shot.
05:59I am so grateful to be a two-time honoree at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood.
06:13I actually didn't know it was possible, but I embrace it fully
06:19because it speaks to the necessity of pushing ourselves to always grow as artists,
06:24to elevate our work, to fight for our dream projects,
06:27even when our dreams are bigger than what's expected of us,
06:30to never get comfortable.
06:33Thank you, Essence, for being absolute warriors for the film from the very beginning.
06:38Thank you to those of you who are evangelists for this film,
06:41who took their friends and families, daughters and sons, mothers.
06:45You pushed this film to a 100 million global box office and number one on Netflix.
06:50And you lifted the lot of us who fought so hard and so long for the vision.
06:58Thank you to my extraordinary cast who gave us everything and had my back always.
07:03Thank you to so many of you in this room who have supported me and inspired me throughout my career.
07:09And to my real-life female warriors at the table and table adjacent,
07:15Yvette Lee Bowser, who took me under her wing at a different world and taught me about work ethic and believed in me.
07:26Tara Lynn Shropshire, who has cut every one of my films and made me better.
07:33My incredible reps, Nina Shah and Maha Dakeel, who protect me and fight for me to get what I want and deserve.
07:44My god-sister, Alison Curry, who just shows up whenever and whatever.
07:51To my very best friends, Mara Brock-Akeel and Felicia Henderson,
07:59who check me when I need it, which is very rarely.
08:05And lift me always.
08:08And to Viola, who trusted me to join her on this extraordinary journey,
08:14who taught me the vulnerabilities of strength, and who let me touch greatness.
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