Viola Davis' Historic Emmy Win May Be Turning Point For Gender And Race In Hollywood
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) – History was made at the 67th Annual Emmy Awards Sunday night when Viola Davis became the first African-American woman to an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series.
CBS2's Kristine Lazar took a look at whether this is a turning point for gender and race in Hollywood.
Davis won for her role as the professor and defense attorney Annalise Keating in ABC's "How to Get Away with Murder," which just entered its second season.
"The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity," she said during her emotional acceptance speech.
Since 1974, only three network TV shows have featured a black woman in a lead role. Davis' character in "How to Get away with Murder" was included.
Alicia Cole is an actress. She said she has struggled to fit in Hollywood. "I had a casting director tell me once. I used to wear my hair in braids with curls at the end. She said you really need to lose those braids. They just make you too black."
According to Elizabeth Wagmeister, a reporter for Variety magazine, Davis' win was not only historic, it will likely pave the way for more shows to feature women of color in lead roles.
"And that's showing studio executives people of color can make money. When back in the day, I think that casting executives were not putting these actors in the shows because they thought it's not what the world wanted to see," Wagmeister said.
But Davis' win was not without controversy. Longtime "General Hospital" actress Nancy Lee Grahn took to Twitter to criticize Davis' speech for focusing on women of color rather than all women.
Grahn wrote: "Try being any woman in TV. Wish she'd brought every woman in the picture. I wish I'd opportunity to play roles she has gets." The actress later apologized.
Cole said she hopes Davis' win is only the beginning of good things to come for women of color. "To have a beautiful, eloquent, intelligent black woman lead a show that's smart and witty and well-written and it will be embraced shows that things are changing" she said.
Sunday night's Emmys also made history behind the scenes by having more black writers on the show than ever before.
