Kristen Stewart offered impassioned commentary on Tuesday afternoon while delivering the keynote address at the Women’s Luncheon hosted by the Academy and Chanel in Los Angeles.
The actress and filmmaker, whose first feature as a director, “The Chronology of Water,” arrives in theaters next month, criticized Hollywood for falling short of the objectives and initiatives it championed in the post-MeToo era.
“In a post-MeToo moment, it seemed possible that stories made by and for women were finally getting their due, that we might be allowed or even encouraged to express ourselves and our shared experiences, all of our experiences without filter,” she said after being introduced by Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor.
“But I can now attest to the bare-knuckle brawling that it takes every step of the way when the content is too dark, too taboo, when the frankness with which it serves up observations about experiences routinely experienced by women, frequently provokes disgust and rejection.”
She contended that these lived experiences are authentic and warrant being portrayed with honesty.
In a moment that drew laughter and applause from the audience, Stewart confessed, “I am in a severe state of PMS today…But I relish being able to say that my nerves are close to the surface of my skin, and it is a great day for that.”
She proceeded to state, “We can discuss wage gaps and taxes on tampons and measure [inequality] in lots of quantifiable ways, but the violence of silencing, it’s like we’re not even supposed to be angry. But I can eat this podium with a fork and fucking knife. I’m so angry.”
Gazing out at the luncheon attendees, a group that included Tessa Thompson, Sarah Paulson, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Patty Jenkins, Alicia Silverstone, Riley Keough, Zoe Deutch, Joey King, Claire Foy, Odessa A’zion, Ruth E, Carter, Kate Hudson, Indya Moore, Embeth Davidtz, Diane Warren, Katy O’Brian and Tig Notaro, among many others, assembled on the Dolby Family Terrace at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
Stewart declared, “The backsliding from a brief moment of progress is statistically devastating. It is devastating. Such a pitiful number of films from the past year have been made by women. We obviously need many more women’s luncheons in our lives. We need to become ladies who lunch all the fucking time.”
She continued, “There are too few of us. We’re all here together now, and it seems like there’s a lot, Jesus Christ, there’s not. It’s not our fault. Sure, our business is in a state of emergency, man, and you know the last thing that I wanna do here is lose the celebration under a pile of pissed off rubble.
We are allowed to be proud of ourselves and maybe to allow each other to reclaim the gratitude we’ve all become talented at performing and really taste it from the inside out.”
Stewart was met with multiple bursts of applause throughout her seven-minute address.
“I am thankful to you,” she expressed. “I am not grateful to a boys’ club business model that pretends to want to hang out with us while siphoning our resources and belittling our true perspectives. Let’s try and not be tokenized. Let’s start printing our own currency.”
Earlier on the red carpet, Kate Hudson shared a personal memory with me about the moment she witnessed and felt inspired by a woman in a position of power within Hollywood.
“For me, it was Ann-Margaret in ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’” the “Song Sung Blue” star revealed. “I was obsessed with ‘Bye Bye Birdie.’ There’s this dance that she does and her hair’s going and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I have to do that.’”
Felicity Jones, the star of “Train Dreams,” recounted an experience of advocating for herself when she was merely 12 years old, deciding to leave a television series titled “The Worst Witch” after a single season. “I just didn’t want to come back and do the second [season],” she recalled.
“Even at that age, I remember being very clear that one [season] was enough and I didn’t want to return for any more. Now I look back and think, ‘Wow, I was obviously very decisive and knew what I wanted at that age.’”
The afternoon’s program also featured Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter presenting this year’s Gold Fellowship for Women to the recipients, Alina Simone and Marlén Viñayo.