2018 AA Club - Week 11

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Background: On 7 January 2018, Oprah Winfrey accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes. The following is an excerpt of Winfrey's acceptance speech.

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I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association because we all know the press is under siege these days. We also know it's the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice. To -- to tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this: what I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I'm especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year we became the story.

But it's not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It's one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics, or workplace. So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They're the women whose names we'll never know. They are domestic workers and farm workers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants and they're in academia, engineering, medicine, and science. They're part of the world of tech and politics and business. They're our athletes in the Olympics and they're our soldiers in the military.

And there's someone else, Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too. In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and mother walking home from a church service she'd attended in Abbeville, Alabama, when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped, and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case and together they sought justice. But justice wasn't an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted. Recy Taylor died ten days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up.

Their time is up. And I just hope -- I just hope that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth, like the truth of so many other women who were tormented in those years, and even now tormented, goes marching on. It was somewhere in Rosa Parks' heart almost 11 years later, when she made the decision to stay seated on that bus in Montgomery, and it's here with every woman who chooses to say, "Me too." And every man -- every man who chooses to listen.

In my career, what I've always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave. To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome. I've interviewed and portrayed people who've withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights. So I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say "Me too" again.

[Anonymous]

As the #MeToo and #Timesup movement gains popularity, upon receiving the Cecil B Demille Award, Oprah expresses how "proud and inspired" she is by the truth, of harassment and of abuse, which has finally been unveiled to combat the injustice that preceded it. Her heartfelt speech is directed towards the press, but then encompasses "every woman who chooses to say "me too" and every man - every man who chooses to listen." "whose names we'll never know". Through this speech, she switches from a sorrowful tone that emphasised on the hardships that many have faced, to a prideful tone when recalling the human nature to be resilient.

Oprah starts off broad, by describing the current world as full of "corruption and injustice… tyrants and victims… and secrets and lies", which aids her assertion that the truth must never be withheld and that it's the right thing to do, in order to make clear in the readers minds her moral standing in this situation and to persuade or cement that same sense of morality within the audience. Oprah works to shine a light on the stories of anonymous victims besides those in the entertainment industry, which has been the main focus up until now, in order to emphasise how prevalent and global harassment and abuse are for women. This also has the effect of sowing sorrow into the hearts of her audience, as they mourn for the hardships that others have faced. She's inclusive of all social hierarchies, from the entertainment industry to the domestic workers in an effort to open people's eyes to this how worldly this issue is, and unite them under a common experience, though they remain anonymous.

Oprah then focuses on a single individual in an anecdotal manner to make things personal, to bring awareness to people whose stories have been neglected through time. In an even tone tinged with melancholy, she uses blunt words with a negative connotation such as "raped", "threatened to kill" and "destroy" to elicit simultaneously sympathy, empathy and also anger, within victims of similar abuse. This is proof, a real world example,  that it can affect anyone and everyone. By using an example from 1944, and emphasising how it's been "too many years" and "for too long", she the time for change to occur, for courage to be heard, believed and rewarded has been long overdue. With this, she remarks how justice wasn’t an option in Taylor's era, thereby implying that it is one now, which is something Oprah wants the audience to fight for and be grateful for the opportunity to do so. Then by repeating the phrase "their time is up", this has the dual purpose of making connections with the overarching topic at hand, and bring it back into focus for the audience, but it's also used in its original context in that the perpetrator's time was up.
   
Then in a hopeful manner, which would encourage the same sense of hope in the audience, she calls for both women and men to listen, speak up and take action, referring to "the truth" as "[their] truth" in an effort to show the audience that there's more than one side to the truth. Again, she uses repetition to highlight the human emotions and experiences that are relatable to everyone, especially girls, and thus gives the audience hope "for a brighter morning", through the picture she paints of us that a "new day is on the horizon". She then ends her piece by indirectly praising the "magnificent women" and "phenomenal men" who have and will come to shape a future "when nobody ever has to say "me too" again", which ties together her speech nicely, and lets the image of a better future settle in the minds of the audience.

Care to give me a mark out of 10?
I promise my thanks will be heartfelt. Don't be too harsh on me