By Lizet Ibarra
The 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards held a memorable night with wins from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan that made history in Hollywood.
The SAG Awards took place at Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, Calif., and were streamed through the Netflix Youtube channel.
Yeoh won for female actor in a leading role and Quan won for male actor in a supporting role. Both Yeoh and Quan are the first Asian male and female to win in those categories at the SAG Awards. They both delivered emotional acceptance speeches.
“This is not just for me, this is for every little girl that looks like me,” Yeoh said in her acceptance speech. “We want to be seen, we want to be heard, and tonight, you have shown us that it is possible.”
“Recently, I was told that if I were to win tonight, I would become the very first Asian actor to win in this category,” Quan said as his eyes filled with tears. “When I heard this, I quickly realized that this moment no longer belongs to just me, it also belongs to everyone who has asked for change.”
First-year biochemistry major Jorge Cortes acknowledged Quan and Yeoh’s wins as great accomplishments.
“This is huge for not only Asian actors and actresses in the industry but as well as any minority or anyone in the industry that has been told they can’t succeed because of factors out of their control,” Cortes said.
The film industry continues to lack inclusivity. A study conducted by USC Annenberg that analyzed 1,600 top movies from 2007 to 2022 found that for lead or co-lead roles for people of color, there has been no continuous change since 2018, with 2017 to 2018 being the only years with a notable increase.
The study criticizes this by describing commitments to diversity as “mere lip service when it comes to key roles on screen.”
Some other notable wins included Jennifer Coolidge for female actor in a drama series in “White Lotus,” Brendan Fraser for male actor in a leading role in “The Whale” and “Abbott Elementary” for comedy series ensemble.
Third-year communications major Athena Yiv was proud of the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” wins. Still, for the female actor in a comedy series category, she did wish for a different outcome.
“I think it would have been cool if Jenna Ortega won the award, I like her. I think everything she did for the show also did well for social media trends which is a plus,” Yiv said.
