One of my favourite things about awards season speeches is listening to a category winner wax lyrical about the runners-up. In an age that is increasingly about shouting our individual achievements from the rooftops, these moments of humility are particularly heartwarming.
When it comes to female winners, however, veneration of other nominees can verge on denigrating their own achievements. Take Billie Eilish, who this week began her album of the year acceptance speech by saying: “Can I just say that I think Ariana [Grande] deserves this?” Similarly, during the dramatic pause before the unveiling of the best pop solo performance, Lizzo was filmed crossing her fingers and furiously chanting the name of fellow nominee Beyoncé, before her own name was called.
These are touching displays of sisterhood, but also illustrative of a deep-seated sense of undeservedness among many young women. It’s something I recognise in them because I recognise it in myself; I have never written an acceptance speech in my life, not for lack of nominations, but lack of surety in my ability to bring home the gold. Any time that I have managed to, my mind has immediately shot to who should be standing there instead.
Women downplaying our accomplishments is not surprising – we are, of course, expected to be eternally humble. But this buck-passing goes beyond bashfulness. Like most awards, the Grammys are notoriously male-dominated – these demure responses partly read as guilt at taking up limited space, when the chances for other women to be celebrated are so few.
“I can’t possibly accept this award,” Adele said during her 2017 acceptance speech for album of the year. “I’m very humbled and very grateful and gracious but my life is Beyoncé … the Lemonade album was just so monumental.” Adele then broke the Grammy to share, a nod to the iconic moment in Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan’s character snaps her Spring Fling crown into pieces to hand to her rival contestants.
At the other end of the spectrum, when Green Book won the best picture Oscar over BlacKkKlansman last year, Spike Lee, the director of the latter, threw up his arms in anger and tried to leave the ceremony before the speeches finished. In 2007, Eddie Murphy was so upset after losing the best supporting actor Academy Award to Alan Arkin that he, too, stormed out. Kanye freely broods over award upsets that aren’t even his, disrupting Beck’s acceptance speech in 2015 and Taylor Swift’s in 2009 when they both beat Beyoncé. There is a definite, documented difference not just in how men and women often react to winning and losing, but how those reactions are perceived.
A lack of confidence and a lack of willingness to award women more frequently both leave female winners apologetic. We need the opportunity to own our success comfortably. That, and Beyoncé deserves more awards.
