Inspiration from 2025 Award Acceptance Speeches #FeelingFriday
Photo by Uwe Conrad on Unsplash
This coming Sunday we will witness another round of awards and another round of the Oscars and yes another round of acceptance speeches. The Oscars is the end of the awards season, so we’ve been through the full round and we’ve seen many acceptance speeches at this point.
As I have watched these award ceremonies, or as I say pop culture milestones, year over year, I have long said that the award winners have a moment on that stage to really say something. So while it’s nice to thank their friends, families, and colleagues, it’s much more meaningful to say something meaningful about the impact that perhaps their role has played in the world, or the project they were a part of, or the message that the team was trying to send.
I’ve long thought … “send a message that will inspire the world, or heal the world, or lift the world because after all you’re on a stage and the world is watching.”
So many don’t, but then again some do! This award season has felt a little different, I must say. I’d like to highlight a few that really captured the moment and inspired the world, including me!
Perhaps it started with Demi Moore at The Golden Globes for her very first win ever, for Best Actress. Her comments on defying perceptions and not being “being enough” so resonated with me. “The universe told me you are not done.” I get it, because I’m not done yet either. We’ve all been told many a times that we are not “enough” but as Demi says perhaps we need to put the “measurement stick down.” Click here to hear her yourself.
Then we have Lady Gaga at The Grammy Awards who is no stranger to winning awards and no stranger to having something to say at the awards podium. So when she marched up to accept her win with Bruno Mars for Best Duo Performance gave a huge shout out to the Transgender Community and to Queer People who need our support now more than ever. Someone needed to say it, and of course Gaga championed it all for us all. “Music is love.” Click here to hear it yourself.
And then just last week, the legendary Jane Fonda accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from SAG, and her speech just simply blew me away because it is everything I feel and everything I know to be true. “I’m not done.” I have written about empathy so much as a determining factor in a marketer’s success, and here Jane says it’s a determining factor in an actor’s success and in a human’s success. She talks about how an actor’s job is about understanding another human being, that’s empathy. That’s a marketer’s job too. “Empathy is not weak or woke, and by the way woke just means that you give a damn about people.” She goes on to talk about welcoming people in. I’ll let you hear the rest by clicking here.
So yes, the Oscars are coming up on Sunday and yes I am interested in seeing who wins what. I’ll be watching. But more importantly, I’ll be listening to the acceptance speeches. Because those are the moments that just make up our popular culture just as much as the films and the performances themselves. As Jane says, “this is our documentary moment.”
What’s your experience? JIM