Get on Up (2014)

We stan a QUEEN!!!

Viola Davis earned the legendary Holy Grail of the entertainment industry, EGOT status, on Sunday, February 5, 2023.

“It has just been such a journey. . .I just EGOT!” Davis says in her acceptance speech. Her fans (including me) have been celebrating all over social media.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1FfCHeDsY8[/embed]

Indeed, Viola Davis has had an incredible journey replete with wins (and obstacles to overcome). She started in the 1990s with Broadway productions like August Wilson's Seven Guitars. She continued building her career with off-Broadway productions and television appearances on shows like NYPD Blue and New York Undercover. She also had smaller roles in films like the military comedy, The Pentagon Wars on HBO alongside Kelsey Grammer of Frasier and Cheers fame. She continued appearing in films and TV shows through the 2000s like Antwone Fisher, Ocean's Eleven, Far From Heaven, and Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit. She also continued her acclaimed Broadway career, working with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams in John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. The 2010s saw her profile rise to superstardom with major roles in The Help, Get on Up, Lila & Eve, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Suicide Squad. Viola Davis' success has continued into today with producing credits and Box Office success with The Woman King and her bestselling memoir. She is even nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role at this year's BAFTA Awards (British Academy of Film and Television Arts).

At Incluvie, we provide movie reviews and ratings through a lens of representation. When the world lost Chadwick Boseman on August 28, 2020, we all saw the enormous and powerful impact of representation in film. The announcement of his untimely death on Twitter was the most liked tweet as of August 2020 [Source]. Why? Because Boseman was not only a Black superhero leading a Black cast in one of the most successful films in history; but his successes paved the way for more, long-overdue diversity in Hollywood.

As the industry posts tributes to their friend and colleague, we can only remember him through the grace and integrity he left on screen. Boseman was necessary to the film industry; we needed him. Every systematically oppressed person needed him, and his strong, well-rounded characters. Boseman was more than an extremely talented actor — he was the embodiment of representation’s effect. The writers of Incluvie wanted to do our best to pay a small tribute to his image on screen. Let’s review some of his roles and his impact.

I was 12 going on 13 when I first saw Boseman light-up the screen.

'Happened in the Spring of 2013. A long time ago, but only if you measure it in terms of'—OKAY, this isn’t Stand By Me…