Till (2022)

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).

For those that are unaware, the trailer for the new Civil Rights movie Till has been out for a bit and it's absolutely amazing. It stars Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till played by Jalyn Hall. 

The story recounts the fateful time in 1955 Mississippi when Emmett Louis Till was lynched while visiting his cousins. The young boy was in a grocery store when he began to talk with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant. While talking with her, it was alleged that he whistled or flirted with her, offending her. She alerted her husband and his half-brother went to Till’s uncle’s house and abducted the boy. They tortured, beat, and shot him, throwing his body into the Tallahatchie River.

The two men that tortured and murdered Till were acquitted. This was one of the events that launched the Civil Rights movement and propelled it to the mainstream. Till was fourteen years old when he was killed.

With movies like Moonlight and 12 Years a Slave that have won Oscar Gold, including Best Picture, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to see Till winning the same award.