America Ferrera received the SeeHer Award during the Critics Choice Awards ceremony on Sunday. The award “honors a woman who advocates for gender equality, portrays characters with authenticity, defies stereotypes and pushes boundaries.” Ferrera is the eighth recipient of the annual award. Janelle Monáe received the award last year.
Ferrera’s Barbie cast mate Margot Robbie introduced Ferrera, praising her for her film roles in Real Women Have Curves and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants along with her trailblazing TV role as Ugly Betty. “America became not only the first Latina to win the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy, but still the only, first and I imagine being the first and only,” Robbie said. She also highlighted Ferrera’s role as Gloria and her empowering monologue in Barbie. “When Greta Gerwig needed someone to talk about the true experience of what it’s like to be a woman there was one voice in her head. America gave our film a rallying cry filled with candor, vulnerability, and inspiration. She was speaking for every woman, everywhere, in a way that only America could.”
Ferrera expressed her gratitude in receiving the award for her “contributions to more authentic portrayals of women and girls couldn’t be more meaningful to me because I grew up as a first-generation Honduran American girl in love with TV, film, and theater who desperately wanted to be a part of a storytelling legacy that I could not see myself reflected in,” she said. “Of course, I could feel myself in characters who were strong and complex, but these characters rarely, if ever, looked like me. I yearned to see people like myself on screen as full humans.
“When I started working over 20 years ago — it seemed, that seems impossible, I know,” she joked about how long she’s been in the industry. “But it seemed impossible that anyone could make a career portraying fully dimensional Latina characters. Because of writers, directors, producers and executives, who were daring enough to rewrite outdated stories, and to challenge deeply entrenched biases, I and some of my beloved Latina colleagues have been supremely blessed to bring to life some fierce and fantastic women.”
“To me, this is the best and highest use of storytelling: to affirm one another’s full humanity, to uphold the truth that we are all worthy of being seen. Black, Brown, indigenous, Asian, trans, disabled, any body type, any gender — we are all worthy of having our lives richly and authentically reflected.”
She also gave props to Gerwig and thanked the cast, including the guys, “for all being man enough to support women’s work.”
“Thank you for proving through your incredible mastery as a filmmaker that women’s stories have no difficulty achieving cinematic greatness and box office history at the same time, Ferrera said, addressing Gerwig directly in th audience. “Telling female stories does not diminish your powers, it expands them. Greta — your mind, your talent, your heart have inspired us all, and thank you for asking me to be your Gloria.”
