The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards was a night of firsts and a reminder of the power of Oprah.
Sterling K. Brown became the first African-American actor to win in the best actor in a TV drama category for “This Is Us,” and Aziz Ansari was the first Asian actor to win a Golden Globe for best actor in a TV comedy for “Master of None.”
Brown talked of benefiting in his career “from colorblind casting” and thanked “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman in his acceptance speech.
“Dan Fogelman, you wrote a role for a black man that can only be played by a black man,” Brown said. “What I appreciate so much about this is that I’m being seen for who I am and being appreciated for who I am, and it makes it that much more difficult to dismiss me or dismiss anybody who looks like me.”
But it was Oprah Winfrey, the first black woman to be awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, who brought the audience to their feet with her stirring speech.
“For too long women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men,” she said. “But their time is up.”