Natalie Portman Just Did Right By All Women At The Golden Globes

Natalie Portman didn’t come to play Image by Getty Images
Natalie Portman, resplendent in a decadent velvet gown and her signature face-that-looks-like-it-was-personally-architected-by-God, almost made a huge mistake at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards.
She followed Oprah.
After Oprah Winfrey’s exceptionally barn-burning acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award, a speech that brought the entirety of the Hollywood glitterati to its feet with an evangelical zeal reminiscent of the prophet Amos, did anyone really want to hear from Natalie Portman? Natalie Portman, who is best known for being in the worst “Star Wars” movies and engaging in an excruciatingly exhibitionist email correspondence with Jonathan Safran Foer?
Never bet against Natalie Portman.
Appearing reluctantly with Ron Howard to announce the winner for Best Director directly after Oprah, both the director and Portman looked out of place after Winfrey’s speech praising women’s fight for equality throughout history. But as the pair prepared to deliver the award, Portman quietly said, “Here are the all-male nominees.”
All.
Male.
“The all-male nominees.”
This will teach me to doubt Natalie Portman. This will teach us all to doubt Natalie Portman.
In the moment allotted to her, the actress managed to take a ruthless jab at patriarchal systems without stealing focus from Oprah’s success. It was the classiest way imaginable to humble a group of powerful men at the height of their careers. A tiny castration! A ritual, symbolic bloodletting. A circumcision, if you will.
And in the time since I began writing this piece, the slighted director of “Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig, beat out male-helmed movies to win the award for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy.
It looks like time really is up.
Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Fast Forward Jewish Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky reportedly to retire after 26 years in office
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.