Patricia Arquette Calls For Women’s Equal Rights At The Oscars [Video]
Patricia Arquette made full use of her Oscar win Sunday night. When accepting her Academy Award for best supporting actress in the film Boyhood, she went a little off-script when thanking everyone.
The Inquisitr recently reported that Arquette was nervous and excited about her nomination for the award and that she had ensured there was plenty of sympathy available should she lose. It seems she didn’t need to worry after all, as she received the well-deserved Oscar for her part in Boyhood.
Patricia Arquette’s #Oscars2015 acceptance speech: ‘It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all’ pic.twitter.com/9tH2jYddGp
— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) February 23, 2015
After thanking everyone necessary for the treasured award, Arquette went a little off the normal Oscar route by making an impassioned plea.
“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer of this nation. We have fought for everybody else’s rights.”
“It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
As Patricia gave her rousing acceptance speech she received a resounding cheer from the audience, including that famous lady Meryl Streep, who said that Arquette’s speech “made her night.”
Streep could be seen in the audience, giving Arquette a standing ovation, pointing at the stage and saying, “Yes, yes.” Jennifer Lopez, seated next to Streep also clapped and cheered.
According to the Huffington Post, Streep’s attention continued backstage where she and Arquette hugged. Patricia referred to Streep the queen and the patron saint of all actresses.
“I hugged her afterwards! She’s the queen, the patron saint of all actresses.”
The reaction from Streep and JLo comes as no surprise for anyone with knowledge of the pay gap, even in Hollywood circles.
According to Variety, female stars do earn more in their 20’s than their male counterparts but that changes and it was seen that women were paid significantly less once they have passed the age of 34. During the period June 2012 to June 2013, Hollywood’s top-paid actresses earned $181 million altogether. The top-earning male actors, on the other hand, received a stunning $465 million.
The Daily Mail quotes Arquette as she continued with her plea for women’s equal pay backstage (a video of the speech is included below).
“It’s amazing, but it is time for us. It is time for women. Equal means equal. And the truth is, the older women get, the less money they make. The more children ? the highest percentage of children living in poverty are female?headed households.”
Patricia then got pretty strong about the Constitution not having been written for women.
“And it’s inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries and we don’t have equal rights for women in America and we don’t because when they wrote the Constitution, they didn’t intend it for women.”
She ended her backstage speech by saying that it’s time for “all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”
This is Patricia Arquette’s first Academy Award and by winning it, she beat out her heroine and supporter, Meryl Streep for Into the Woods, along with Emma Stone for Birdman, Keira Knightly for The Imitation Game and Laura Dern for Wild.
RT if you agree w/ @PattyArquette: It’s 2015. t’s time for #EqualPay for women. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/TQzdAT7tpw
— US Labor Department (@USDOL) February 23, 2015
[Photos by Kevin Winter and Jason Merritt / Getty Images respectively]
