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At The Golden Globes, Not Just Another Red Carpet

Activist Rosa Clemente (far left), actors Susan Sarandon and Michelle Williams and activist Tarana Burke (far right), arrive to the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Clemente is an organizer, political commentator and independent journalist. Burke is the founder of the #MeToo. movement and co-founder of Just Be You Inc.
Christopher Polk
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NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Activist Rosa Clemente (far left), actors Susan Sarandon and Michelle Williams and activist Tarana Burke (far right), arrive to the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Clemente is an organizer, political commentator and independent journalist. Burke is the founder of the #MeToo. movement and co-founder of Just Be You Inc.

The reputation of the Golden Globes is that they're the Oscars' rowdier, tipsier, weirder cousin — sometimes refreshingly so. And while awards season is always the most intense time of year for celebrity fashion, this year the allegations — and, in some cases, admissions — of sexual harassment and assault added a far more serious layer of conversation. Some women said in advance that they would wear black to convey their support for people who have reported abuse. (Some men did, too, but the prevalence of black tuxedos makes that tricky as a means of messaging.) The Time's Up initiative, aimed at fighting sexual harassment in and outside of Hollywood, also called on women to wear black on the red carpet.

Here's a look, in photos, at how that campaign went.

Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
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Reuters

Meryl Streep (above, left) and women's activist Ai-Jen Poo walk the red carpet at The Golden Globe awards. Streep told E! News, "We feel sort of emboldened in this particular moment to stand together in a thick black line dividing then from now."

Steve Granitz / WireImage/Getty Images
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WireImage/Getty Images

Actors Reese Witherspoon (left to right), Eva Longoria, Salma Hayek and Ashley Judd stop on the red carpet. Witherspoon spearheaded the Time's Up initiative. Longoria said, "we're here to say 'Time's Up' to the imbalance of power."

Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
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Reuters

William H. Macy proudly displays his Time's Up pin.

Christopher Polk / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
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NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

From the Netflix show Stranger Things, actors (left to right) Sadie Sink, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin and Noah Schnapp arrive at the awards.

Actress Viola Davis said: "I want to give room to the women that don't normally have voices to talk about their sexual assault and rape and I'm listening. They need to know that it's not their fault and they're not dirty and that's my message tonight."

Christopher Polk / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
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NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Actors Natalie Portman (left to right) , Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer and America Ferrera take a moment on the red carpet.

"It's so incredible to look around and see everyone in solidarity, ready to really address the issues that exist in our industry and across all industries," America Ferrera said. "It's our job – right now, the time is now – for us to do the work that will make women and all people more safe and more equal in their workplaces and in their lives."

Emma Stone was accompanied by Billie Jean King, the pro tennis player and activist that Stone portrays in "Battle of the Sexes".

Amy Poehler, left, brought Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of @rocunited which fights to raise wages & labor standards for the country's 12 million restaurant workers,' as her guest to the awards.

Marai Larasi, the executive director of Imkaan, a U.K.-based women's organization "aimed at responding to and preventing violence against black minoritized women and girls" arrived with actor Emma Watson.

"We've been working together this year and when Michelle Williams spearheaded the idea of actresses bringing activists on the red carpet, my first thought was, 'It would be great to do it with Marai, because we have fun together, we challenge each other," Watson told E! News.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Corrected: January 10, 2018 at 11:00 PM CST
A previous version of this story misspelled Marai Larasi's last name as Marasi.
Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.
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