DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
Who’s Got Next? Young Hollywood & Wonder Woman
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Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Kerry Washington, and Wonder Woman

Anybody else feel like lip-syncing the National Anthem?
Yesterday’s SAG Awards red carpet felt mighty patriotic!

I kept waiting for Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman to jump over the red velvet rope and free an A-Lister with her Lasso of Truth!

Young Hollywood did Ms. Wonder proud though. All the celebrity fashion stylists must’ve gotten the same memo because it was all about the strapless red, white and blue (above). Even with hints of black and a couple of gowns of gold, the most prominent stars & stripes hues would’ve made our troops (and the Amazonian princess) proud.

Who’s Got Next?

Awards season, for any actor, is usually about positioning for more employment. Each starlet wants to be the answer to the question, “Who’s Got Next?”

By Hollywood standards, that depends mostly on one’s profitability at the box office and/or television ads. But it also hinges on one’s ability to drive other sales i.e. fashion, lipstick, liquor, perfume, soda, magazines, mobile apps! You name it! If your image can be slapped on the side of something to sell it, you’ve arrived! LOL! Enter our lovely ladies from last evening.

THE RED

Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain broke the cardinal red-head rule and rocked red yesterday. Talk about daring! Take that Bin Laden. I didn’t like her film Zero Dark Thirty, but I can admire any fashionista who goes against the grain.

THE WHITE

Meanwhile, Image Award-winner Kerry Washington continued her love affair with white. As Scandal’s leading lady with a name like Olivia Pope, Kerry is dressed in white on the show all the time: white trenches, white sweaters, white gowns. We get the symbolism that we’re supposed to think she’s trying to make good choices.

THE BLUE

Navy was all the rage yesterday. Everybody from Nicole Kidman to Amanda Seyfried donned the blue. But Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence was contagious. Literally. She had walking pneumonia. But her win as Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook and her large box office draw from The Hunger Games’ $400 million gross allowed everyone to forget how sick she must’ve been. Not me. When she told one reporter she had pneumonia, I’m sure I said out loud, “Child, Go sit down somewhere.” Unfortunately, she didn’t hear me through the TV.

NEXT

There’s always a NEXT in our industry. The starlets who carve out a long-term career sign up for the long haul and do what they can to maximize their moment. They also tend to have a healthy dose of reality and benefit from Wonder Woman’s Belt of Truth.

On a side note, did anybody else make the connection of W.W.’s lasso of truth with Ephesians 6:14 belt of truth? “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist…” I really think our original comic book writers (Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) were infusing God’s story into our culture. Straight up. But I digress…

Kerry Washington lives in reality. I went to a recent screening where she was the special guest and she said, “If you need stability and consistency, this business is not for you.” She’s worked for almost 20 years, making her screen debut on TV in 1994. She gets it.

Jessica Chastain is heralded for deeply authentic performances. She graduated from Julliard in New York in 2003 and has hustled for almost 10 years to get on the map. She often speaks of all the auditions she survived for so many years and just persevering and never giving up.

And Jennifer Lawrence, who carved a path for herself first through independent films, has admitted that even she never knows what’s going to come out of her mouth. She’s known for her candor. She beats to a different kind of drum and it’s working for her.

KEEPING IT REAL

Hopefully, we can all be encouraged to walk out truth and keep it real. We tend to really appreciate that from others.

I think it’s the reason there was such a backlash to Beyonce’s lip-syncing during the Inauguration. People felt duped. Unlike Kelly Clarkson who sang live right before her, Ms. Sasha Fierce went all out trying to make everyone “think” she was singing live when she actually wasn’t. Thank goodness we already know she can sing and she’ll no doubt try to make a comeback during the Super Bowl halftime next Sunday, but it kind of left a bad taste in people’s mouths when they learned she had faked her performance.

Let’s go Wonder’s route and walk out truth.
And let’s toast to young Hollywood’s Next in their red, white & blue!
Naima

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