Viola Davis at the SAG Awards: "It Stars From The Top Up"

Viola Davis

Accepting her award for Best Actress in a Drama Series for ABC drama How to Get Away With Murder, Viola Davis opened her speech by talking about her young daughter, who often asks her for stories. Inevitably, Davis said, her daughter includes one specific request: "Mommy, can you put me in the story?"

"It starts from the top up," Davis said, thanking the production and writing team behind her award-winning show "for thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old, dark-skinned African-American woman who looks like me."

Watch her brilliant acceptance speech below:



A study published in academic journal Communication Research in 2012 showed that "television exposure predicted a decrease in self-esteem for white and black girls and black boys, and an increase in self-esteem among white boys."

Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez touched on this point as well in her Golden Globes acceptance speech, speaking movingly about representing Latino Americans on the small screen.