At the Media Access Awards on Wednesday, winner Marlee Matlin summed up the vibe by saying that when she came to Los Angeles in 1985, “words like equality and access were so far removed from mainstream Hollywood that I had to. make noise”. Receiving the MAA Lifetime Achievement Award “inspires me to be even stronger.”
The annual awards have long recognized films and television shows that provide positive portrayals of people with disabilities. Other winners, announced in advance, included Selma Blair, Troy Kotsur, John Krasinski, Jamie Nieto, Ryan O’Connell, “Luca” producer Andrea Warren and Zeno Mountain Farm.
The Apple movie “CODA” was the sole winner of multiple awards, with Matlin, his co-star Troy Kotsur and the film’s casting directors Deborah Aquila, Tricia Wood and Lisa Zagoria honored. The trio received the Casting Society of America award, with screenwriter and film director Sian Heder praising them as partners.
The virtual event was hosted by actress Millicent Simonds, who signed off that she was “not a deaf actress, but an actress who happens to be deaf”.
Matlin received the MAA’s highest honor, the Norman Lear-Geri Jewell Award for Lifetime Achievement. Presenter Shoshannah Stern has hailed her as “a guiding spirit for the deaf and disabled” since 1986, when she was acclaimed for her Oscar-winning performance in “Children of a Lesser God.”
Thanking mentors like Henry Winkler and Whoopi Goldberg, Matlin said she was honored to receive an award named after Lear and Jewell, “two of Hollywood’s loudest people,” explaining that they were loud in the room. narration and “enlightened and changed minds”.
A visibly moved Blair took home the visionary award. Discovery Plus documentary “Introducing Selma Blair” chronicles her life with multiple sclerosis since 2018; she said that chronic illness means “seeing the world from a very different perspective.”
Krasinski received the first-ever MAA Achievement Award, honoring his commitment to inclusion with Paramount’s “A Quiet Place Part II”. Praising the star of the film Simonds, he said: “The choice of a deaf actress was not negotiable.”
Kotsur received the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award, named after the 1946 Oscar winner. Kotsur has been described as an actor who has paid his dues and he said that hiring people with disabilities “will change outlook and that everyone will understand that people are just people ”.
Zeno Mountain Farm won the Disability Awareness Award from SAG-AFTRA. Zeno brings together people with and without disabilities to make films every year and this year the result was the musical “Best Summer Ever”, with writer Will Halby calling the disability community a huge “untapped resource. “.
“Luca” producer Andrea Warren won the PGA George Sunga Award. The Pixar-Disney movie features a character with one arm, Massimo, and his difference is only a small part of who he is. Warren said, “We have a unique opportunity to reach a younger generation. “
O’Connell, creator and star of the Netflix series “Special”, won the WGA Evan Somers Memorial Award. Growing up gay and living with cerebral palsy, O’Connell said of people with disabilities: “Much of the population has been criminally under-represented… There is still a long way to go. “
Athlete Jamie Nieto won the Christopher Reeve Actor Fellowship.
The Media Access Awards have a long tradition; they are presented in partnership with Easterseals. The show’s executive producer was Deborah Calla. Allen Rucker was a writer. Winners are selected by diversity committees from the Casting Society of America, Producers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, and Writers Guild of America.
It was the second year in a row with a virtual ceremony (which included captions and audio descriptions).
The presenters included Jamie Brewer, Keah Brown, Zack Gottsagen, Jim Parsons, Lauren Ridloff, Shoshanna Stern, Michael Patrick Thornton and Jacob Tremblay.
The evening featured interstitials from Russell Crowe, Zac Efron, Peter Farrelly, Jimmy Kimmel and Meredith Scott Lynn.
There were also performances by Rex & Friends, a group of autistic and blind musicians led by Rex Lewis-Clark, and Kinetic Light Company, dancers who use their disabilities (and wheelchairs) to reinvent the movement of dance.
Ahead of the party, Mark Whitley, CEO of Easterseas Southern California, said in a statement: “The presenters and winners of this year’s Media Access Awards are examples of how the industry continues to move forward. forward towards greater representation and inclusion of people with disabilities.
