Photo: DAVID SWANSON/AFP via Getty Images
The stars arrived at the Oscars red carpet in Los Angeles tonight, and it seems some of them wore their hearts on their lapels! Tonight, as nominees made their way into the Dolby Theater, the death toll in Gaza reached 30,960, according to Al Jazeera, and over 72,524 wounded as a result of the ongoing conflict with Israel and the subsequent humanitarian crisis.
While I’ve said it many a time, fashion is not the finish line when it comes to equity, but it is a vehicle for visibility, and some invitees used the platform they were afforded tonight to make a stand and call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Stars like Ramy Youssef (in a thobe no less! Ramadan Kareem, Ramy!), Billie Eillish and Finneas O’Connell, Mahershala Ali, directors Ava Duvernay and Daniel Schienert (of the Everything Everywhere All At Once duo, The Daniels) and Swann Arlaud (hot lawyer from Anatomy of a Fall!), Riz Ahmed and Mark Ruffalo all either sported Artists4Ceasefire pins on their red carpet getups (yes, the same ones we saw at the Grammys as well). According to the organization’s website, Artists4Ceasefire is a “group of artists and advocates who have come together in response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Israel and Palestine,” who aim to lend their “platforms to amplify the global call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the safe return of all hostages, and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilians in Gaza.” Youssef told Variety “We’re calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for peace and lasting justice for the people of Palestine.”
While it does all feel a bit too much like The Hunger Games (which for some reason E! streamed right after the red carpet…), when we’d see scenes back-to-back of opulence, indulgence and high fashion on display in the capital and of children dying, scrounging around looking for food and hoping to catch an airdrop of aid, all live streamed to an awaiting audience (after all, history repeats itself and Suzanne Collins wrote the series after flipping through channels during the United States’s Iraq invasion), at least we’re seeing a tide turn when it comes to calling for peace. If you’ve got millions of eyeballs on you, might as well use it to say something you believe in.
