Aidy Bryant celebrated “the resilience and ingenuity” of her fellow artists during her opening monologue of the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards on the beach in Santa Monica, California on Sunday.
“Welcome to the Film Independent Spirit Award, also known as the bisexual Oscars,” Bryant said to start. “I am so honored to be here, especially since the Spirit Awards turn 39 this year so hope you froze your eggs, Spirit Awards.”
Bryant went on joke to the crowd about her personal connection to independent film. “I first became aware of many of you independent filmmakers because my high school boyfriend talked about you all the time while we dry humped,” she said. “I am married now, so I learn less about cinema, but for many years I was taught what a tracking shot is over and over by the boys who penetrated me.”
She went on to touch on the various troubles faced by recent awards hosts, saying that hosting is “becoming kind of a tough gig, like I can only hope that in this single afternoon I will be panned, considered out of touch, sexist and potentially be slapped.”
Later in her speech, Bryant touched on the topics that kept Hollywood abuzz during the writers and actors strikes this summer, saying show business “is a healthy business for both the ego and the soul and under this tent, there are great writers, visionary directors and legendary actors, or as an anonymous executive might say, worthless little content pigs who should be replaced by computers.”
Bryant continued, “speaking of the strike, I have to ask, Is everybody getting coffee with the people that you ran into on the picket line? You said you would!”
She finished her monologue with a serious note of appreciation: “Today we celebrate the resilience and the ingenuity of your work,” she said. “And it is so hard to get something made not to mention this town can be kind of harsh, but that’s Hollywood baby, but not here. And if you’re an actress, and you are wearing your own shoes in the movie, that’s indie, baby. When the script story spans 10 years and then you shoot it in two weeks, that’s indie, baby. And when the solidarity from the WGA, SAG and the Teamsters shows us the collective power of our labor, that’s indie baby.
Bryant spoke to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of her hosting gig, saying that the Spirit Awards “really do touch my heart.”
“There’s a kind of yuckiness in Hollywood sometimes,” she said, “and there’s something pure and beautiful about supporting independent film.”
She also said her plans to mention the strike were based in a conviction that “this event feels more free from the studio system.”
“This is more internal, for those people who are really in it,” she added. “The strike affected all of us far and wide, so it would be crazy not to mention it. Personally, I was grappling with how long it took for the studios to come to an arrangement and what a squeeze it was putting on our IATSE and Teamster brethren.”
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