Aside from all the gifs and memes that resulted from Gen-X icon Winona Ryder’s facial expressions, the biggest story of last night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards was the many winners who used their acceptance speeches as a platform to rebuke President Trump’s executive order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The night opened on a political note when Ashton Kutcher, presenting the night’s first award, welcomed “everyone at home and everyone in airports that belong in my America. You are part of the fabric of who we are, and we love you and we welcome you.”

#sagawards pic.twitter.com/3BGDGa0FLC

— SAG Awards® (@SAGawards) January 30, 2017

The night continued with “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, accepting the award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series. In her speech, she called Trump’s immigration ban “un-American” and told her story of being the daughter of an immigrant who fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France.

The political focus continued throughout the night. William H. Macy thanked Trump for making his “Shameless” character Frank Gallagher–a perpetually drunk and irresponsible man with a proclivity to go on extended rants–seem normal. “Orange is the New Black” actress Taylor Schilling called on Hollywood to “keep telling stories that show what unites us is stronger than the forces that seek to divide us.” “The People v. O.J. Simpson” star Sarah Paulson requested that everyone donate to the American Civil Liberties Union. And “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour pointed to art’s ability to “cultivate a more empathetic and understanding society.”

The most emotional and perhaps most resonant moment of the night came from Mahershala Ali, who accepted the award for best male actor in a supporting role for his performance in the movie “Moonlight.” “We see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves,” Ali said.

He added:

When we kind of get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us all different, there’s two ways of seeing that. There’s an opportunity to see the texture of that person, the characteristics that make them unique, and then there’s the opportunity to go to war about it, say, ‘that person is different from me and I don’t like you, so let’s battle.’ My mother is an ordained minister, I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do backflips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now, we put things to the side, I’m able to see her, she’s able to see me, we love each other, the love has grown. That stuff is minutiae. It’s not that important.

Politics taking a prominent place during awards season has a rich history–one that includes Marlon Brando refusing to accept his Academy Award for “The Godfather” to protest the film industry’s treatment of Native Americans and Michael Moore using his Oscar speech to shame President George W. Bush. If last night was any indication, President Trump is in for a bruising couple of weeks.

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

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Ageism is a prevalent problem in Hollywood, especially for actresses. Many, many actresses–Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patricia Arquette, Meryl Streep, Zoe Saldana, Sarah Silverman, Jane Fonda, Cate Blanchett, and others–have spoken out against sexism and ageism in Hollywood. But what if actresses were able to obscure their age on sites like IMDB? Would that give them a leg up when it comes to  landing parts? California just passed a law that would allow actors and actresses to remove their ages from their IMDB and similar professional entertainment pages, potentially putting that question to the test.

The text of the law, signed by Governor Jerry Brown, “will force subscription websites used by casting services and entertainment employers to remove age information in online profiles if asked.”

This comes after a lawsuit last year in which actress Junie Hoang sued IMDB for revealing her age. She claimed that her age being published hurt her career, and that IMDB breached her privacy by publicizing it. While she lost the lawsuit, it was certainly an interesting question, and opened up the conversation that this new law sort of stemmed from.

However, it’s not necessarily that simple. They Hollywood Reporter’s Jonathan Handel brought up the fact that the new law could violate First Amendment rights. First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told the Hollywood Reporter:

The statute seems to me of the most dubious constitutionality. Birth dates are facts. It’s hard to see how the government, consistently with the First Amendment‎, can bar or punish their disclosure.

However Democratic Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, who sponsored the bill, argued that it wasn’t censorship. He said:

Requiring websites to remove all age information from profiles would seem to run afoul of the First Amendment restrictions on the regulation of commercial speech. Limiting the bill to only subscribers makes it clear that the bill advances an important government interest — that of reducing age discrimination in a manner that is substantially related to that interest and no more extensive than necessary to achieve that interest.

Obviously this won’t make much of a difference for already established actresses, whose birthdays are quite easy to figure out. But it may make a difference for up-and-coming talent, or at least let actresses (and some actors) take the emphasis off their ages and let their work stand on its own. There’s still a lot of work to do to fight ageism in Hollywood, but maybe this will serve a tiny first step.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Welcome, readers, to a new series focused solely on sharing the most ridiculous laws that actually exist in our country. From banning women from parachuting on Sundays to making swearing loudly unlawful, the 50 United States are chock full of laws that really make you wonder how they ever came to be.

To kick start this series I will focus on one of the largest states, which has no shortage of bizarre laws on the books.

As you all know, California is home to Hollywood and major film and television production companies. If you are a parent wishing to take advantage of this to live vicariously through your child’s film career, beware. In the Golden State, film producers must have permission from a pediatrician before filming a child younger than one month.

Also, if you wish to include a scene with a dog pursuing a bear or bobcat in your film, you will have to change the plot. In California, it is unlawful to allow a dog to pursue either of the two aforementioned animals at any time.

Speaking of animals, while it is illegal to shoot at them from a moving vehicle, there is an exception for anyone wishing to play out a Moby Dick scenario: shooting at a whale from a moving vehicle is completely fine. So go ahead and release your inner Ishmael!

I’m sure you are all aware that some cities nationwide charge customers for plastic bags. San Jose and Sunnyvale, California take this to the next level, however; in those two cities, it is illegal for grocery stores to provide plastic bags at all.

Horny animals better control their natural instincts in Cali. Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship. This law in particular is a major head-scratcher for me. How is it enforced? Who would be arrested in such a case? Would two dogs getting it on next to a church be sent to the pound? Oh, the confusion of it all… I have so many hilarious visuals playing out in my mind of cops leading handcuffed dogs to the holding cell.

The final law worth mentioning is one specific to the city of Fresno, where it is illegal to sell permanent markers within city limits.

Thus concludes this week’s edition in the series “The Dumbest Laws in the United States.” Tune in next week when we will explore the illogical laws throughout the rest of the West Coast.

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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