Gold House Honors Michelle Yeoh, Unveils SeeHer Partnership at First-Ever Gold Gala
“Science tells us women outlive men. But even with extra time, we have to get a lot more done,” Michelle Yeoh said in her acceptance speech for the SeeHer award at Gold House’s inaugural Gold Gala on Saturday night. “If you try to have a baby after the age of 35, science tells us that is a geriatric pregnancy. While men are just starting their lives” – here the screen icon shot a playful glare at her hapless presenters, directors Jon M. Chu and Destin Daniel Cretton and producer Jonathan Wang – “women are already starting the geriatric part of their lives. Hardly seems fair, right? Get down on your knees, boys.”
Only a legend of Yeoh’s stature could get the filmmakers behind three of Hollywood’s biggest recent hits – Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Everything Everywhere All at Once – to comply, which they did to the roar of approval of the 500-plus Asian Pacific Islander luminaries in attendance.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Yeoh – who along with Mindy Kaling was also feted as a Gold House A100 Legend at the gala – was honored by SeeHer because of how her onscreen roles and offscreen advocacy align with the organization’s mission to promote accurate depictions of women and girls in media and advertising. To support those efforts, SeeHer has published a series of #WriteHerRight guides to help showrunners and other storytellers check for well-rounded female characters as well as potential blind spots and stereotypes. In addition to a general resource, SeeHer also partnered with OWN and NBCUniversal Telemundo to issue guides specific to Black women and Latina characters, respectively.
Now, SeeHer is partnering with Gold House for its fourth #WriteHerRight guide, focused on API female characters, to be published later this year.
“Storytellers have the power and responsibility to reflect their audiences with authenticity,” said SeeHer president Jeannine Shao Collins, who unveiled the partnership at the gala. “This guide will help foster nuanced reflections of women and girls across diverse AAPI communities, so they can see themselves and their limitless potential. I am very proud to be working with Gold House to spearhead this initiative.”
Paramount – which has produced a SeeHer PSA airing across its portfolio of networks – and AMC Networks will participate in the development of the guide as media partners. “At AMC Networks we believe that it’s very difficult to be what you cannot see,” chief people and diversity officer Aisha Thomas-Petit said in a statement. “That’s why we’re committed to using our platforms to champion stories and storytellers that authentically depict a variety of diverse lived experiences, and why we’re so proud to partner with SeeHer and Gold House to develop resources that will promote a more authentic and multifaceted representation of women and girls across the AAPI community.”
The SeeHer partnership was just one of a slate of initiatives unveiled at Gold House’s lavish celebration in downtown Los Angeles, which also included:
June 25 Unity March in Washington, D.C. : The API leadership collective is partnering with Asian Americans Advancing Justice, APIAVote and more than a dozen other activist organizations for an event to declare API support and solidarity for socioeconomic and cultural equity and racial justice, alongside other disenfranchised populations.
Gold Storybook: Created with support from partners including The Walt Disney Co., Gold House has published a guide based on its half-decade of experience consulting with studios and production companies on authentic API depictions from a project’s development through release. Its resource hub will also include complementary efforts like Gold House’s SeeHer partnership and its partnership with Proctor & Gamble on the importance of Asian names, as well as Define American’s media guide on immigration narratives.
Gold House Venture Network: After launching its $30 million venture fund, Gold House has now built out a vehicle for its members to invest and seek board and advisor seats on API-founded startups.
“What we see and hear changes what we believe, which directly impacts who we can become,” Gold House head of marketing Rose Yan said in a statement. “Projecting authentic, affirming portrayals of the AAPI community – especially women – on big and tiny screens, scripts and books, soundtracks and playlists is one of the principal, critical steps to ensuring that the world we experience helps empower the world we live in.”
