Academy Award winner Laura Dern, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Common Ground” were the big winners at last night’s 33rd Annual Environmental Media Association Awards Gala.
Delayed due to the Hollywood strikes last year, The Environmental Media Association (EMA) hosted the first of what will be two awards ceremonies this year honoring environmental achievements in the film and television industry. The event, presented by Toyota featured a plant-based dinner prepared by Los Angeles vegan restaurant Crossroads. Jane Fonda, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sheryl Crow, Rainn Wilson, Nikki Reed, Ian Somerhalder, Madelaine Petsch, Auliʻi Cravalho, and Ed Begley Jr. and his daughter Hadyn, were among the attendees.
The 33rd EMA Awards gala was originally slated for last fall, but the delay proved worth the wait with notable appearances including 2023 Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Sherly Crow, who honored her longtime friend Laura Dern for her environmental efforts. Crow who presented the award to Dern praised her friend for her “total commitment” to numerous environmental causes including ocean conservation and regenerative agriculture, among others. “That is the way Laura Dern lives,” Crow said. The singer dedicated her performance of “Soak up the Sun,” to Dern. The gala’s co-hosts, EMA Executive Co-Chair Lance Bass, SNL alum Cheri Oteri, and comedian Melissa Peterman, brought comic relief to the night with quirky reinterpretations of Dern films “Wild at Heart” and the “Jurassic Park” franchise.
Dern used the platform to call for bipartisan efforts to work toward protecting the planet. “We are not yet spurring our entire planet to action, or persuading the people who disagree with us,” she said. “I propose it’s because they’ve been told we’re crazy. The news they watch has convinced them that we love open borders, caravans of criminals, smash and grab, cancel culture, and late-term abortions on demand. They also think we’re elitist, and it’s not hard to see why. Go on Twitter some time, notice how often people you follow talk about how dumb MAGA is,” she said.
“Polling tells us that for conservative voters, most congressional elections in this country come down to a simple choice: ‘The Republican was a jerk, the Democrat was an elitist, and at least the jerk never made me feel dumb.’ This is the difference between saving America and scolding it… we need to find a new language, one that works not just in Los Angeles at a fundraiser but in Iowa and Oklahoma and West Virginia.
“We must recognize, finally, that the people we need to persuade are afraid too, maybe of us,” she said. “Building these bridges will not be without its hurdles, but we will succeed because a majority of Americans fundamentally want community not chaos, just as they want votes not violence, laws not lies, books not bans, and truth not tantrums,” Dern said.
Filmmaker Eli Roth and actor Milo Manheim presented the feature film award to James Cameron’s “Avatar: Way of the Water”. Academy Award winner and activist Jane Fonda presented the final award for the night — best documentary feature — which went to Josh and Rebecca Tickell’s “Common Ground,” a film about regenerative agriculture that features Dern as well as Jason Momoa, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover, Rosario Dawson, Mark Hyman, Gabe Brown, and others.
Before announcing the final award for the night, Fonda praised the Biden administration for the recent “pause” on approvals of liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. “It’s not sexy and you might not even know,” Fonda said of the temporary stop to LNG terminals announced last Friday. “This is huge,” she said, adding that a Biden reelection opens up the possibility that the temporary pause could become a permanent ban, noting that “if they don’t export, they’ll stop drilling,” which could be a big step in reducing emissions and meeting climate targets. “We are exporting our own fracked gas to countries that ban fracking,” Fonda said. “The colonizer has become the colonized.”
Other recognitions included Documentary Series, Comedy, Television Episodic Drama, Reality Television, Variety Television, and Children’s Television. Among the winners were “Downey’s Dream Cars: Electric Stingray,” “Unstable,” “Extrapolations: Whale Fall,” “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel: Stop Ghosting Greens,” “Monumental: Ellie Goulding at Kew Gardens,” and “Jane: Apis Mellifera.”
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