Ryan Coogler used his platform at the DGA Awards on Saturday to deliver a stirring tribute to union power, while issuing a blistering critique of current American politics, per deadline.com.
Accepting his DGA nominees’ medallion from Sinners star Michael B. Jordan, the Black Panther director praised the Directors Guild of America for its vital healthcare provision. Coogler revealed his young son is currently unwell, noting that his wife and producer, Zinzi, remained at home to care for him.
“I’ve never been prouder to have one of these,” Coogler said, holding aloft his DGA membership and insurance cards to rapturous applause. While acknowledging that high-profile filmmakers can often afford private care, he stressed the necessity of the Guild’s safety net for the wider membership.
Coogler connected his filmmaking career to a deep family history of union activism. He spoke of his grandfather, a Mississippi migrant who became a longshoreman in Oakland, and an uncle who was a Black Panther and union treasurer.
“I always wanted to be a member of a union,” Coogler told the audience. He recalled how his uncle’s union would “shut the ports down” in protest against injustice – specifically citing the 2009 police shooting of Oscar Grant III, the subject of Coogler’s debut film Fruitvale Station.
The director did not mince words regarding the current political climate, comparing modern leadership to the “carnage” his ancestors fought against.
“They would shut the ports down whenever they saw any kind of domestic carnage, like we’re experiencing right now, at the hands of our government; international carnage like we’ve been seeing over the last few years.”
Coogler also touched upon the DGA’s “flawed history,” nodding to host Kumail Nanjiani’s earlier monologue. Nanjiani had skewered the Guild for only rebranding its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999; it was previously named after D.W. Griffith, director of the infamously racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation.
The evening served as a stark reminder of the looming DGA negotiations, where healthcare remains a pivotal, and clearly personal, issue for its members.
