Patricia Arquette for Prez and Jennifer Lawrence as her VP?
That’s a showbiz likely scenario from the looks of it Friday night at the Ninth Annual Women In Film pre-Oscar Cocktail Party at Hyde Sunset Kitchen + Cocktails.
WIF’s President Cathy Schulman hosted the soiree attended by more than thirty Oscar nominees including songwriter Diane Warren, who wrote “Til It Happens To You,” plus Best Actress nominee Charlotte Rampling. ’The Danish Girl” star Alicia Vikander (a surprise guest), and “Joy” Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence.
Schulman, addressing the lack of women in the industry, told the A list crowd that, “Women have been leading this movement with courage that it takes to stay, stop it.”
The great Patricia Arquette– Oscar winner last year for “Boyhood”– gave an impassioned speech and told the crowd, “Pay inequality affects 98% of women in this industry and women all over the country. Karma is coming home to roost. Black lives matter, the environment matters and ending pay inequality matters. We need to clean up our roost. “
Arquette described the other inequalities that affect women and gave a dig to the recently departed Supreme court Justice Antonin Scalia. “Scalia said that women do not have equal rights under the constitution. So just talking about pay inequality is bullshit. Millions of women need it to stop. “ Patricia urged the room to sign the petition she is sponsoring on Change.org, supporting the resurrection of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Schulman called up surprise guest Jennifer Lawrence, who wrote an essay for Lena Dunham’s newsletter talking about her own experience with pay inequality that garnered worldwide attention. Jennifer first paid homage to Arquette. “I’m a huge fan of Patricia Arquette. I actually played a younger version of her once, and I love that she stood up. We’re starting a conversation; we’re getting a dialogue going. I didn’t know I was going to be speaking. “ Jennifer ended with a fist bump to the air, exclaiming, “equal pay for women!”
The room cheered– and that included everyone from Michelle Monaghan to Mickey Sumner, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lake Bell, Maria Bello, Adepero Oduye, and even Oscar winning director Tom Hooper.
