TV

Kristen Bell’s SAG Awards Monologue Featured A Sly Drag Of Melania Trump

We need more Kristen Bell in our lives.

by Patrick Lenton  22 January 2018
SAG Awards

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We’re deep in the award show season folks, and that means we’ve got monologues galore to watch, such as Kristen Bell’s opening for the 2018 Screen Actor’s Guild Awards, in which the Good Place and Frozen actress targets US First Lady Melania Trump in her opening salvo.

“I honestly never thought that I would grow up to be the first lady. But you know what? I kind of like it” says Bell, referencing the fact that she’s the first person (and therefore first woman) to host the SAG awards since its inception in 1995. She then segued into a pointed comment that clearly referenced Melania Trump, without naming her.

“I think my first initiative, as first lady will be cyberbullying, because I have yet to see any progress on that problem quite yet.”

Bell’s monologue wasn’t really on the edgy side of things. It skirted around direct references to most of the hot-button issues in Hollywood and the US right now, including the #MeToo movement. But she did get some decent jabs in, such as describing dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale as a documentary.

By far the best joke of the night was her reference to the wrestling comedy GLOW, which she describes as “a tour de force of powerful, strong, thoughtful ladies who get roped into doing Marc Maron‘s podcast.”

A good portion of Bell’s speech was actually some good inspirational content for young, wannabe actors, telling them to stick it out and keep trying.

“The SAG Awards is a show for actors, by actors, but it is not just for the ones in this room. It is especially for the ones who have just gone on their 20th fruitless commercial audition, who are watching this in a studio apartment in Koreatown with their five roommates downing their nightly dinner of canned tuna. This is a show for you guys and is to entice you to stick around.”

Not sure we should be encouraging actors tbh, but it’s a fairly pure message.

Kristen Bell ended the monologue on a rather vague call to action that could have been about #MeToo, or the recent women’s marches in the US, or really anything.

“We are living in a watershed moment, and as we march forward with active momentum and open ears, let’s make sure we are leading the charge with empathy and diligence, because fear and anger never win the race,” she said.

She then flawlessly got a plug in for Frozen 2, which we can look forward to next year. Watch her full monologue here: