To be sentimental, powerful, and Black: Affective agency in Viola Davis’s award speeches

Abstract

This article considers how the long-standing American cultural tradition of sentimentality and its affective power can be discursively utilized by contemporary Black women in the public contexts. Using the concept of sentimental political storytelling as discussed by Rebecca Wanzo, I analyze three award speeches given by Viola Davis – a popular and acclaimed African American actress whose speeches generate significant public and media attention. Framing Davis’s speeches within the Black feminist epistemology, I draw on the conventions of sentimental storytelling proposed by Wanzo to argue that Davis is an example of a Black woman skilfully using sentimentality to gain affective agency and mobilize sympathy from mainstream public while at the same time narrativizing African Americans’ lived experiences to have their humanity and their struggle recognized today. Given the continued prioritization of White female suffering in the American media over stories of Black women’s struggle, the ways in which Black women can discursively utilize sentimentality to gain affective agency and negotiate self-definition in interactional public contexts is of significant sociolinguistic interest.

Green slime and orange blimps: A linguistic analysis of Nickelodeon’s kids’ choice awards.

“…• Using IC to explore media awards that have been the focus of previous research using other methods of analysis (e.g., the BAFTAs-see Janicka, 2020 andJeacle, 2014) and media awards that (to the author's knowledge) have not been the focus of any scholarly research (e.g., the Game Awards and Crunchyroll's Anime Awards). (Jaffe, 1988) and culture changes (Whiten et al, 2011); thus, the IC pattern associated with winning media awards may be different depending on the culture of the time period.…”

“…Using IC to explore media awards that have been the focus of previous research using other methods of analysis (e.g., the BAFTAs—see Janicka, 2020 and Jeacle, 2014) and media awards that (to the author’s knowledge) have not been the focus of any scholarly research (e.g., the Game Awards and Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards).…”