Awards season kicked off in style last night with the 75th Golden Globe Awards. It’s the first major Hollywood event of 2018 and since the sexual misconduct scandals that begun to unfold last year. With Seth Meyers as host, there were many memorable moments throughout the evening, here are some of the highlights.

Solidarity

As part of the Time’s Up pledge, Hollywood stars hit the red carpet dressed in black to honour victims of sexual abuse.

Some of the actors brought gender and racial justice activists as their plus ones including Tarana Burke founder of the #MeToo movement, and Ai-Jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

The activists released a statement before the Golden Globes saying: “Our goal in attending the Golden Globes is to shift the focus back to survivors and on systematic lasting solutions.

“This past year was a powerful one in the fight for gender equity and against sexual violence against women. There is still much to do, and many hands required to do it.”

Standout Speeches

Seth Meyers was at the helm for this year’s show. His monologue centred heavily on the Hollywood scandals: Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen and Kevin Spacey all got a mention, none of whom were in attendance. This is in light of the 70+ allegations of sexual misconduct, his opener being “good evening ladies and remaining gentlemen”.

Speaking of Weinstein in particular, he said, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back in 20 years when he becomes the first person to be booed at the annual In Memoriam.”

He employed members in the audience to deliver punchlines of some of his jokes, deeming himself too “straight, white, male” to tell.

Billy Eichner, who is set to star the Disney remake of the Lion King, helped Myers with this jab at Kevin Spacey:

Myers: “‘Call Me by Your Name’ is nominated for best motion picture. It’s a gay coming of age film.” Eichner: “Said Kevin Spacey: ‘You lost me at ‘of age.’”

Watch the full monologue here:

The most widely talked about, and stand-out moment of the night was Oprah Winfrey’s acceptance speech in which she eloquently blended the personal and the political. It gave way to a standing ovation from the audience.

She was accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award, becoming the first African-American woman to do so, which she reflected upon in her rousing speech.

“For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men,” Ms Winfrey said. “But their time is up. Their time is up! Their time is up!”

“I want all of the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon,” and envisioning “a time when nobody ever has to say, ‘Me too,’ again”.

Speculation has since kicked off about a White House run for Winfrey in 2020.

You can watch her full speech here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN5HV79_8B8

"What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have." – Oprah.

Amen, Queen!! 🙌 #MondayMotivation #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/LsJGEd2CuG

— RuPaul's Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) January 8, 2018

Following Oprah’s speech, Natalie Portman deviated from what was scripted when presenting the award for Best Director commenting on the lack of diversity in the category.

Natalie Portman announcing the nominees for Best Director at the #GoldenGlobes, following Oprah's outstanding speech. pic.twitter.com/Io8M3fsswH

— Vox (@voxdotcom) January 8, 2018

Winners

In the lead up to this year’s Golden Globes, there were very few front-runners in the majority of categories.

Call Me By Your Name missed out on any award, having been nominated for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Motion Picture. This may be a bad sign in terms of any hopes the film has in winning at this years Oscars.

Director Gullermo Del Toro scooped the Best Director award for queer adjacent movie The Shape of Water.

Saoirse Ronan won her first Golden Globe for her role in Ladybird.

You can watch the Golden Globes tonight on RTE2 at 9.30pm