Alongside bowties, pearl necklaces, and diamond earrings, some of Hollywood’s biggest stars wore lapel pins to protest the government agency ICE at Sunday’s 83rd Golden Globe Awards.
Actor Mark Ruffalo, actress Natasha Lyonne, and comedian Wanda Sykes were among the celebrities to be seen wearing anti-ICE lapel pins on the red carpet. Some pins are labeled “ICE OUT” and others “BE GOOD,” in reference to Renee Nicole Good, 37, the mother killed by an ICE agent earlier this week.
“We’ve got, literally, storm troopers running around terrorizing, and as much as I love all this, I don’t know if I can pretend like this crazy stuff isn’t happening,” Ruffalo said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “We have a president who says the laws of the world don’t apply to him and we can rely on his morality, but he has no morality, so where does that leave us? Where does that leave the world?”
As Good’s killing in Minneapolis, as well as the fatal shooting of L.A. native Keith Porter, 43, on New Year’s Eve, looms large over the red carpet, some stars cannot help but comment.
Nominee Jean Smart, who has previously won two Globes for her role as Deborah Vance in the TV show Hacks, said it was hard to think about work in the wake of the killings. She wasn’t wearing a pin on the carpet but had added one to her outfit by the time she accepted her award on stage.
“Everything’s kind of a little bit overshadowed with what’s going on in our country. I feel like we’re kind of at a turning point in this country,” the acclaimed actress said in a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight. “I hope people can keep their heads. It’s going to take a lot of courage, and a lot of restraint... It’s very concerning.”
“Of course this is for the mother who was murdered by an ICE agent, and it’s really sad,” Sykes said of her lapel pin in a red carpet interview with Variety. “We need to be out there and shut this rogue government down, because it’s just awful what they’re doing to people.”
The camera-ready pins are part of a larger protest campaign organized by the ACLU in partnership with Maremoto, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Move On, and Working Families Power.
In its press release for #BEGOOD, the ACLU describes the #BEGOOD campaign as a way of “reminding us what it means to be good to one another in the face of such horror—to be a good citizen, neighbor, friend, ally and human. Everyday, everywhere, regular people are being good: keeping kids safe when they walk to school, filming fathers who are being disappeared from their workplaces, donating to fundraisers to support organizations who are keeping us safe."
The death of Good sparked widespread protests in over 500 cities across the country on Saturday. The protests, part of the ICE Out for Good Weekend of Action, saw millions of Americans carrying signs similar to the pins seen on the Globes red carpet.
In a statement, Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the social movement organization Indivisible, said, “Renee Nicole Good should be alive today.”
“This weekend, people all over are coming together not just to mourn the lives lost to ICE violence, but to confront a pattern of harm that has torn families apart and terrorized our communities,” she continued. “We demand justice for Renee, ICE out of our communities, and action from our elected leaders. Enough is enough.”
