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Ruth E. Carter has become the first black woman to win two Oscars.
Carter, who in 2019 became the first black person to win the costume design Oscar for her work on Marvel’s “Black Panther,” won recognition for the film’s sequel, “Wakanda Forever.” In her speech, she thanked director Ryan Coogler and asked late “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman to care for his own mother, who died recently at 101.
“Nice to see you again,” Carter said as she took the stage. “Thank you to the Academy for recognizing the superhero that a black woman is. She endures, she loves, she overcomes, she is every woman in this movie. She is my mother. Last week, Mable Carter is became an ancestor. This film prepared me for this moment. Chadwick, please take care of mom. Ryan Coogler, Nate Moore, thank you both for your vision. Together, we are remaking the representation of culture “The Marvel Family, Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso, Louis D’Esposito and their arsenal of genius, thank you. I share this with many dedicated artists whose hands and hearts have helped manifest the Wakanda and Talokan costumes. C is for my mother, she was 101 years old.
Carter beat out Catherine Martin, who won BAFTA and Costume Designers Guild awards for her work on Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” She also beat out Mary Zophres for “Babylon”, Jenny Beaven for “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” and Shirley Kurata for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, which was the surprise winner of the Sci-Fi Fantasy Award at CDGA.
Denzel Washington made history in 2002 when he won his second Oscar for “Training Day,” the first black man to do so. He first won in 1990 for “Glory”. Mahershala Ali is the only other black actor to win two Oscars, for 2016’s ‘Moonlight’ and 2018’s ‘Green Book’. While new EGOT Viola Davis has four Oscar nominations, she only won one. times, for “Fences” in 2016.
Carter has a total of four career Oscar nominations, including for 1992’s ‘Malcolm X’ and 1997’s ‘Amistad’. Her credits also include ‘Selma’ and the Tina Turner biopic ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ , for which Carter recreated Tina Turner’s most iconic looks from the ’70s and ’80s, including the famous gold metallic fringe dress and high-waisted miniskirts.
In constructing the Wakanda costumes, which Carter called one of the biggest challenges of her career, she had to consider the physical immersion of her designs in water. “We put it under water, and everything came up. I had to redo things that have been tested. I had to weigh them down, and sometimes they were too light, other times they were too heavy,” she said. Variety.
Carter, who is Spike Lee’s go-to costume designer, credits the director for being instrumental in changing her outlook on Hollywood: “‘You walk through Hollywood with your own voice. You walk around there with your wallet,” he said. He gave us this charge.