Ruth E. Carter has become the first black woman to win two Oscars.
Carter, who in 2019 became the first black person to win an Oscar for costume design for his work on Marvel’s “Black Panther,” was recognized for the film’s sequel “Wakanda Forever.” In her speech, she thanked director Ryan Coogler and asked the late “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman for taking care of her mother, who recently died at age 101.
“Nice to see you again,” Carter said as he walked to the stage. “Thank you to the Academy for recognizing the superhero who is a black woman. She endures, she loves, and she conquers, she is every woman in this film. she is my mother. This past week, Mable Carter became an ancestor. This film prepared me for this moment. Chadwick, please take care of mother. Ryan Coogler, Nate Moore, thank you both for your vision. Together, we are reshaping the way culture is represented. To the Marvel family, Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso, Luis D’Esposito, and their arsenal of talent, thank you. I share this with the many dedicated artists whose hands and hearts helped bring the costumes of Wakanda and Talokan to life. This 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 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 the CDGAs.
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 with two Oscars, for 2016’s “Moonlight” and 2018’s “Green Book.” While newly minted EGOT Viola Davis has four Oscar nominations, she’s won only once, for 2016’s “Fences.”
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 one of Tina Turner’s most iconic looks from the ’70s and ’80s, including the famous gold metallic fringe. Includes dress and high-waist. mini skirt.
In creating the Wakanda costumes, which Carter called one of the biggest challenges of his career, he had to account for the physical immersion of his designs in water. “We put it under water, and everything just went up. I had to remake the things that were tested. I had to weigh them, and sometimes they were too light, other times they were too heavy,” she told Variety.
Carter, who is Spike Lee’s go-to costume designer, credits the director with being instrumental in changing the way Hollywood is viewed: “‘You walk into Hollywood with your voice. You walk in there with your portfolio. ,’ he would say. They gave us that charge.