This year’s Oscar nominations speak truth to the power of the feminine spirit and the universal obstacles that passionate, career-driven and pioneering females face.
Whether discovering the roadmap to your happy place or skating your way through the slush, this year’s female Oscar nominations give much to ponder on overcoming personal and professional obstacles with flair.
Find Your Castle
Let’s face it: We’re all living in the shadow of Disney World. Precocious six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) from “The Florida Project” is just literally there—embedded, along with her young mother—in the whims of budget motel counterculture along a nearby commercial strip. Through the eyes of an adult, Moonee’s life, spent without supervision courting mischief and adventure (and danger) with her playmates, would be drained of its magic. But Moonee’s life is far from black and white. In fact, it’s a kaleidoscope for the imagination and a clear lesson on finding your Disney castle in the midst of a colorless event crisis, boardroom meeting or whatever the case may be.
Find an Amphibious Doppelganger
Feeling trapped in a life of isolation isn’t only reserved for those working in a hidden high-security government laboratory where classified experiments are taking place. It’s more of mental house of cards, as Elisa (Sally Hawkins) discovers in “The Shape of Water.” Mute and struggling to fully connect with her own species, Elisa gives a captured humanoid amphibian a chance and poof…a monotonous and seemingly directionless life turns out to be due North. Finding a worthy professional partner in crime—someone who’s willing to share the fame and the blame and have your back at inopportune times—could easily transform your life and event planning.
Find Your Triple Axel
You may not be able to hurl yourself into the air, spin three times like a Tasmanian devil and land on the razor edge of a blade (at least not without scoring a “10” from emergency room staffers later on), but there is most certainly a “Tonya” moment of resiliency that you can conjure when the chips are down. “I, Tonya” (Tonya played by Margot Robbie) gives quite a few examples: honoring who you are and where you come from, shoving your skate in the face of the status quo, getting back up when every bone in your body wants to stay down, to name a few. The lesson here is simple: chart your own course; find your triple axel, or what defines you, and inject that level of authenticity into your planning process.
Find a Billboard
Every well-intended message needs the right platform, as Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” would attest. Hayes leveraged a billboard in the most provocative way—to bring awareness and ultimately resolution to the unsolved death of her daughter. Your message may not be as dire, but it still requires the right platform to reach the right ears…maybe even a billboard.
