The MTV Movie & TV Awards aired last night, bringing with it an annual reminder of the march of time and our ever-growing disconnectedness with The Youths (nothing makes me feel as old as contemporary MTV, except maybe the Grammys), but there was an old-school Movie Star on hand for the awards. Sandra Bullock, one of the last capital-letter Movie Stars, won “Most Frightened Performance” for Bird Box. Gal Gadot presented her with the award, which turned out to be a serendipitous moment since Bullock shouted out the lady-heroes in her speech.
Few people give award speeches as warmly self-aware as Bullock. Remember “Did I really earn this, or did I just wear y’all down”? It’s the modern day “You really like me!”. So of course her MTV speech was sincere and funny and ended up being a dunk on her kids, who wanted her to make a movie for them. She gives a lovely speech about family and how she made Bird Box to show her kids how much she loves them, but what they really wanted was for their mom to be in a superhero movie. Really, the turn this speech takes is A+ mom shaming—not shaming moms, but the way that only a mom can shame her kids when they’re being little sh-ts. No one reads you like your mother (especially if your mother is Southern and can pull out the twang and maybe a “bless your heart” to really drive home how disappointing you’ve been). Also, if DC and Marvel are not on the phone today trying to get Sandra Bullock in for a meeting, they are fools. Like if Marvel can get Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reeves in for talks, surely they can find something for Sandra Bullock.
