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March 13 (UPI) -- Ruth Carter, Michelle Yeoh and Indian musicians M.M. Keeravani and Chandrabose made history at the 2023 Oscars. Yeoh, the Best Actress winner for Everything Everywhere All at Once was the first actress of Asian descent to win an Academy Award in that category.
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"I really have to thank the Academy," Yeoh said backstage in the media room. "For acknowledging and embracing diversity and true representation. I think that this is something that we have been working so hard for a very long time and tonight we frigging broke that glass ceiling," she said to cheers.
She added, "We need this because there are so many who have felt unseen, unheard, not just the Asian community -- but for anybody that's been identified as a minority. We deserve to be heard, we deserve to be seen and we deserve to be heard so we can have a seat at the table. That's all we are asking for. Give us that opportunity. Let us prove that we are worth it."
The Malaysian actress has been working in film for more than four decades, making her debut in Hollywood as a Chinese spy in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. She's also known for her work in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner in 2001, and more recently, in Crazy Rich Asians.
Yeoh, 60, a winner along with Jamie Lee Curtis, 64, the Best Supporting Actress winner for the film, said in her acceptance speech, "And ladies don't let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up."
By winning her second Oscar for Best Costume Design for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ruth Carter became the first Black woman to win multiple Oscars in any category. Carter received a standing ovation when accepting her trophy, sharing that her mother, Mable Carter, who was 101, died last week.
"Thank you to the Academy for recognizing the superhero that is a Black woman," Carter said. "She endures, she loves, she overcomes, she is every woman in this film."
Carter got her first job as a costume designer working with Spike Lee on the 1988 movie School Daze. She thanked Wakanda Forever writer/director Ryan Coogler and producer Nate Moore for their "vision" and said, "Together, we are reshaping how culture is represented."
She concluded by dedicating the award to her mother.
Not only did "Naatu Naatu" become the first song by Indian musicians to win an Oscar, but it is also the first song by Indian musicians ever nominated. It's from the movie RRR, the fictionalized musical version of the story of two Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. RRR was already noteworthy as one of the most expensive Indian movies ever made -- and now it's an Oscar winner.
The song, in the Tegalu language, which is spoken in two states in India, became a viral TikTok sensation. Composer Keeravanit cited the '70s sibling duo The Carpenters as his inspiration, singing part of his acceptance speech to their 1972 hit "Top of The World."
India can also claim its first win in the Documentary category for The Elephant Whisperers, a Netflix film that won Best Documentary Short. In her acceptance speech, Kartiki Gonsalves dedicated the award to "my motherland India."
Another history maker is Mexican filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, who became the first person to win an Oscar for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Animated Feature for his take on Pinocchio.
"It's great to have picture, director and animation because they define what I have loved all my life since I was a kid," Del Toro said in the press room after the show.
He added, "It will help us implement more movement in the community in Mexico and in Latin America to keep pushing for still motion, which is one of the most Democratic forms of animation."
