Legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar just became an even bigger icon. How could the man behind classics like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Talk to Her get any cooler? By showing love to Hunter Schafer and reading Donald Trump the riot act, naturally.
While accepting the Chaplin Award from Film at Lincoln Center in New York City, Almodóvar dedicated the end of his 15-minute acceptance speech to calling out the injustices of modern America under the Trump administration.
“I admit that there have been moments when I have doubted about coming to accept [the Chaplin award],” Almodóvar said, having traveled to America for the ceremony. “I have doubted if it was appropriate to come to a country ruled by a narcissistic, authoritarian lunatic who doesn’t respect human rights and who it seems nothing can stop on his race to change the fragile world balance.”
That’s where Schafer came into Almodóvar’s speech: he cited her being issued a male passport, a story Schafer shared with her fans in a video this February, as an example of the Trump administration obscuring the truth.
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“Trump and his friends — millionaires and oligarchs — cannot convince us that the reality we are seeing with our own eyes is the opposite of what we are living, however much he may twist the words claiming that they mean the opposite of what they do,” Almodóvar began. “Immigrants are not criminals, however the United States has treated them as such. Zelinsky is not a dictator, Putin is. And however much Trump denies it, it was Russia that invaded Ukraine.”
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“Hunter Schafer, the wonderful co-protagonist with Zendaya of Euphoria, is a woman even though she was assigned with the [marker] M for male while renewing her passport,” he continued. “That cruel whim by Trump’s bureaucrats that there are only two genders does not change the nature of the human being and its sexual diversity.”
Some folks on the internet took issue with Almodóvar’s phrasing, wondering why he pointed out Schafer’s government-assigned gender. But others pointed out that Almodóvar was merely resharing the news exactly as Schafer had shared it — and doing so in a second language, no less.
In any case, Almodóvar’s intentions couldn’t be clearer: uplifting Schafer, and dragging Trump through the mud.
“Mr. Trump, I’m talking to you,” he went on. “Mr. Trump, I hope you hear what I’m going to say to you. You will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time. Your naivety is only comparable to your violence. You will go down in history as one of the greatest dangers to humanity since the beginning of the century. You will go down in history as a catastrophe.”
Finally, Almodóvar dedicated his victory to Schafer, to immigrants deported by the Trump administration, and to Harvard University: “Here I am, astonished but immensely grateful and feeling myself privileged receiving this award, which, given the circumstances, I would like to dedicate to the thousands deported in recent weeks, to the beautiful Hunter Schafer as well, and to Harvard University for its determination to not surrender to Trump’s war on knowledge and culture, which remain the best weapons to fight lies and misinformation,” he said.
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