The Red Dress Among the Sea of Black at the Golden Globes

In case you've been hiding under a stone at the bottom of a volcano this past week, you are probably aware that the #timesup movement happened at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards early this January. Attendees wore black in support against the growing sexual harassment stories that have surfaced in light of the #metoo campaign that swept the world like a broom to dust. Actresses from Oprah Winfrey to Kristen Bell, Gal Gadot and Amy Poehler all wore black in commemoration of the two epic-sized movements, but one beautiful red dress stood out from the wave of darkness.

Meet Meher Tatna, the president of HFPA, or the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the corporation that hosts the annual Golden Globe Awards. HFPA is also the association that sponsors and provides scholarships to young artists to study and work in the American entertainment industry. She was recently elected to the presidential position for the year 2017-2018 in early Summer of 2017, with a degree in economics from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Although she was born and raised in Mumbai, India, Tatna has been a member of the HFPA since 2002 and currently still writes for the Singaporean newspaper, The New Paper.

And although she did not wear black to the coveted event, Tatna explains that in her culture it is traditionally known that those who wear black are in mourning for the loss of a loved one or that they are recently widowed, and she did not fall in either of those categories during the time she chose to wear the dress she did. Instead of black, she wore a beautiful red gown with custom gold embroidery, the red representing a celebratory color in the Hindu culture.

In a post on SensationalColor.com, the author explains that "Black in India has connotations with lack of desirability, evil, negativity, and inertia. It represents anger and darkness and is associated with the absence of energy, barrenness, and death. Black is used as a representation of evil and is often used to ward off evil." In reflection to this, red is alternatively described in the Indian Sanskriti Magazine: "Red indicates both sensuality and purity. In Hindu religion, red is of utmost significance and the colors most frequently used for auspicious occasions like marriages, birth of a child, festivals, etc."

It is perhaps an important point to note that the all-black dress code was more than just a solidarity statement to the world of men and women who were watching the Golden Globes that night. It was a demonstration of strength, power, and togetherness amongst the women who, while in their struggle to find equality with the men in their industry, took home the majority of the awards (aside from the obvious ones), and men of minority taking home many of the others. Despite the impending judgment of social media regarding her choice of red instead of black, Tatna still wore her #timesup pin and ensured those attending that she was by no means isolating herself from what the other women were trying to encourage. She goes on to tell Vanity Fair, “I am really glad that women are finally feeling safe enough to come forward and talk about their experiences. I am totally in solidarity with them. It’s not just in Hollywood that this happens. I was a waitress—the groping and pinching happened . . . back then, nobody felt safe enough to say anything. You thought you’d be fired; you thought you would be ostracized. So yeah, I’m really glad that they found that power, and I hope that this is a time of profound change.”