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Twitter champions female empowerment in first Oscars TV ad

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By John Glenday, Reporter

March 5, 2018 | 3 min read

Twitter has cemented its association with the Academy Awards after running a television ad championing female empowerment during Sunday’s (4 March) live broadcast by ABC.

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Twitter champions female empowerment in first Oscars TV ad

A clear response to the wave of sexual harassment and assault claims sweeping Hollywood, the #HereWeAre spot gives voice to a range of women looking to have their voices heard.

Opening with the social site's blue bird motif the ad launches into poetry written and recited by Denice Frohman, during which stylized black and white photographs of leading women are shown. Filmmakers Ava DuVernay and Julie Dash, actress-writer-director Issa Rae and documentary filmmaker and activist Jennifer Brea all feature.

Frohman narrates: “I heard a woman becomes herself the first time she speaks without permission. Say ‘hero,’ and cast yourself in the lead role… When a woman tells her own story, she lives forever.

“If this poem is the only thing that survives me, tell them, this is how I happened. Tell them, I built me a throne. Tell them, when we discovered life on another planet, it was a woman — and she built a bridge, not a border.”

Twitter has come under fire itself for its perceived failure to reign in widespread abuse and harassment carried out on its own platform, including sexism, eliciting an admission from chief executive Jack Dorsey as recently as Thursday that the company had been too slow to intervene.

The #MeToo movement has been building to the point where it received over half a million mentions in one day.

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