Pop-Culturalist.com

Gina Rodriguez is a goddess. She radiates kindness and warmth whenever she speaks or writes something (peruse her twitter account, and you will see her respond to fans with kin words, encouragement, and empowerment). She’s also funny (her comedic timing on Jane the Virgin is stellar), not afraid to look silly (check out this Instagram post), and she’s obviously pretty. Needless to say, she’s at the top of our Woman Crush Wednesday list!

Gina Rodriguez burst onto the Hollywood scene by starring in The CW’s Jane the Virgin. I started watching the show from day one and was hooked. It’s a fresh, inventive, heartwarming television series centering around Jane, a virgin who gets accidentally artificially inseminated. Like all great telenovelas that Jane the Virgin nods to, there are ridiculous plot twists, love triangles, and plenty of fantasy scenes. The entire cast is wonderful, but Gina Rodriguez is the glue that holds it together.

The world was fully introduced to Gina Rodriguez, the person, when she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Comedy. Her honest and touching speech launched her into the hearts of people everywhere. How could you not get a little misty-eyed when she ends her speech with, “This award is so much more than myself. It represents a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes. My father used to tell me to say every morning, ‘Today’s going to be a great day. And: I can, and I will”. Well, Dad, today’s a great day, and I can, and I did!”. #ICanAndIWill immediately started trending on social media and has been used ever since.

Gina has also started #MovementMondays on social media (her first post featured Oscar Isaac on her Instagram account). She created that hashtag as a result of the #OscarsSoWhite discussion. As she wrote in the Isaac post, “Each Monday I will highlight a latino artist we can support. Let us use our numbers and powerful voices to prove we support one another”; since then, she has even expanded her #MovementMondays to include actors of other diverse backgrounds (not just Latino). Again, Gina wrote some powerful words to go along with her first non-Latino #MovementMondays post:

“But one thing I have realized over the past few weeks is how important and necessary diversity is for so many ethnicities under-represented and even though I may not know about every culture, I want to learn. I want to celebrate all artists. I want to uplift all ethnicities, cultures, and religions. I want to grow in my knowledge and use my voice to highlight all those doing great work that aren’t often seen on screen. That is what we are missing, a unity amongst all humans, to have the desire to make art colorblind and allow every culture to feel proud about where they come from and how they fit so perfectly in this puzzle of life.”

*Standing ovation* Yas, queen! I couldn’t agree more. She deserves all the success that has come her way, and I think she is the perfect role model for young (and old!) people. If there were more passionate, welcoming, and inclusive artists–heck, humans–like Gina Rodriguez, the world would be a far kinder place.
Photo Credit: Danny Feld/The CW