Comments Print
During a speech at the Golden Globes, Meryl Streep railed against President-elect Donald Trump (without using his name) for “bullying” foreigners, the press, and the disabled.
Streep was being honored as the Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment” when she made the comments, noting first that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association belonged to “the most vilified segment in American society right now.”
“Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners, and the press,” Streep said, to laughter and applause.
However, Streep’s speech quickly turned serious.
Get The Weekender in your inbox:
The Globe’s top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond.
“But who are we, and what is Hollywood anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from a different places anyway,” she continued, listing several actors and actresses — including Amy Adams and Natalie Portman, born in Italy and Israel, respectively — before quipping, “Where are their birth certificates?” Streep was likely referring to Trump’s repeated questioning of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
Trump on Streep: She’s ‘a Hillary lover’
The president-elect dismissed the speech Streep made at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards, criticizing the actress in a Twitter rant.
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick ‘em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts,” Streep said, in reference to Trump’s immigration and foreign policies, to applause and cheers.
She also spoke about a moment from the campaign trail, in which Trump appeared to mock a New York Times reporter who had a disability.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It. . . it kind of broke my heart when I saw it,” Streep said, her voice breaking, “and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie, it was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect; violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Streep also offered a vehement defense of freedom of the press, saying that “we need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage. . . that’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution.” She also called on those in attendance to support the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, “because we’re going to need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.”
Streep ended her speech with a quote from her friend, Carrie Fisher, recalling how she once told her, ‘‘Take your broken heart, make it into art.’’
Streep, overcome by emotion, covered her mouth as she walked away from the microphone.
See her full remarks here:
‘‘Thank you very much. Thank you. Please sit down. Please sit down. Thank you. I love you all. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend. And I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year. So I have to read.
‘‘Thank you, Hollywood foreign press. Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said. You and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it. Hollywood, foreigners, and the press. But who are we, and what is Hollywood, anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places. I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola was born in a sharecropper’s cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida and raised by a single mom in Brooklyn.
‘‘Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Italy, and Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem – where are their birth certificates? And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in – no, in Ireland, I do believe, and she’s here nominated for playing a smalltown girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here for playing an Indian raised in Tasmania. So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick ‘em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.
‘‘They gave me three seconds to say this, so. An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, compassionate work. There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.
‘‘And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, ‘cause it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
‘‘Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose. OK. Go on with that thing.
‘‘This brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood foreign press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re going to need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.
‘‘One more thing. Once when I was standing around on the set one day whining about something, we were going to work through supper, or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, ‘Isn’t it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?’ Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight. As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia said to me once, ‘Take your broken heart, make it into art.’ ‘‘
Material from the Associated Press and the Washington Post was used in this report.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
Read More
Powered by WPeMatico