Last Sunday at the 74th annual Golden Globe Awards, Meryl Streep was honored with the ceremony's highest honor; the Cecil B. Demille Award. This award is named after the famed film director, who made a profound impact on the film industry in the 40's-50's and since has gone to film icons such as Judy Garland, John Wayne, Lucille Ball and Steven Spielberg, just to name a few.
Rather than discuss her career and how she got to the place she is, Streep felt it necessary to discuss politics; something many celebrities at this year's show felt the need to do. In typical Streep fashion, she did so very eloquently pointing out the diversity in Hollywood, while also pointing out the importance of the "principled press" and how limiting diversity will negatively impact the United States.
She stirred up a great deal of controversy stating that if "we kick out all the foreigners, we'll have nothing left but football and mixed martial arts and those are not the arts". Conservatives automatically attacked the actress for putting more of an importance on the arts than sports, which is kind of similar to how some conservatives fought against the BLM movement with "All Lives Matter". They assumed she was knocking football, as well as the small-town subculture of the sport's fanbase. They believed she was placing an importance on the arts over sports and followed Streep's speech with an incredibly emotional response (something they criticize the democrats for).
As a result of Streep's speech, President-Elect Trump took to his twitter, like he does EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. a celebrity says they don't like him, stating the actress is "overrated" and how she's a "Hillary flunky, who lost big".
As a film lover, and a lover of Streep, particularly with the 60+ performances she has put on screen ranging from a divorced mother battling Dustin Hoffman for custody of their child in Kramer vs. Kramer, to her performance of a polish Holocaust survivor faced with the impossible decision of whether to save her son or her daughter from a gas chamber in Sophie's Choice to her turn as Miranda Priestly, the boss from hell in The Devil Wears Prada, it is safe to say she has earned every award she has ever received and exactly opposite of what the future President made her out to be.
When it comes to acting, Streep is in a category of her own. What she does is so transparent, so authentic and so very real - in part, because she delves into the role and finds out what it is like to be the character she is playing. In Music of the Heart, she practiced the violin six hours a day for eight weeks, has perfected various different accents varying from German, French, English and can even make a Brooklyn accent sound appealing with the help of dialect coaches. Heck, she even starred in a movie (She Devil) alongside Roseanne Barr, and somehow was still able to generate a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
She does just what she said in her speech actors are supposed to do, which is to enter the lives of people who are different from the audience and let them feel what her character is feeling.
That being said, her speech was really disappointing, not because she didn't point out logical concerns, but because the focus didn't center around film, her career or even the award she was accepting.
Instead of talking about how Robert DeNiro (the 2011 recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award) saw her in a supporting role in a Broadway production of The Cherry Orchard in 1976 and recommended her to Oscar-winning director Michael Cimino for the role of Linda in The Deer Hunter (which would end up being the first of her 19 Oscar nominations), she decided to talk about Trump, who regardless of Facebook memes and fake petitions is going to be our President.
She had the opportunity to talk about working with acting legends such as DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Shirley MacLaine and even Clint Eastwood. She could have paid homage to directing icons Woody Allen, Alan J. Pakula or Mike Nichols, a frequent collaborator. Maybe, she could have talked about how she slept through her law school interview in the early 70's, which is what inspired her decision to take up acting in the first place.
I wish that Streep would have said what she said in a press conference, a late night talk show, or somewhere that wasn't honoring her for her career.
I understand the weight she must feel on her shoulders, being a public figure that actually has a reason to be famous; in contrast to anyone working on E-Network. I understand that as a public figure you have many people (millions) watching your every move and looking to you for guidance. As a fan of hers, though, I just wish she would have taken the opportunity to talk about her career instead of how horrible of a man our future president is. In this speech, Streep crossed over from actress to celebrity, and for me that is really disappointing.
In many cases, the modern celebrity is out of touch with reality, and because of this, everyday Americans need to stop looking to celebrities for political messages and viewpoints and learn, for themselves, what they support and why they support it.
There is a major difference between a celebrity, who works six months out of the year and a middle-class farmer who works 60 hours a week all year. Sure, many of them came from nothing and it's probably hard to forget what it's like to live in a low-income, at-risk neighborhood, but they are also attending the Golden Globes or the Grammys and currently living very differently than the people at home watching.
Before the American people are supposed to do that, though, President-Elect Trump must set an example by doing the same. It would be in his best interest as a leader of the greatest nation in the world to not respond to criticism present by Streep, her peers and of course the greatest show to ever be on television - Saturday Night Live. He needs to learn that no matter what he does, people are going to complain, especially celebrities. He needs to thicken his skin, or maybe do the hardest thing possible and delete his twitter.
On one hand, I'm glad Streep said what she said because I do believe it needed to be heard by Americans. That being said, there is a time and a place for it and an Awards show, which celebrates Film and Television is not the place.
