I Have a Bone to Pick with Meryl Streep
Do We Really Need Actors Schooling Us on Politics?
What an opportunity! You have been chosen to give a speech to the whole world (or at least those of us with televisions). Your audience is excited to hear about your life and career. What a privilege you have been given and we are all ears. Your words could influence others to achieve their dreams.
I haven’t watched a Hollywood awards show since I was a teenager, but I was willing to make an exception. After all, Meryl Streep, one of the finest actors of our time, was the recipient of the coveted Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes and I was looking forward to hearing her acceptance speech.
“The Cecil B. DeMille Award is an honorary Golden Globe Award bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) for ‘outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment’. The HFPA board of directors selects the honorees from a variety of actors, directors, writers and producers who have made a significant mark in the film industry.”
Maybe Ms. Streep would tell us how she got started in the business, share some of her struggles and achievements and, if we are really lucky, impart a few witty anecdotes on her rise to fame that culminated in a career spanning decades. What advice and wisdom did she have for the rest of us? What an honour!
Well, that never happened. Instead, we were subjected to a rant to end all rants. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I was completely blindsided by Ms. Streep’s decision to use that precious moment and platform to spew bitter outrage and hatred at a politician she obviously wasn’t too fond of. She did not utter a word about her life and times. When the cameras panned the room at the awards ceremony, the shock on the guests’ faces was palpable. Those who did not agree with her, or perhaps felt this was not the time or place, cringed visibly attempting to maintain stoic expressions, while others zealously cheered on her diatribe.
I sat in front of my television feeling betrayed. How she felt about politics was of no importance to me. This was an award for her outstanding achievements, not a town hall meeting. She had missed her moment. Did she believe we had tuned in to get a lesson on politics? What on earth was she thinking? Was her mouth so full of venom she needed to spit it out all over the rest of us?
How could I have misjudged her? How could someone I admired so much turn out to be just another self-important actor who used her celebrity status to give me a lesson on US politics? A Hollywood know-it-all whose ego outweighed her gratitude to those who had bestowed this award on her and the multitude of fans who were the source of her wealth and privilege. Why did she think I needed her guidance in matters of government? Do celebrities actually believe they are smarter than the rest of us?
So what did I learn from Ms. Streep? Well, nothing really. I was taken aback by her verbal diarrhea and lack of kindness and grace. She turned out to be just another entitled individual, hoping to use her elite status to sway public opinion; to school us on right thinking. I have a feeling that if any up-and-comers in Hollywoodland disagreed with Ms. Streep and her gang of yes-men/women, they would be wise to keep their heads down so as not to face potential unemployment under the watchful eye of her influential power and wrath.
Maybe she should have taken a page out of Dolly Parton’s playbook. Dolly, who is my choice for sainthood, takes a very different apolitical position:
“I’ve got as many Democrats as I do Republican fans and I’m not going to insult any of them because I care about all of them…I try to steer away from the things that I know I don’t need to be talking about. But I have my own views on everything. Of course I do. … This is amazing to me how people look to me — that’s a big responsibility — there ain’t nobody that good.”
I am always saddened to see someone I admire turn out to be a dick. Didn’t we all think Bill Cosby was the ultimate television dad? His shameful downfall blew me out of the water and forever altered my trust in Hollywood legends. Yes, I know actors have the biggest egos in the world and believe they know what’s best for us little people. But Meryl Streep? Really? Am I to believe that having oodles of money and fans translates into oodles of brains too? I always thought that folks like Albert Einstein, Jane Goodall, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Hawking and Marie Curie were smart. I now know I must have been wrong. They don’t hold a candle to Scarlett Johannson, George Clooney and Robert DeNiro. Hah! The joke’s on me. I didn’t know these guys had advanced degrees in political science.
I still believe Ms. Streep is a fine actor, a reader of dialogue written by talented writers, interpreting their words into magnificent characters, but I no longer respect her. My humble recommendation to her and other “celebrities” is to leave politics at home. Your fans love you for your talent in your chosen profession, not your political opinion. It’s like when my favourite actors start flogging products in television commercials. They become just a little bit smaller in my eyes.
So there you have my diatribe. Sorry not sorry I may have offended anyone. Just sayin’.
