Why speeches like Meryl Streep’s are important and valid
The 74th Golden Globes left a lot of winners and events to talk about, like the praised La La Land which won every award that it was nominated for; but there’s specially one speech that made its way around the world because it was targeted to a situation that the USA and the whole world started facing since November 8th, 2016.
I have already read plenty of people’s comments saying that Meryl was out of place with her speech because it wasn’t the occasion to make them, or that she just made them because she, as many other Americans, is a bad loser. But here is what I think and how I see it:
Meryl Streep wasn’t out of place to make such a statement, this was a recognition to her outstanding and surely not overrated career as an actress and therefore she was free to say whatever she wanted in that moment, and she decided to use her voice in such an important event with plenty of viewers around the world to say something meaningful to her and the entire society. Whether a Trump supporter or not, Meryl’s words were of hope and aimed towards a positive change. Of course there was disappointment and some sort of anger in her words, because as anyone who sees Trump’s victory as something scary (including me, a non American person who also doesn’t live in America) she felt the need to let it out; but she put responsibility not in the man who is now leading the “free world” but in the people (supporters or not) to learn about this and keep making the country a great one, to not let it sink.
She used an event (that I won’t try to prove true or false right now) to exemplify Trump’s personality, and maybe she could have made her speech without using that, but she wanted to and she made it in the most respectful way, without using offensive or disrespectful words. She wanted to let her feelings be known by anyone who was seeing the ceremony, but through those feelings she wanted to give hope and handle a task of responsibility because she knows that acting is better than just asking and expecting.
At the end, Meryl was the voice of many Americans and many people around the world. She was wise enough to do it with class, and mostly, she was human enough to say what she felt like saying without hurting anyone.
