Meryl Streep has been nominated for 19 Academy Awards (winning three) and an astounding 30 Golden Globes (winning eight). But on Sunday night, the actress stunned us all in a very different, very real way with a fiery diatribe aimed at President-elect Donald Trump.
Streep won the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement, and she used her acceptance speech to talk not about her career, but the future of the country. The 67-year-old began by listing a number of Golden Globes nominees and where they were born, highlighting the fact that Hollywood is made up of people from somewhere else — foreigners, immigrants, travellers. "Where are their birth certificates?" she asked, referring to Trump and the birther movement's baseless demand to see President Obama's birth certificate.
The actress then brought up the most stunning performance she saw in 2016, one that "sank hooks in [her] heart," as she put it. "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."
Streep went on to criticise Trump's "instinct to humiliate," charging him with modelling violence and disrespect from his powerful public platform. Finally, she pivoted to the sanctity of the free press — something many people believe is threatened under a Trump administration due to his history of barring reporters he dislikes from the press pool and promising to
revamp U.S. libel laws. "We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage," she said.
Streep made history tonight with her bold, sweeping speech. She made it about something much larger than Hollywood, folding politics and social justice into what could easily have been a simple and gracious speech. (And there are surely many who wish she had taken that simpler route.)
Her daring move surely earned the actress respect from any anti-Trump viewers, famous and non alike. She certainly roused the live audience in Los Angeles, and Twitter is already overflowing with praise and appreciation for Streep's powerful message.
There's one notable Twitter account that's been silent so far — but you can bet we'll be hearing an earful from an irate President-elect Trump tomorrow.
