by Mike Smith Meryl Streep is a talented actor. She has been nominated 19 times for an Academy Award, winning three Oscars. She also has been nominated 30 times for a Golden Globe Award, winning eight times. Many, including myself, are fans of Ms Streep. And much of the criticism that she leveled at President-elect Donald Trump at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony last weekend had merit.
Streep was given a Cecil B DeMille Award, which is an honorary Golden Globe Award for her acting achievements. During her acceptance speech she accused Trump of using his “privilege, power and rank” to humiliate a disabled reporter during last year’s campaign. Streep said, “Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
She prefaced those remarks with these: “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.” She also pleaded with the press to hold Trump accountable.
It is certainly within her right to say what she did, but for many, she chose the wrong venue to voice her criticism.
The Golden Globe Awards ceremony is a festive event where the foreign press honors the work of those in television and movies. In much of the entertainment industry its importance is only superseded by the Academy Awards. It’s a contest. There are winners and losers. The main purpose of televising this contest is to entertain viewers.
The line that Meryl Streep crossed is that she tried to settle a political score at an event that was designed for something other than politics. She wasn’t the only one to do what she did, but hers was the most prominent voice. By momentarily hijacking the entertainment value from the program, and inserting a political element into it, the purpose of the program suddenly changed. Not surprisingly, this disappointed many watchers, and as a result may have diminished the impact of her message.
In addition, Hollywood is awash in contradictions. While Meryl Streep rightly stood up for the disabled, her industry is still reluctant to give roles to those with disabilities, even when the role is portraying a disabled person. Those in her industry like to point out racial injustices, but most prominent roles go to white actors. Most entertainers advocate for women’s rights, but it’s an industry dominated by men; where good acting roles for women are hard to come by, especially after a certain age; and where body image is important and body shaming is prevalent. It’s an industry where many of those that preach income equality fly around in private jets and stay at fancy of hotels and live in mansions. Even the Cecil B DeMille Award that Streep accepted is named after a genius moviemaker, but also a man of legendary boorish behavior. At glamorous events like the Golden Globe Awards those contradictions are on full display and will diminish any political message.
Celebrities like Streep do have an important political voice. They also have many other venues available to them to voice political grievances. In fact, using a ceremony that celebrates movie and television achievements is probably the least effective venue. Perhaps it was Streep’s goal to make people watching the Golden Globe Awards to feel uncomfortable with her insertion of politics into the ceremony. After all, you seldom forget uncomfortable situations. But part of politics is the art of persuasion, and it’s unlikely that Streep chose a venue that did much to advance her cause by convincing others—other than with those already inclined to agree with her—to back her cause. In fact, she may have set back her cause with many.
Although Streep delivered an important message, she unfortunately wasted its impact and created unnecessary resentment to it by misreading the proper venue to deliver it.
Mike Smith is the host of the radio program, “Open Mike with Mike Smith,” on WDEV 550 AM and 96.1, 96.5, 98.3 and 101.9 FM. He is also a political analyst for WCAX-TV and WVMT radio and is a regular contributor to Vermont Business Magazine, the Times Argus and Rutland Herald. He was the secretary of administration and secretary of human services under former Gov. Jim Douglas.