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Read Meryl Streep’s epic Golden Globes speech here
Acceptance speech of Cecil B. Demille Award honoree Meryl Streep: Thank you, thank you. I lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this week. I’ve lost my mind sometime earlier this year, so I have to read. Thank you, Hollywood Foreign Press. Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said: You, and all of us in this room, really belong to the most vilified segment of American society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners, and the press.
But who are we? What is Hollywood, anyway? It’s just a bunch of different places. I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey, Viola was born in a sharecroppers cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida, raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Amy Adams was born in Vicenzia, Italy, and Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. Where are their birth certificates? And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and was raised in Ireland, I do believe, and she’s here nominated—for playing a small-town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here playing an Indian, raised in Tasmania.
So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if you kick ’em all out, you’ll have nothing else to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts. They gave me three seconds to say that though.
As an actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like, and there were many, many ,many powerful performances that did exactly that—breathtaking, compassionate work. But there was one performances this year that stunned me; it sank its hooks in my heart, not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job—it made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
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, and I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie; it was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.
Okay, this brings me to the press: We need the principled press, to hold power to account, to call them them on the carpet for every outrage; that’s why our founders enshrine the press and its freedoms in our constitution. So I only asked the famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the committee to protect journalists, because we’re gonna need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.
One more thing. Once, when I was standing around on the set one day whining about something, we were going to work through supper, or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, isn’t it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor. Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight.
As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art. Thank you.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
Brew69 says:
I will sleep better tonight after hearing Meryl Streep’s speech, knowing now that we have a powerful voice from one of Hollywood’s finest, that tells it like it is. How fast do we forget that we have elected a demagogue – “a political agitator who appeals with crude oratory to the prejudice and passions of the mob.” He will be President in twelve days! – God help this country, because we are going to need it- big time!
FAEN says:
YES YES YES! Play her speech on a loop. God I love you Meryl.
Vern Dufford says:
NOW! we all need to speak up as she has in this interesting and inspiring speech.
I would add only God can help the folks that want help half of the “Godly folk” the Evangelical think better of Trump!
Rye says:
Yet another Hollyweird actor who feels the need to politicize her ridiculous professional choice by speaking out of tongue. If she wants to talk politics then I suggest she runs for a government office, if not, then I suggest she just continues spewing out her memorized lines and trying and look pretty in front of the camera.
FAEN says:
@Rye-What an utter hypocrite you are. Had Mel ‘I don’t believe the holocaust happened’ Gibson won and given a pro Trump speech you’d be silent or blathering on about free speech. Well free speech works both ways and you will hear a lot of it while Dumpster is in the WH.
You can try and justify it but the reality is you voted for a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, misogynistic, thin skinned whiny little bitch that can’t help but lie about anything and everything. YOU have to live with that. Enjoy.
Rye says:
FAEN – I can’t be accused of being a hypocrite over an event that never occurred, i.e. Mel Gibson giving a pro Trump speech. Furthermore, I think all actors (regardless of political affiliation) should obstain from politicizing these already ridiculously egocentric exercises they refer to as awards. I mean has this world ever witnessed a more self-aggrandizing displaying of ego stroking than that seen in Hollyweird? Perhaps, the pharaohs of Egypt erecting monuments to themselves might come in at a distant second.
Tim says:
Her stage, her time and her right!
Its our right as Americans to question out leaders and I am all for it. Rye, you should move to North Korea!
Joe says:
Meryl is a beacon of light in a very dismal world currently. Thank you for your intelligence and for speaking out without using any names.
Yo, Rye, you are going to get screwed along with the rest of us. Just in case you didn’t know that.
FAEN says:
@Rye-Whatever you have to tell yourself.
Rye says:
I don’t see any screwing going on Joe. I have been a Trump supporter since his initial speech announcing his candidacy for office. I donated funds and campaigned on his behalf. I am exhilarated that the Democrats are no longer in the controlling majority. My only hope is that they remain out of power for 8 years, so President Trump can complete each and every one of his campaign promises. I voted for him this time and I’m voting for his re-election 4 years from now. Hollyweird actors should entertain not engage in political commentary like Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand continue to do. In fact, I recall Ms. Streisand stating that if Mr. Trump won the election she would move out of the country. I hope she keeps her promise as much as I hope President Trump keeps his campaign promises.
K. Martinez says:
@Rye – I’m for anybody and EVERYBODY to speak out against the sociopath who’s name is Donald Trump and that includes all celebrities that have the ability and platform to spread the message far and wide. This man, if you could call him that, is our worst fucking nightmare. I applaud Meryl Streep loudly for speaking out. I only hope that more celebrities have half the guts that she does to speak out against this god awful man who was elected president.
FAEN says:
@Rye-So you think Mexicans are rapists, women should be grabbed by the pussy and LGBT tax paying Americans do not deserve equality under the law?
Joe says:
Rye = Troll. Don’t feed the trolls.