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Discussion » Questions » Entertainment » What do you think of Meryl Streep, in her speech at the Golden Globes, painting herself and other Hollywood elites as victims?

What do you think of Meryl Streep, in her speech at the Golden Globes, painting herself and other Hollywood elites as victims?

She said, "You and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it. Hollywood, foreigners, and the press."

Really? Seriously? No. Just no. The press and Hollywood are some of the most privileged segments of society. Whether you measure it in terms of cash money, prestige, fame, or an ability to fail year after year and get promoted, Hollywood and media elite do not get to cast themselves as victims.

Posted - January 9, 2017

Responses


  • Hollywood is among the most out of touch idiots this nation has. They are the last on the list to be named as victims. I have more to say, but I'll be respectful to this site.
      January 9, 2017 3:38 PM MST
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  • 372
    Do me a favor - go buy a dictionary (or google) and look up "vilify" and "victimize", ok? Then get back to us.
      January 9, 2017 4:03 PM MST
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  • 7919
    Umm... please tell me you see the irony in vilifying her over her comment about celebs being vilified. 
      January 9, 2017 3:42 PM MST
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  • 13251
    A fair point, lol. Never thought of that!
      January 9, 2017 10:01 PM MST
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  • 17364
    Not a point at all.  I don't watch award shows anymore because the winners take the mic and give a political speech.  How arrogant to assume the country tunes into film awards to hear political BS.  The ratings never include me because I'm not there.  I read one line today about Streep talking about bullies and power.  She was doing exactly that.  
      January 10, 2017 12:07 AM MST
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  • 2327
    They're so far out of touch from reality, it's ridiculous. But I guess that's what happens to people who spend many years of pretending to be other people for a living. They become disillusioned.

    I know (mostly) everybody with internet access will post their political opinion on some social media site at some point, but I find it quite sickening at how celebrities use their celebrity influence to deliberately promote their own political agenda because they know people will tune in to watch them. Streep's speech in particular. The Golden Globes is about movies. So her speech should be about movies. There's no reason whatsoever to bring Trump into it. Completely irrelevant. Just because she is at the very top of the movie business, it does not make whatever she spouts any more valid, or make her any more qualified than any other person, especially when it comes to a subject that's so subjective as politics.   
      January 9, 2017 3:56 PM MST
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  • 2052
    She should have mentioned the young man who was kidnapped and tortured by those 4 sickos. if she wanted to be angry about something

    She was way out of line, it was neither the time or the place.
    The Golden Globes is supposed to be an awards ceremony not soap box
    for personal opinions.  
    This post was edited by Sunshine at January 10, 2017 12:47 AM MST
      January 9, 2017 4:08 PM MST
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  • Oh those poor, poor Hollywood actors.


    Give us a break.  PFFFFFTTTTT

      January 9, 2017 4:25 PM MST
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  • 17261
    You did not pay much attention to what she actually said, did you? Seems you missed out on the message. Such shame, there was so much to take with you. Such shame.
      January 9, 2017 4:29 PM MST
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  • She did have a few very good points but the part about Hollywood being vilified and victims was kinda self-righteous and BS.  I mean, to say that as you are having your butt-kissed with an overblown and silly award show to give you the platform is a tad disingenuous.
      January 9, 2017 4:57 PM MST
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  • 17261
    To bring the quote you use into its full context:

    The following is a transcript of Meryl Streep’s speech at the 74th Golden Globes as she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.

    I love you all. You have to forgive me, I have lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend and I have 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 segments of American society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners and the press.

    But who are we and, you know, what is Hollywood, anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places. I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey, Viola was born in a sharecropper's cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, R.I. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida, raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio, Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy and Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. Where are their birth certificates?

    And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in Lon -- no, 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 and is here playing an Indian raised in Tasmania. So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.

    They gave me three seconds to say this, so. 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 this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, compassionate work.

    But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart, not because it was good, it was -- there’s 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 and power and the capacity to fight back. It, it kind of broke my heart when I saw it and I still can’t get it out 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, it 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. OK, go on with that thing. OK, this brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage.

    That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood foreign press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, ’cause we’re going to need them going forward and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.

    One more thing. Once when I was standing around 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 be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight,

    As my, as my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once: “Take your broken heart, make it into art.”

    Thank you, Foreign Press.
      January 9, 2017 4:55 PM MST
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  • Just to echo someone else's comments ... Villify means to denigrate ... It does not mean you are without privilege .... Whether you accept it or not there is a movement to basically shut people up from giving their opinions on PET ... You can either go skiing with that or fight it ... I applaud Meryl for having the guts to stand up and say what she believes
      January 9, 2017 5:12 PM MST
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  • What is less interesting then the pratting of a celebrity?
      January 9, 2017 5:13 PM MST
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  • 10029
    The newly elected pseudo-celebrity POTUS tweeting responses to the prattling on of EVERY celebrity and member of the press. : )
      January 9, 2017 8:34 PM MST
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  • I thought her speech was lovely...and I believe you're pulling that quote out of context. If anything, I think the one most important thing she said that everyone should agree with regardless of political view's  is " We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage." If you believe in democracy , you should agree with this.  
    I didn't like her dis' of MMA though ;) everything else was on point... In my opinion.
      January 9, 2017 5:21 PM MST
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  • 5354

    The problem with the word "Outrage" is that the different ends of the political spectrum use it about very different things, There may be 'outrages' they can agree on (eg: dragging a puppy after a car at 100 MPH is outragious). Just reading this thread exemplifies a great many totally different definitions.

      January 9, 2017 6:04 PM MST
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  • I guess so. In my personal view trumps words and actions deserve outrage. I don't pretend to understand why Americans have so much distain (?not sure correct word )  for Hillary Clinton cos I'm not educated on American politics. I can't understand though how anyone could stand behind someone with so much hate in his heart. It makes me sad = outrage. 
      January 9, 2017 6:11 PM MST
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  • 17261
    This.
      January 9, 2017 10:58 PM MST
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  • 5354
    On AB I have read quite a few posts where actors were described as liberals or worse yet, commies. Claiming that someone who make millions of dollars a year is a commie, can hardly be anything but deliberate denigration (well, maybe envy)
      January 9, 2017 5:24 PM MST
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  • Or it could just be sheer stupidity.
      January 9, 2017 6:13 PM MST
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  • 2515
    I think she hit a nerve, without mentioning names. 
      January 9, 2017 5:43 PM MST
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  • It could be seen as rather self-pitying couldn't it?  But then do you really expect an actor to pass up the chance to be a drama queen?  It's sort of in the blood, after all.

    And she does have more than a point or two.  The media is becoming very jittery over Trump's unpredictability and are worried the consequences of some 3 am Twitter-inspired brainwave may arrive on their doorstep.  Given his control-freakery I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him try and if I worked in a responsible job in the media I'd be worried too.

    So on balance I think it should have been heard, as it touches on things I've always been informed by Americans were sacrosanct under the Constitution, and which Trump, should it suit him and should he be emboldened enough, will undoubtedly try to change to his own advantage.

    I can see the reason for the question's approach, but I think you have spent too much time on the style (yes, agreed, potentially annoying) and not enough on the substance.
      January 9, 2017 6:22 PM MST
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  • 10029
    She's right about them being vilified, and that's often for good reason. One almost DOES feel badly for "Hollywood", given the likes of what passes for a celebrity these days. I'll echo the sentiments of many others here with the question of your understanding of the words vilify and victim.

    I think the funniest thing to come out of this is that a year ago, Trump named Streep as one of his favorite actresses! Per usual, he REALLY should employ someone to make a comprehensive catalogue of tweets and soundbites to avoid looking like the f-ing moron he is!

      January 9, 2017 7:22 PM MST
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  • 5614
    I don't know about most vilified but she is not off the mark. We are just arguing how deep the arrowhead went in. I am guilty of demonizing Hollywood as much as anyone else. We constantly blame them for flaws in our perception and often for our own decision making. I have no problem with what she has said and promise to be more fair in my criticisms and to hold the people not their representatives and heroes more accountable.
      January 9, 2017 8:25 PM MST
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