In just one week, President Elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated; love him or hate him, we'll have lots to talk about in the coming years.
Trump represents a curious intersection of politics and celebrity, the likes of which the American public is not accustomed to. It seldom occurs that television celebrities become presidents, and Trump is one of, if not the most controversial celebrities of our time. Time will tell what will become of this presidency.
As a public figure in so many ways, Trump is the target of a lot of praise, and just as much criticism. As of today, his latest critic and subject of his infamous tweets: Meryl Streep.
The 74th Golden Globe Awards ceremony was held this past Monday, on January 8th, and Streep was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The award, according to the Golden Globes website, is given to those who "have had a definite impact on the world of entertainment," ranking recipients among the likes of "Alfred Hitchcock, Lucille Ball, Sidney Poitier, Sophia Loren, Sean Connery, Barbra Streisand" and many others. Streep was recognized as "an icon of the performing arts."
Her speech, as she accepted the award, lasted six minutes; she began by acknowledging her peers and their humble, international beginnings, and used the opportunity to address the nation with a political message, clearly denouncing Trump: "Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football, and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts." She also talked about his mocking of Serge Kovaleski, a reporter with a disability, and how this "kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing." She ended with a call to action to protect journalists, and an anecdote in which she emphasized the importance of empathy.
Naturally, this story spread like wildfire; Trump, in response, tweeted that Streep is "over-rated" and "a....."; Noah Trevor, host of "The Daily Show," found Streep's speech to be "tone deaf," because it overlooked the overlap of audiences between football and the arts, and the perpetuation of negative stereotypes that Hollywood is guilty of; Robert De Niro responded to Streep's speech with an open letter; and Twitter, of course, exploded.
As students of film, we have a lot to ask ourselves:
What do we think about Streep's speech? It's no surprise that Streep is politically vocal and active, but what do we make of a celebrity using an acceptance speech as a platform for a political statement?
Is she justified, or should she separate her political life from her acting career? Can she? Or is celebrity intractable, an unchanging part of one's personality?
What do we think about Robert De Niro's letter? De Niro and Streep are well-known and well-loved by the public; how large of a role does their celebrity play in influencing the opinions of us lowly non-celebrities? Is there something condescending in her speech, or is she telling it like it is?
What do we think about her attention to her peers' humble beginnings? Is Hollywood as diverse as she says? Is it for better, fostering diversity, as Streep might say, or for worse, feeding negative stereotypes that are already well-situated, as Noah Trevor would say?
We at UMD Film Forum want to hear your thoughts. Please respond with a comment, respond to any comments, or send an email to umdfilmforum@gmail.com with a blog post!
Submitted by Wendy Timmons
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