One of the most annoying things that happen during Hollywood awards ceremonies is when actors decide to turn their acceptance speeches into political rants as if pretending to be other people gives them license to do so. The Golden Globes was no exception. The first ceremony of awards season was broadcast in the shadow of the coming great Donald Trump terror. Meryl Streep, who once played Margaret Thatcher, took the occasion of her lifetime achievement award to paint an apocalyptic vision of what is to come for the entertainment industry under the Orange Haired Overlord.
“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.”
That, oddly, is spot on in two instances, though Americans don’t particularly hate immigrants, just those who shoot up gay nightclubs and fly planes into buildings. In any case, the vision of multi-millionaire actors and directors as the new oppressed class was a beguiling one.
Streep went on to list a number of her friends and where they came from, many from other countries. Then she said this:
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. If you kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”
The vision of Trump’s deportation force fanning out through Beverly Hills and dragging out foreign born actors and directors is an absurd one.
It came from a mind who doesn’t get it and is out of touch from the mass of Americans who comprise her audiences.
And who let Streep diss football during playoff season anyway?
The problem is that Streep and others in the entertainment industry know that they have not been slated to be dragged away to relocations camps. Only liberal presidents like Franklin Roosevelt does things like that.
The problem with Streep and the others is that they are going to lose access to the seat of power. They were ready to attend parties at President Hillary Clinton’s White House where they could bend the ear of She Who Must Be Obeyed about issues they care about. Trump could give two hoots what actors think. He listens to people who matter like Elon Musk and Newt Gingrich.
Streep also, unintentionally and unknowingly, displayed a big reason why Trump was elected to start with. Trump’s election is a big middle finger directed to people like Streep who like to lecture the hoi polloi. The sooner she realizes that the sooner she can move from anger directly to acceptance in the stages of grief.
