Whisper it softly – I’m with Trump when it comes to Meryl Streep
Elizabeth Day has not only had her fill of ‘The Post’ star’s speeches – she doesn’t even think much of her acting
I’ve been wrestling with an embarrassing personal issue for some time now. When I admit to it in public, a terrible hush will descend and people I’ve only just met will look at me with disgust. It’s a nasty little addiction and I just can’t shake it.
But admitting you have a problem is the first step in tackling it, so here goes. Deep breath. I don’t think Meryl Streep is all that great.
I’m imagining half of you will already be composing irate letters in protest, citing her heart-wrenching performances in everything from
Sophie’s Choice to The Iron Lady.
The problem with not rating Meryl Streep is that almost no one else will ever agree with you – unless they are Donald Trump, who famously declared her “overrated” last year. Her position as our Greatest Living Actress is such that she now occupies an almost unassailable position of cultural importance, as though she is no longer a real person so much as a godlike symbol of great acting and an unimpeachable bastion of liberal mindedness.
And yet, a few cracks have started to appear. Her latest performance in Spielberg’s The Post has been widely acclaimed, but at Sunday’s Golden Globes, she didn’t win the Best Actress gong she was up for – and she was left out entirely from this week’s Bafta nominations. Last month, the actress Rose Mcgowan, who claims she was raped by the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, accused Streep of “hypocrisy”.
Mcgowan’s outburst on Twitter was prompted by reports that actresses would wear black gowns at the Golden Globes in solidarity with victims of sexual misconduct (Streep did indeed wear black).
“Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @goldenglobes in a silent protest,” Mcgowan wrote. “YOUR SILENCE is THE problem.”
Streep responded by saying she had no idea Weinstein had spent decades allegedly assaulting vulnerable women in his bathrobe, despite having worked alongside him on several films; in her 2012 Golden Globes acceptance speech for The Iron Lady, she jokingly referred to him as “God”. A slew of posters by an anonymous street artist subsequently appeared around Los Angeles, with Streep’s eyes blanked out by the phrase “She Knew”.
I have no idea whether Streep knew or not (she denies it). In any event, her reaction to Mcgowan’s allegation was high-handed: she denied all knowledge of Weinstein’s abuse and revealed that she’d passed on her phone number to the younger actress, as if this were some great act of charity. Meryl Streep’s phone number! Be still my beating heart!
“I sat by the phone all day,” Streep wrote in a statement to the Huffington Post. “I hoped that she would give me a hearing. She did not, but I hope she reads this.”
Are we meant to believe Streep sat by the phone for the entire day like a lovelorn teenager waiting for a boy to call? Why is it Mcgowan’s responsibility to call Streep anyway? And if Streep were really concerned with the appalling treatment of women in Hollywood, why did she – along with many other Hollywood stars – give Roman Polanski a standing ovation at the 2003 Oscars, despite his conviction for statutory rape in 1977?
I don’t doubt that Streep is wellintentioned. But the way she gives her opinions seems patronising, as if she’s passing down stone tablets from the top of a biblical mountain.
Last year, she took to the stage at the Golden Globes and delivered a twee little speech, widely admired by her fellow luvvies for its criticism of Trump mocking a disabled reporter and his anti-immigrant rhetoric. Trump’s actions may have been beneath contempt, but the way she highlighted this was unnecessarily condescending to ordinary people.
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners,” she said. “And if you kick ’em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”
Come again? What’s wrong with watching football? Just because Streep wants to protect one thing (Hollywood) doesn’t mean she has to dump all over another (sports). Isn’t that precisely the opposite of the inclusiveness she preaches?
Leaving politics aside, the one thing that everyone says over again about Meryl Streep is that she’s a phenomenal actress. She might be, for all I know. I’ve liked her in some films – Florence Foster Jenkins was wonderful, as was Kramer vs. Kramer – and thought she was average in others.
But in every frame of every movie she stars in, I can’t escape the feeling that I’m seeing Meryl Streep Doing Some Really Great Acting rather than someone genuinely losing herself in the role. Perhaps this is a function of the fact that she’s now so famous it’s impossible to divorce the role from the fact that Meryl Streep is playing it. Perhaps we should all just stop talking about her so much, and let her get on with her job. So now that I’ve said my piece, I’m done.
And Meryl, if you want to talk about any of this, I’m happy to pass on my number. I’ll be waiting by the phone for your call.