https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxyGmyEby40
If you haven’t seen this yet, give it a watch.
I always cringe a little when celebrities speak out on political and social issues, even when (as is often the case) I agree with them. And Streep’s joke about the audience at the Golden Globes being the “most vilified group” in America today fell a bit flat for me, for obvious reasons.
But her comments about Trump’s mocking “performance” imitating a disabled reporter during one of his stump speeches were right on:
This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everyone’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect, violence invites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.
Naturally, Trump has responded in his characteristic manner:
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
"groveling" when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
Dude, just stop. It’s embarrassing. We all saw what you did.
You all might find this amusing. Trump interview from last year. Ignore his usual apologetics and just scroll down to find out who his favourite actress is (was?).
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/donald-trump-murdoch-ailes-nbc-816131?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral
Oh, and he also states his concern about all the hacking Russia is doing.
@Headologist Oh, I get that, I really do. I totally understand the sense that we don’t need patronising sympathy, and that platitudes don’t solve the issue. I guess I just want us to support each other rather than tearing each other down, and by ‘us’, I mean ‘people who are not dicks, and need to be standing up to dicks right now’.
Also, I got the impression that she was implying the power differential was more to do with money and position than disability. She mentions that he mocked a reporters disability, then points out that due to the power difference (ie – potential president vs journalist) using a characteristic of his disability to mock him was particularly shitty.
But I undertand how somebody could take something different away from that, I’m just glad people aren’t being quiet. Also, I’m relatively privileged and British so not as directly effected so feel free to ignore my late night epiphanies lol.
Your preference would be?
Teared up a bit when I saw that clip online. It’s good that she said that because I still been feeling downbeat.
A little compassion goes a long way for me.
@Kylo Ronin, <3
@Alan
The many moods of Donald J. Trump . . .
That was wonderful. Thanks!
@Youthful Indescretion
I wrote a long reply to you but I lost it checking other pages, bugger it. So in brief: I’m also British, and pretty privileged in some ways. I think this is hitting very close to home because I have a progressive disability and I’m hitting a lot of unfortunate milestones with it very fast and am watching, very clearly, how people who once thought of me as strong and capable are now seeing me as pitiful and helpless – not least myself.
@Policy of Madness
Eep, I was not prepared to rewrite a speech today. I guess another example, maybe instead of but preferably as well as the reporter. Use of his name. An acknowledgement that he wasn’t just a disabled man but part of the press – I admit this was probably mostly due to timing but given the anecdote and then immediately talking about protecting the press as if it was a separate thing, it seemed a bit like reducing the reporter to a victim despite his achievements. A sentence mentioning that far from mocking being Trump’s worst offence, the actual huge problems facing disabled people (and women, non-whites, immigrants, the LGBT+ community etc). And in the press, where time is less of an immediate factor, more than just a brief mention of the reporter as an example. Acknowledgement of him as an accomplished journalist. Acknowledgement that the mockery he’s probably faced many times before is far from the worse of the struggles he and many others will be facing with the Orange Flatulence in power. Literally any notion that disabled is not a prefix that negates what comes after it, and that disabled people are quite capable of dealing with the horrible mockery we face so often – unlike, say, the removal of vital healthcare or social support.
Sorry about that. But we’re talking about someone who had only like 2 minutes to say everything she wanted to say in the context of a speech about accepting an award for acting. Her speech wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty damned good. The criticism of Donald was worked in by tying it to a “performance” he gave (the award was for acting). You want her to work in a whole lot of other stuff and I’m not sure it’s possible to give a perfect speech in 2 minutes while still acknowledging that the award is for acting chops rather than disability activism. It’s more likely that she would just not say anything at all, which renders Serge Kovaleski straight-up invisible.
@Policy of Madness
Sure, I get that, and I was by no means suggesting that she work in all my suggestions or get to the meat of disability activism in such a short space of time. However that doesn’t mean it wasn’t poorly phrased – I think one extra sentence, or possibly even just slightly different phrasing, could itself make even the exact same speech just a little better and not a part of the problem re: ableism.
Lots of people accepted awards that night. I don’t recall any others mentioning any disabled people. They aren’t getting any criticism for it. I wonder if Meryl Streep would be catching flak for her speech like this if she had just kept disabled people invisible like everyone else did.
It’s more about how she mentioned them, though. I feel we’re going round in circles at this point, but I stand by the view that presenting a disabled person in the way she did was minimising and more harmful to views on disability than helpful, even if the overall speech was much needed.