Meryl Streep took Donald Trump to task during her acceptance speech for the Cecil B. Demille Award at the Golden Globes on Sunday.
“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, power, and the capacity to fight back,” Streep said, referring to an incident with Trump on the campaign trail. “It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
“[This] instinct to humiliate, when it’s modelled 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,” the “Florence Foster Jenkins” actress continued.
“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Streep also called on Hollywood to support a free and independent press as we find ourselves entering the Trump era. “We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage,” she said. “That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution.”
She concluded by invoking the memory of the late Carrie Fisher, saying, “As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia said to me once, ‘Take your broken heart, make it into art.’ Thank you.”