Quote of the Day

[A]n actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like, and there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, compassionate work.

But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hook in my heart not because it was good. It was – there was nothing good about it – but it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.

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. It kind of broke my heart, and I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie, it was real life. And this instinct to humiliate when it’s modeled 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.

Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. The powerful – use definition to bully others, we all lose.

. . . This brings me to the press. We need the principal press to hold power to account to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedom in our Constitution. So I only ask the famously well‑healed Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists because we are going to need them going forward and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.

– Meryl Streep
Excerpted from her acceptance speech after being
awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award
at the 74th Annual Golden Globes Awards,
January 8, 2017

Related Off-site Links:
Meryl Streep Slams Donald Trump in Golden Globes 2017 Speech – Ashley Lee (Billboard, January 8, 2017).
Meryl Streep Calls Out Donald Trump for Mocking Disabled Reporter in Riveting Golden Globes Speech – Matt Wilstein (The Daily Beast, January 8, 2017).
Hollywood Gets a Clue About Inclusion, Meryl Streep Gets Political at 2017 Golden Globes – Kasia Anderson (TruthDig, January 8, 2017).
Golden Globes 2017: La La Land and Moonlight Win Big – Ned Ehrbar (CBS News, January 8, 2017).

Update:
Trump Blasts Meryl Streep After Golden Globes Speech – Dylan Stableford (Yahoo! News, January 9, 2017).
Trump Errs in Reply to Streep – D'Angelo Gore (FactCheck.org, January 9, 2017).
Beneath Trump’s Mockery of a Reporter, a Cascade of Lies Leading Back to 9/11 – Robert Mackey (The Intercept, January 9, 2017).

See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• On International Human Rights Day, Saying "No" to Donald Trump and His Fascist Agenda
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump as President of the United States
• Election Eve Thoughts
• Carrying It On
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Trump's Playbook

See also:
• The Purpose of Art
• Art and Resistance
• Glenda Jackson on the Oscars, Acting, and Politics
• Vanessa Redgrave: Speaking Out