Meryl's Globes Speech Is Getting Mixed Feedback

In her acceptance speech for her Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2017 Golden Globes, Meryl Streep did not hold back at all. And while we always knew that some conservative commentators were going to have a thoughts about what was said in regards to Trump (though she never spoke his name), Meghan McCain's tweet about Meryl Streep's Golden Globe speech is a little puzzling, and frankly I'm kind of still scratching my head over it.

McCain called out Streep's speech as being the reason that Trump won, and if Hollywood doesn't start recognizing "why" and "how," they will help Trump get re-elected. Basically, the best I can gather from this garbled mix of words is that McCain believes that Streep's speech was being divisive, and possibly using some of that dreaded liberal elitism to say that mixed martial arts isn't real art (because it's not). Apparently, Streep calling out Trump for mocking a disabled reporter is alienating to people who like to mock disabled reporters. Or... something. What is fairly clear is that McCain seems to have missed the point of Streep's speech altogether, which was one of inspiring hope and advocating empathy for all people, "foreign" or otherwise. Oh, and to remind us all of how important the press and free speech is. How is that problematic again?

More than anything, this sounds to me like a strange inferiority complex on the part of the political right, in which the knee-jerk reaction is to decry any public statement that points out some very real and very frightening and yes, heartbreaking, aspects of the Republican president-elect. Streep was not trying to offend anyone, she was trying to remind us all that she believes her job as an artist is to speak for everyone who needs a voice. Hollywood might be left-leaning, but its job is to be inclusive. And that inclusivity is exactly what Streep was advocating.

What she was dismissing was an attitude of exclusivity. While Trump has been an eager supporter of blanket deportations, Streep would like to remind everyone that Hollywood is made of foreigners, and that real art is for everyone. Or that "when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose." It seems that McCain is arguing that is exactly what Streep was doing, but there was no bullying here. If inclusion and love for one another is so alienating to Trump supporters, then we have a much bigger problem.