NEW YORK — Speaking in a hoarse voice that quivered with emotion, Meryl Streep silenced a boisterous Golden Globes crowd and sparked a clamor heard around the country, all the way to Trump Tower.
Streep’s impassioned speech against Donald Trump while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award at Sunday’s awards has been heard like a battle cry in a left-leaning Hollywood that has been trying to reconcile itself to a Trump presidency it overwhelmingly didn’t vote for. Her speech has also further intensified the divide between Hollywood and Trump supporters, who call Streep another example of media elite on a soapbox.
Though Trump has yet to take office, the arts and the President-elect are increasingly on a collision course. Trump has criticized the cast of “Hamilton,” which voiced its concerns about inclusion to Vice President-elect Mike Pence when he went to see the show on Broadway. Seeing political parallels in its story of underdog rebellion, some Trump supporters called for a boycott of the “Star Wars” film “Rogue One.” And now, after Streep’s remarks, Trump on Monday called the most decorated actress in Hollywood “overrated,” even though he in 2015 called her one of his favorites actresses and “a fine person, too.”
With institutions such as “Star Wars” and Streep in the crosshairs, the culture wars have gone nuclear. Battle lines and boycotts are being formed ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration, at which some entertainers have refused to perform. Some conservatives have already vowed on social media not to watch the Feb. 26 Academy Awards, which promises to be rife with political protest.
How the growing discord will affect the tenor in the arts for the next four years remains to be seen. But what was clear Monday in the wake of Streep’s galvanizing speech is that the clash is just getting started. In a night where the song-and-dance ode to musicals “La La Land” set a Globes record with seven wins, including best picture, musical or comedy, Streep’s speech had the largest impact.
“There has never been anyone like Meryl,” applauded Ellen DeGeneres on Twitter. “I’ve never admired you more!” tweeted Sally Field. “Nearly without voice, her voice has never been so strong,” lauded Sharon Stone. “Thank you, Meryl,” wrote director Darren Aronofsky.
George Clooney at a screening Monday in London defended Streep’s right to speak her mind: “It’s her right, and I support her right forever – as much as it’s everyone else’s right to say she can’t say it.”
Political speeches at an award show – a little-loved, often ridiculed tradition – have seldom reverberated so strongly. Streep largely argued for empathy, inclusivity and the arts. And she claimed Hollywood wasn’t a bastion of elites, but “a bunch of people from other places.” Streep didn’t use Trump’s name, but spoke directly about him.
“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it,” Streep said of Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter during the campaign . “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. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
She also urged support for the Committee to Protect Journalists , a media advocacy group, “because we’re gonna need them going forward and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.” On Monday, Joel Simon, executive director of the CPJ, said Streep’s comments inspired “a huge upsurge” in donations and awareness.
“We received 500 donations last night and a couple hundred more this morning,” said Simon, who said the ongoing donations totaled about $60,000 as of early Monday afternoon. “People are feeling very energized and impassioned.”
Conservative pundits, though, saw Streep’s speech as a reflection of the bicoastal liberal pomposity that Trump’s election was in part a rejection of, regardless of his own show business affiliations. “This is exactly why Hollywood is dying, what a bunch of hypocrites,” said Fox’s Sean Hannity.
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