By Mollie Hemingway
Monday, January 09, 2017
The 2017 Hollywood award season got going with last
night’s Golden Globes. These awards are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association after a period of intense lobbying by Hollywood studios.
Mostly it seemed like a very nice party for an industry
that loves to give itself awards. As per usual, some Hollywood elites took
their time in the spotlight to disparage others, such as Paul Ryan, Donald
Trump, and Republicans in general.
Hugh Laurie, who won “best supporting actor in a series,
limited series or TV movie” for his role in AMC’s “The Night Manager” joked
that it was going to be the last year these awards were presented. “I don’t
mean to be gloomy, it’s just that it has the words ‘Hollywood,’ ‘Foreign,’ and
‘Press’ in the title. I also think to some Republicans even the word
‘association’ is sketchy.” He added, “I accept this award on behalf of
psychopathic billionaires everywhere,” he said.
Edgy! Or it’s the opposite. The cliched dig on Trump is
better than the out-of-nowhere broadside against Republicans. If well-heeled
Hollywood stars and starlets feel the need to mock Trump, they should do that,
I guess. I’m not sure how meaningful it is after eight years of unwavering
devotion for the current president, but Hollywood is going to do what Hollywood
does.
Besides, Hollywood went hard for Hillary Clinton. Time reported in September:
Members of the cast of The West
Wing, which went off the air in 2006, will campaign together in Ohio this
weekend, while Scandal stars Bellamy Young and Tony Goldwyn have hit the trail
in Virginia. Tim Daly, who plays the husband of a fictional Secretary of State
on Madam Secretary, one of Clinton’s favorite shows, stumped in Ohio, as will
Sally Field, who won an Oscar portraying a union organizer.
The list went on and on. But as much as people may enjoy
their stories on the TV, enough Americans rejected the guidance of people who
recite other people’s lines to give Trump, of all people, a victory.
So it came to pass that Meryl Streep, the high priestess
of Hollywood, gave a barn burner of a sermon to her congregation. Now, federal
law requires that you say Streep is the best actress who ever lived and ever
will live. (I rather agree with Kate Hepburn’s critique of her, but we’re
outliers.) Streep won a Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award and chose
to speak on Donald Trump.
Or as CNN put it in their “breaking news” (really!)
announcement: Streep “criticized President-elect Trump — without mentioning his
name — for his behavior on the campaign trail and called on the press to hold
him accountable.” Someone needs to let the folks at CNN know about the
difference between dogs biting men and men biting dogs. A Hollywood star
criticizing Trump is the opposite of breaking news.
Here were a few issues with her speech.
1. No, Meryl,
Hollywood Elites Are Not Victims
Streep said, “Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said.
You and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in
American society right now. Think about it. Hollywood, foreigners, and the
press.”
How do I put this? UM, NO. Just no. The press and
Hollywood are some of the most privileged
segments of society. Whether you measure it in terms of cash money, prestige,
fame, or an ability to fail year after year and get promoted, Hollywood and
media elite do not get to cast themselves as victims.
2. Less
Condescension Would Be Nice
Then Streep said Hollywood is “just a bunch of people
from other places” noting that not everyone who works in Hollywood was born
there. I bet you did not know that until Ms. Streep informed you of this
salient fact that renders all criticism of smug Hollywood suddenly moot. She
added, “So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick
’em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts,
which are not the arts.”
As J.D. Vance, author of the hit memoir “Hillbilly
Elegy,” put it:
Can someone explain to me why she
needed to insult football and mixed-martial arts? Seemed like needless condescension.
Seriously. I don’t watch football or MMA (and, to be
fair, you couldn’t pay me to watch “Florence Foster Jenkins”), but this
statement doesn’t even make sense. Mixed martial arts has more “outsiders and
foreigners” than Hollywood does. It’s such unnecessary condescension, unless
you believe all condescension is necessary to those who watch MMA instead of
yet another progressive call to arms masquerading as entertainment.
3. What Is
Empathy?
Streep said, “An 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. There was one performance this year
that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. 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 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.”
Okay, there is so much to unpack here, so buckle up.
Streep tells the widely known story of Trump mocking Serge Kovaleski, a
reporter with a physical ailment. This was something that everyone from Jeb
Bush to Hillary Clinton and, of course, the entire media complex was very
focused on throughout 2016. But if our best empathizers want to truly empathize
with people who voted differently from them, it’s time to have a little bit of
a chat about this incident and the entire 2016 freakshow.
First off, Trump is horribly rude. He hits people hard,
commenting on their looks, their strength, their demeanor. He mocks what they
say. At its worst, this is embarrassing behavior to witness in a grown man and
a sure sign that our civil discourse is suffering. At its best, he shows some
much needed fight in a world where bullies are able to shut down differing
opinions through control of the news cycle.
Now, Trump didn’t just do this mocking and insulting in
2016. He’s been doing this for decades. It’s his entire brand. He did this
while NBC paid him millions upon millions upon many, many millions of dollars
as one of their entertainers. He did this while appearing in “Zoolander,” “Sex
and the City,” “Home Alone 2,” and countless other TV shows and movies. He did
this while TV networks gave him unparalleled free coverage as he trounced every
Republican primary opponent. So it was in this context that people saw him
mocking Kovaleski. The media absolutely loved this very persona for decades …
until they didn’t.
The media always claimed that Trump was mocking Kovaleski
for his disability, a charge that Trump denied. While Trump’s rudeness and
failure to speak well of others didn’t help his case, the fact is that the
specific “flailing hands” motion that led to this charge is one that he has
used on others. Here’s a video of him doing the “flailing hands” motion twice
in the same rally — once to describe Kovaleski and once to describe some
general — and at another rally when he went after Ted Cruz. It’s the exact same
motion for Kovaleski and Cruz. Go
ahead and see for yourself.
Now, I don’t particularly like any of these insults. But
the characterization of the insult being specific to the reporter’s disability
— as opposed to a charge that the reporter was flailing — doesn’t explain why
Ted Cruz got the exact same treatment when he was accused of flailing in a
debate.
Now it wasn’t that voters had a choice between a boorish
insulter and a church mouse. Perhaps the most damaging thing Hillary Clinton
did in her campaign — even worse than not visiting Wisconsin because she
thought she didn’t need to — was her broadbrush insult of Americans being
“deplorable” and “irredeemable.” For some reason Americans chose to nominate
these two people, and these were our choices. All of which to say, though, that
while Trump did mock Kovaleski, the charge he “imitated” a reporter’s
disability is questionable.
So our chief empathizer Streep says that Trump mocked a
“disabled reporter” for the purpose of making his “intended audience laugh and
show their teeth.” That’s a pretty awful thing to say about your fellow
Americans, if we’re all about empathizing. It’s doing the same thing Trump was
doing. His flailing arm motions were always done while retelling a story so
that he sounded great and others sounded stupid.
Streep skips the flailing arm motions but puts herself
and her in-group on a pedestal while disparaging others and mischaracterizing
their views. They didn’t laugh with Trump at the reporter so they could show
their teeth at the disabled. That’s ridiculous. They laughed because they were
enjoying Trump — a proven entertainer — whipping the media into a frenzy and
evading their once-powerful jaws. You can disagree with Trump — vehemently,
even — without inventing a false story about what his supporters enjoyed in
him.
4. We Learned It
by Watching You, Meryl!
Streep goes on, “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, ’cause it kind of gives permission for other people
to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence.
And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Oh man, where to start? There is this advertisement from
way back in the day where a kid is getting busted by his dad for smoking weed.
“Who taught you how to do this stuff?” the dad asks. “You all right? I learned
it by watching you!” the kid shouts in response. That’s all I can think of when
smug, condescending, rude, insulting, mocking Hollywood tells Americans that
“disrespect invites disrespect.”
You don’t say. You don’t say!
Yes! That’s exactly what it does!
Media reporter Alex Griswold wrote, “I think those who
share Hollywood’s politics don’t realize how tiresome it is that being lectured
at is a prerequisite to follow pop culture.” It’s not just Hollywood. It’s a
political media that treated Mitt Romney — Mitt Freaking Romney! — as the
second coming of Hitler. It’s a political media that has never cared to
understand, much less fairly explain, conservative viewpoints, instead running
after Republican politicians shouting “What about your gaffes!”
Yes, if you rudely dismiss and sneer and treat half the
country like they are monsters worthy of extermination for enough decades, you
should not be surprised to find them voting for Donald Trump as a weapon of
last resort. If you disparage and mock and systematically dismantle all norms,
tear down every traditional institution, deny objective reality, and preach
that all truth is relative, you should not act like the rise of Donald Trump is
such a surprise.
5. Now Is the Time
for Humility
So if you’re wondering why anyone could possibly have any
problem with the saintly Streep’s sermon, hopefully you can empathize with
others who heard it differently. It was an unwelcome reproof from a
representative of a group that doesn’t exactly have a ton of credibility. To
see media elites cheer her on and push out her message was as unwelcome as
everything else the media pushed in 2016. You’d think they’d learn.
But let’s revisit the best part of the speech Streep
delivered. “Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when
the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.” We can hope that
powerful Hollywood and the powerful political media will take this message to
heart and stop disrespecting those who disagree with them, excommunicating as
heretics any who dare differ. We can hope that they will stop bullying others
into their narrow groupthink. While we’re at it, we can hope that Donald Trump
stops being so rude on Twitter and elsewhere.
We can also face the reality that at this point Trump is
more likely to modify his behavior than Hollywood or political media are. As
individuals, however, we can and should always redouble our efforts to speak
well of each other and treat each other well. We shouldn’t take our guidance
from politicians or movie stars, and if we focus our efforts on improving our
own virtue, perhaps future generations will have better statesmen and artists.
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