Almost immediately after clinching the White House with a shocking Presidential election victory, (thanks to the Electoral College) citizens across the United States flooded the streets to protest against President-Elect Donald Trump. Nearly two months later, the Commander-in-chief-to-be has only managed to validate his dissenters’ fears, from his unprecedented inconsistency on the issues he championed during his campaign to his sketchy ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Now the public objection to Trump and his controversial actions is also spilling over into Hollywood. On Sunday night at the 2017 Golden Globe awards, Trump received a public scolding from legendary actress and activist Meryl Streep. During her acceptance speech for the honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award (a lifetime achievement award) Streep decided to use the widely viewed platform to reproach President-Elect Trump, and also advocate for freedom and protection of the independent press.
During her speech, the actress discussed how she was “stunned” after seeing Trump mock physically disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski during his campaign rally in 2015. After reproaching the impending president for his inappropriate and alarming public behavior, Streep went on to urge the audience to support the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which aims to preserve and protect an independent press.
“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can't get it of out my head, because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life,” Streep said during her acceptance speech. “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 kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing.”
Trump was quick to react to Streep’s comments, claiming that he had not seen her speech but was not surprised to be criticized by “liberal movie people”. The President-Elect also dismissed the actress as a Hillary Clinton supporter, and continued to deny that he ever intended to mock the physically disabled reporter. While Streep’s speech was certainly the most poignant of the night, host Jimmy Fallon and actor Hugh Laurie also took minor jabs at Trump during the award ceremony.
While Streep contributed meaningful political discourse to the Golden Globes, the award show wasn’t entirely consumed by the country’s pressing political issues. Another highlight of the night came from the multi-talented entertainer Donald Glover, who walked away with two awards for his critically acclaimed FX television show Atlanta.
During his acceptance speech, Glover surprised the Hollywood audience by thanking the hip-hop group Migos for creating the viral hit “Bad and Boujee”. He later explained that he gave props to the Atlanta-based hip-hop trio because he believes “they’re the Beatles of this generation.” Migos recently made an appearance on an episode of Glover’s show, while their groundbreaking track with Lil Uzi Vert continues to climb the Billboard charts into the top 10.