By: Passant Omar 
Meryl Streep is one of the most loved and valued Hollywood stars. She was very much admired in the well-known movie “The Devil Wears Prada” despite the mean boss role she played. Streep boasts the most individual nominations of all times, and the 2017th Golden Globes award is considered to be the 31st to her name.

After receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her amazing body of work, Streep followed it with a powerful speech. She started off by mentioning the different birth locations of many of the Hollywood stars to define how “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners”. However, she indirectly dismissed the US President’s act of criticizing a disabled reporter; referring to a speech by Mr. Trump in 2015 when he shuddered and flailed his arms, seeming to mock a disabled reporter for The New York Times. Even though she did not mention Trump’s name once, she referred to him as “the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country” who “imitated a disabled reporter”. She continued her speech by expressing how such an act broke her heart as it was not done in movies, it actually happened in real life. She highlighted how unacceptable and negatively effective this act was by adding that “Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”

Streep received a big round of applause from the room. However, she has been criticized from internet users and Trump supporters on how inappropriate it was to bring up politics in such an event. It was obvious from her speech that she did not mention it out of hatred or opposition of Trump, she simply expressed how an incident she witnessed stunned her and how negative its impact could be. She added, “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.”

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She summed up this part of her speech by addressing Hollywood Foreign Press and all those who work in the acting industry “to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re gonna need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.”

As if it cannot get more intense, during a quick interview with Trump, he stated that he hasn’t seen the Streep’s speech but he is “not surprised” to be attacked from “liberal movie people”.