'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,' Streep said
Meryl Streep has earned raves for many performances over her storied career, but the Jersey-born actress brought the house down Sunday at the Golden Globes.
This time it was for her speech when accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award (see video below). She sounded hoarse and said she had lost her voice recently, but was nonetheless heard loud and clear as she devoted little time to her actual career and preferred to instead address big-picture issues -- namely the impending presidency of Donald Trump.
Streep, 67, who was introduced with an emotional speech from Viola Davis, her co-star in "Doubt," was nominated for best actress this year for her role in the film "Florence Foster Jenkins."
Everyone in the room, Streep said, "belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it -- Hollywood, foreigners and the press."
Streep, who before she received the DeMille honor had won eight Golden Globes, began by pointing out the birthplaces of her fellow nominees, including Amy Adams (Italy), Ruth Negga (Ethiopia) and Natalie Portman (Jerusalem).
"Where are their birth certificates?" Streep asked, echoing a familiar refrain once advanced by Trump about President Barack Obama.
The acclaimed actress, who grew up in Bernardsville, name-checked New Jersey public schools when speaking about her own upbringing. All of this was to say that the arts and acting are necessarily diverse, Streep said.
"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," she said.
Yet the one performance that "stunned" Streep the most, she said, was one carried out by Donald Trump. In this, she referred to a 2015 rally speech given by the then-presidential candidate that was criticized as mocking New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski. Trump had flapped his hands, appearing to mimic the former Washington Post reporter who has arthrogryposis, which affects his joints.
"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," Streep said. "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 and I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie -- it was real life."
Such an instinct to bully, she said, is passed down to everyone because it gives people permission to do the same.
"Disrespect invites disrespect," Streep said, before asking those in attendance to support the Committee to Protect Journalists so reporters can hold the powerful to account.
Streep closed on a quote from her late friend Carrie Fisher: "Take your broken heart, make it into art."
Trump later told The New York Times that Streep was "a Hillary lover," saying he did not see Streep's speech or any of the awards show. The president-elect said he was "not surprised" that he was criticized by "liberal movie people."
Here's how some watching along at home received Streep's speech on Twitter: