At first I thought I would not comment on Meryl Streep’s remarks at the Golden Globe. But then I thought, everyone else has so why not me!
First though I want to say that Hollywood actors and actresses are just doing their jobs. They made the career choice just like you and I. Of course, they get paid a lot more but that’s not the point. They chose to become movie stars.
They put on their pants one leg at a time and they one day are going to die just like each of us. Why we put them on pedestals I have never figured out.
Because they do make more money, they should be involved in humanitarian efforts and doing good in the world. The more you are given, the more I think you should give back. Some of them do give back even some of the high profile ones, we hear about all the time.
There are some who do good and give back that we never hear about because they don’t go around tooting their own horn. I don’t think we should do something just to say “look at me”. Kind of defeats the purpose of doing good when you make it all about you and you want to make sure everyone knows about it.
Streep was awarded the Cecile B. DeMille Award, which is an honorary Golden Globe award bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.
She took the opportunity to launch a political tirade aimed at President-elect Donald Trump. Believe me I uphold freedom of speech and your right to hold an opinion. However, with freedom comes responsibility. That sometimes means keeping your mouth shut and not saying anything.
In her speech, which was supposed to be about accepting the award and thanking fans, etc., she said “disrespect invites disrespect”. Adding that “when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.” She did exactly what she said she was against. She used her power to tout her political stance and she became a bully in doing so.
It was the wrong forum, the wrong time for what she said. It’s no wonder, as she said that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is part of the most vilified segments in American society right now — Hollywood, foreigners and the press.
Because they pretend to be someone they are not for the different parts they play, much of Hollywood’s elite has forgotten where they came from and think they belong in the ivory tower or up on their golden pedestal. They don’t.
Though it wasn’t about Streep or her speech and wasn’t in the same context, President Obama said in his farewell speech, that it was safer for many of us to retreat into our own bubbles.  This is especially true of Hollywood elitists. They live in a bubble they have many times created themselves, and are very secure there only accepting what they want to be true in their own minds.
Of course, there have been others in Hollywood, who have tried to put Streep in her place. She’s one of those for which that is not possible I’m sure because she would never admit there was anything wrong with her speech.   She is a good actress, I will give her that, but because that was the career she chose, it does not give her the right to speak for everyone else or to use her perceived power to influence others. I say perceived power because they only have the power that we given them by oohing and aahing and paying part of their salary by buying tickets to see their movies and putting them up on a pedestal. So perhaps we are partly to blame because they are so out of touch with the rest of America.
Perhaps we should also be asking ourselves why much of the media gives so much coverage of such speeches and makes such a big deal of things. It’s because that is what society now wants to hear or that sells space, they think.
Don’t know about you but this I believe is why Trump got elected. Many are tired of the status quo and the entrenched establishment which includes some of the Hollywood group.
The election is over, let’s get on with it and move forward. The American people have spoken. It’s past time we quit all the whining and let’s join together and try and help do some good in America. Whether or not I voted for Obama, I would never have wanted him to fail and I did not whine and carry on like a spoiled brat.
No one should want Trump to fail either. Doing so is like wanting America to fail or for a pilot of a plane not to try and get the plane from point A to point B safely. Or like a firefighter not trying to put out a blazing fire. It just does not make any sense. ©2017

VICTORIA SIMMONS is an author, columnist, motivational speaker, minister and publisher of The Georgia Post/Byron Buzz. Contact her at: vsimmons54@gmail.com