Los Angeles - Meryl Streep delivered a searing criticism of US
president-elect Donald Trump in Los Angeles on Sunday at the 74th
Golden Globe awards.
The three-time Oscar winner and owner of eight Golden Globe trophies
was to be honoured with the Cecil B DeMille award for lifetime
achievement, celebrating her work over nearly 40 years in films from
"The Deer Hunter" (1978) and "Sophie's Choice" (1982) to "The Iron
Lady" (2011), "The Hours" (2002) and last year's "Florence Foster
Jenkins."
Oscar winner Viola Davis ("Fences") introduced Streep in an emotional
speech, telling her, "you are a muse ... you make me proud to be an
artist."
But when Streep took the stage, she turned the spotlight from art to
politics, using the third-most-watched awards show in the world after
the Oscars and the Grammys to send a message.
In the wake of a contentious presidential campaign that saw a rise in
anti-immigrant rhetoric, Streep, 67, warned gathered actors and
members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that they "belong
to the most vilified segments in American society right now -
Hollywood, foreigners and the press."
Pointing out Globe nominees from diverse backgrounds, she defended
the US film industry's diversity.
"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick
them all out, you will have nothing to watch but football and mixed
martial arts - which are not the arts," she said.
In a nearly six-minute speech, she slammed Trump's campaign-trail
mockery of a disabled reporter as the "performance" that most
"stunned" her this year.
"Not because it was good - there was nothing good about it," she
said. "When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all
lose."
Trump has denied imitating New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski,
who suffers from a congenital joint condition.
Streep was not alone in evoking an ominous tone ahead of Trump's
inauguration, set for January 20.
Emcee Jimmy Fallon hailed the Globes as "one of the few places left
where America still honours the popular vote," a reference to Trump's
victory under the US electoral college system despite winning around
three million fewer votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Describing Streep's film "Florence Foster Jenkins," Fallon described
the title character as "the world's worst opera singer - but even she
turned down performing at Donald Trump's inauguration."
Hugh Laurie, who won the best supporting actor prize for his work on
the television drama "The Night Manager," joked darkly that this year
would be "the last-ever Golden Globes."
# Notebook
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## Editorial contacts
- Reporting by: Valerie Hamilton in Los Angeles
- Editing by: Andre Leslie, + 61 2 9322 8065,
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