By Erin Free
The 2017 Golden Globe Awards were one of the most unusual in the ceremony’s recent colourful history. Justifiably praised for previously appointing scathing, uncompromising hosts like the brilliant Ricky Gervais, and the equally brilliant Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (all of whom have had successful multiple runs at the gig), this year was set up as a far more insular and less critical affair right from the get-go.
With the imposing, polarising, and generally-hated-in-Hollywood (except by the B, C, and D-graders who appeared on his highly entertaining TV show, The Celebrity Apprentice) President-Elect Donald J. Trump casting a big, dark, looming shadow over the event, this looked like a time for the American film and television industries to band together in support, rather than tear strips off themselves, even in jest. In fact, the whole affair felt akin to a group of displaced war victims trying to find the light in the darkness while hiding out in a cellar waiting for the bombs to fall.
With the aim of keeping the self-loathing to a minimum, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association picked American talk show host, Jimmy Fallon, as its cheerleader. Used to glad-handing celebrities every night on TV, the ever unctuous Fallon did more of the same as Golden Globes host. The show started in musical fashion, with an all-singing, all-dancing Fallon joined by stars like Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake in a rip-roaring knees-up. The host then unfortunately followed that A-grade start with an obvious, predictable monologue that would have felt right at home on The Tonight Show. Fallon stumbled when the autocue failed him, and his impersonation of Chris Rock, meanwhile, just served as a reminder of what a much better job that gifted actor and comedian did hosting The Academy Awards last year.
The digs at Donald Trump started right away, ranging from the pointed but not exactly accurate (Fallon called The Golden Globes “one of the few places left where America still honours the popular vote”) and the silly but kinda funny (“Many people are wondering what it would be like if [Game Of Thrones’ evil villain] King Joffrey had lived. Well, in twelve days, we’re gonna find out”), to the sharp and true (“Florence Foster Jenkins is nominated. She’s the world’s worst opera singer and yet even she turned down performing at the inauguration”). It set the tone for the evening, and the laughs from the floor bolstered the us-and-them attitude. Though award ceremony audiences can be notoriously tough, this was the definition of an easy crowd. Even Fallon’s embarrassing Cypress Hill-inspired introduction of presenters, Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, later in the show, got a few inexplicable titters.
Far wittier Trump barbs than Fallon’s came courtesy of British actor, Hugh Laurie, who dropped the hammer while collecting his award for Best Supporting Actor for the stellar TV series, The Night Manager. Surprised at his win, Laurie said that it was “made more amazing by the fact that I’ll be able to say I won this at the last ever Golden Globes. I don’t mean to be gloomy, it’s just that it has the words, ‘Hollywood,’ ‘Foreign,’ and ‘Press’ in the title. I just don’t know … I also think to some Republicans that even the word ‘association’ is slightly sketchy.” Laurie then accepted his award “on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere.”
It was biting and funny stuff, and it warmed up the crowd for the nobody-saw-it-coming anti-Trump main event, which came courtesy of Meryl Streep. As if to further push the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s agenda of safe-house back-slapping, the organisation actually gifted its Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award to the great Meryl Streep, the very definition of someone who doesn’t need another statue on their already bulging, down-weighted mantelpiece.
But from a huge field of non-frequent-winners well deserving of some stage time (Roger Corman? Spike Lee? Diane Keaton? Bernardo Bertolucci? Okay, maybe not him), the HFPA actually picked Meryl Streep as its honouree. After groaning through Viola Davis’ impassioned but horribly ham-boned introduction, the tone shifted when Streep quickly revealed that she was not there to merely accept her award.
Fighting a sore throat, Streep turned her acceptance speech into an eloquent, compassionate take-down of Donald J. Trump so charged, intelligent, and focused that she must have had the help of a professional scribe (has Streep been seen with Aaron Sorkin lately?) somewhere along the way. If she hasn’t, the actress should kick-start a second career as a writer, right now. Streep’s was no shambling, general attack; after making smart, witty, amusing comment on Trump’s seeming distrust of foreigners (pointing out that Hollywood is full of them), the actress then challenged The President-Elect on his lack of empathy, and this was the real kicker of Streep’s speech.
“There was one performance this year that stunned me,” Streep said. “It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good; 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. 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. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modelled 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. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
It was a moving, compassionate, and heartfelt (she also spoke of the importance of the press – another of Trump’s pet hates – in holding politicians to account) soliloquy from the great actress. And if Streep was merely acting, it rivalled her work in Sophie’s Choice and The Deer Hunter. It also cut right to the heart of the matter. This brusque, boisterous insensitivity is one of the most troubling things about Donald Trump, and it’s rarely called out collectively. While his various transgressions are highlighted individually, it’s their collective weight that is the most frightening. Yes, he’s become a hero for America’s disenfranchised and under-employed working class, but Trump ironically appears to have a problem feeling the pain of others, which is a quality that any decent leader should have. This is, after all, a guy famous for firing people on a TV show. Meryl Streep expressed her doubts about Trump’s seeming inability to empathise with striking precision.
But, as with most criticisms of Donald Trump, Streep’s protestations will likely prove to exist in an echo chamber. The Donald, predictably, has already shot back on Twitter. In characteristic fashion, he has attacked Streep personally, instead of addressing any of the issues that she raised. “Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at The Golden Globes,” The Donald railed. “She is a Hillary flunky who lost big.” We thought that Trump might have enjoyed Streep’s performance as Maggie Thatcher in The Iron Lady, but obviously not. Either way, calling Streep over-rated is a bit rough. We suggest that you check out Silkwood ASAP, President-Elect Trump…
Ironically, the barbs of Meryl Streep, Jimmy Fallon, and Hugh Laurie play right into the hands of Trump’s supporters. Why would an under-employed factory worker in middle America, for instance, have any interest in what a bunch of over-paid Hollywood actors have to say about the state of the nation? It’s hard to empathise, for instance, with anyone wearing a dress worth more than your car. And would anyone in a depressed city like Detroit look to an event like The Golden Globe Awards – where apparently credible and authentic performers parade and prance ridiculously on the red carpet at an event apparently staged to celebrate great art and entertainment – as a yardstick for how they might be feeling? It would more likely just remind them of why they voted for Donald J. Trump in the first place, as would Streep’s put-downs of sport and mixed martial arts. And speaking of empathy, is there much of that on display when award recipients are played off by the orchestra in the middle of heartfelt, highly emotional speeches?
Common thinking has it that Donald Trump got voted in as President because the American public is sick of its nation’s liberal elite, and The Golden Globe Awards would have done nothing to shift their point of view. After all, is it any coincidence that the big winner on the night – the charming musical, La La Land – is a glossy, loving paean to Hollywood itself? Does that make this year’s Golden Globes nothing more than a big circle jerk?
No matter how eloquent and beautifully modulated the anti-Trump arguments were – and they were quite amazing – The Golden Globe Awards were basically about a bunch of very privileged people (with many humbly admitting this fact, including Meryl Streep) rallying together in a glitzy, over-decorated room (those chairs look a bit uncomfortable though, don’t they?) and preaching loudly, passionately, and elegantly to the converted.
Click through for a run-down on the winners and losers on the big night right here.
