Credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC | 2017 NBCUniversal Media, LLC
This year, all eyes were on the Golden Globes, in anticipation to see if Jimmy Fallon, who hosted President-elect Donald Trump on his talk show back in September, would mention him in his opening monologue. And he did. But it was Meryl Streep’s passionate acceptance speech that resonated with the room and viewers.
Mr. Fallon called the Golden Globes, "one of the few places left where America still honors the popular vote,” then, compared the President-elect to King Joffrey, one of the most hated characters on HBO’s popular fantasy series Game Of Thrones, who died in season 4.
“A lot of people have wondered what it would've been like if King Joffrey had lived,” he said. “Well, in 12 days, we’re gonna find out.” He went on to inform the audience that even Meryl Streep’s character Florence Foster Jenkins, “dubbed the world’s worst opera singer,” turned down performing at Trump’s inauguration.
Ms. Streep, who didn't win the best actress award for her role in the movie, was critical of Mr. Trump, though not mentioning him by name, while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment."
“There was one performance this year that stunned me,” she said to the quiet room. “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.”
Ms. Streep was referring to Mr. Trump’s gestures during the campaign when he mocked Serge F. Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition that limits joint functionality.
“This instinct to humiliate,” she continued, “when it’s modeled 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.”
The President-elect has denied mocking the reporter in the past, even though he was recorded at a rally, waving his arms around, in imitation of Mr. Kovaleski.
“What I was indicating was a man that was groveling.” Mr. Trump told Fox's Brian Kilmeade in July 2016. “He was groveling to try and change the story that he had written many years before so that it worked out badly for Trump, so I do that [referring to his arm gestures] and they said I was mocking his disability. I had no idea he disabled. None.”
On Monday morning, true to fashion, Trump took to twitter, to call Ms. Streep “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes.” He also insisted that “For the 100th time, I never ‘mocked’ a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him 'groveling.'"
Ms. Streep’s speech received a standing ovation at the ceremony, and while it drew adoration online, it was attacked by some republicans, like Meghan Mccain, who tweeted, "This Meryl Streep speech is why Trump won.”