Weeks after Time heralded the “Silence Breakers” as Person of the Year in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse accusations; Meryl Streep was called out for her perceived silence-keeping. A right-wing guerrilla artist revealed himself as the creator of posters placed around Los Angeles that claimed Streep, who had starred in several Weinstein-produced films, knew about his alleged misdeeds.
As the actress dives into promotion for The Post, she answers for her so-called silence.
By Kenzie Bryant
Weeks after Time heralded the “Silence Breakers” as Person of the Year in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse accusations; Meryl Streep was called out for her perceived silence-keeping. A right-wing guerrilla artist revealed himself as the creator of posters placed around Los Angeles that claimed Streep, who had starred in several Weinstein-produced films, knew about his alleged misdeeds.
Now out promoting her new film The Post, Meryl Streep is addressing her perceived proximity to Weinstein, as part of an interview with The New York Times alongside her co-star Tom Hanks. “I found out about [the initial Times report on Weinstein] on a Friday and went home deep into my own life,” Streep said. “And then somebody told me that on Morning Joe they were screaming that I haven’t responded yet.” She is not on social media, Streep continued, and “I really had to think. Because it really underlined my own sense of cluelessness, and also how evil, deeply evil, and duplicitous, a person he was, yet such a champion of really great work.”
Eventually, the actress did comment, days after the initial New York Times story showed its impact, saying that she was “appalled” and that the women who spoke with the publication were “heroes.”
But for some, Streep’s words of support were too late. Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s accusers, admonished the actress in a now-deleted tweet. “Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @GoldenGlobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem,” she wrote in the middle of December.
Streep responded with another rare statement in which she reiterated that she was unaware. “H.W. distributed movies I made with other people,” Streep said. “H.W. was not a filmmaker; he was often a producer, primarily a marketer of films made by other people - some of them great, some not great. But not every actor, actress, and director who made films that H.W. distributed knew he abused women, or that he raped Rose in the ’90s, other women before and others after, until they told us. We did not know that women’s silence was purchased by him and his enablers.” (Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.)
Speaking to the Times, she continued, “You make movies. You think you know everything about everybody. So much gossip. You don’t know anything. People are so inscrutable on a certain level. And it’s a shock. Some of my favourite people have been brought down by this, and he’s not one of them.”
When asked to make sense of the fact that people were demanding to hear from her, she deflected. “I don’t want to hear about the silence of me,” Streep said. “I want to hear about the silence of Melania Trump. I want to hear from her. She has so much that’s valuable to say. And so does Ivanka. I want her to speak now.”
Weinstein and Trump have been compared to each other repeatedly in recent months, from their status as New York bullies accused of sexual assault to their reported fondness for bathrobes. Saying of Melania and Ivanka, essentially, “She knew,” Streep is just taking the comparison a step further. With a Golden Globe win on Sunday very possible, don’t expect Streep’s pivot to the Trump administration to stop there.
– Courtesy: Vanity Fair
