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‘Disrespect invites disrespect’: Meryl Streep’s epic Golden Globes speech

Meryl Streep’s epic takedown of Trump (without mentioning his name) and other stand-out moments from this year’s Golden Globes.
Meryl Streep Golden Globes Meryl Streep earned a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes on Sunday and in accepting turned the spotlight away from herself and took shots at President-elect Donald Trump, without mentioning his name. (Paul Drinkwater/NBC via AP)

This piece was originally published in Flare.

Despite a ho-hum ceremony, the 2017 Golden Globes had a few stand-out moments that made it worth the time investment—namely, Ryan Gosling’s ultra-awww ode to Eva Mendes and Meryl Streep’s epic takedown of Trump. Check out the all the best moments below:

Meryl Streep's totally epic Cecil B. DeMille award acceptance speech

"Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. This town, thank you. I love you all, but you'll have to forgive me. I've lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend, and I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year. So I have to read. Thank you, Hollywood Foreign Press, just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said. You and all of us in this room really belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners and the press.

But who are we? And what is Hollywood anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places. I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola was born in a sharecropper's cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida, raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy. And Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. Where are their birth certificates? And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in - no - in Ireland, I do believe, and she's here nominated for playing a small-town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here for playing an Indian raised in Tasmania.

So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick them all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.

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They gave me three seconds to say this. So an actor's only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like, and there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, compassionate work. But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hook in my heart not because it was good. It was - 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, and 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 modeled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.

Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use definition to bully others, we all lose. Ok. Go on with that thing. OK. This brings me to the press. We need the principal press to hold power to account to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That's why our founders enshrined the press and its freedom in our Constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists because we are going to need them going forward and they'll need us to safeguard the truth.

One more thing. Once when I was standing around on the set one day, whining about something, you know, we were going to work through supper or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, 'Isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?' Yeah, it is, and we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight. As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia said to me once, 'Take your broken heart. Make it into art.' Thank you, friend."


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The funniest parts of the opening monologue

“I’m already a GIF.” —Jimmy Fallon on having to fake his way through several teleprompter-free minutes

“Welcome to the Golden Globes, where America still honours the popular vote.”

“Game of Thrones has so many plot twists and shocking moments, we often wonder what would have happened if Prince Joffrey had lived. Well, in 12 days, we’ll find out.”

“Manchester By The Sea: the only thing from 2016 more depressing than 2016.”

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“Florence Foster Jenkins was considered the world’s worst opera singer—and even she won’t sing at Trump’s inauguration.”

The most heart-tugging acceptance speeches (and Billy Bob)

“I want to thank my wife for being there with me and supporting me through this, and for putting up with me. Jesus, I was not very pleasant in this role. You are my soul mate, and I love you very much. I’m blessed.” —Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Nocturnal Animals)

“So there are a lot of talented people here, in every category, but this is not track and field—you don’t break a tape and actually win. This is up to people’s opinion, you know. But I do have to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press very much for picking me over Bob Odenkirk because Bob and I have had a feud since the 1940s when we did a movie with Van Johnson. Do you remember that, Bob? And we’ve had a little thing ever since. So there ya go, bud.” —Billy Bob Thornton, Best Actor—TV Series, Drama (Goliath)

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“Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! It’s my first time here, guys. This is for all of the women, women of colour and colourful people whose stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy and valid and important. But I want you to know that I see you. We see you. It is an honour to be on this show “Black‑ish,” to continue expanding the way we are seen and known and to show the magic and the beauty and the sameness of a story and stories that are outside of where the industry usually looks.” —Tracee Ellis Ross, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy (Blackish)

“We didn’t think anybody was going to like this show, so we appreciate it.” —Donald Glover, Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy (Atlanta)

“Thank you, first of all, to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this amazing honour, made more amazing, I suppose, 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 also think that, to some Republicans, even the word ‘association’ is slightly sketchy.” —Hugh Laurie, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television (The Night Manager)

“This is for musical theatre nerds everywhere!” —Benj Pasek, Best Original Song (La La Land)

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“This is my fifth nomination: I took all the pictures, went to the luncheon… But it’s right on time. It’s not every day that Hollywood thinks of translating a play to screen. It doesn’t scream moneymaker, you know, but it does scream art. It does scream heart.” —Viola Davis, Best Supporting Actress—Motion Picture (Fences)

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been mistaken for Ryan Reynolds, but it’s getting out of hand! Damien and Emma, this belongs to the three of us, I’ll chop it into three pieces if you want. I don’t really want to do that. Because who would get what piece? And no one wants the bottom and we’d fight over the top. It could tear us apart. But the point is, you understand, it’s ours. I just would like to thank one person properly and say while I was singing and dancing and playing piano and having one of the best experiences I’ve ever had on a film, my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second, and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer. If she hadn’t taken all of that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here other than me today. So, sweetheart, thank you. To my daughters Amada and Esmeralda, I love you. And, if I may, I’d like to dedicate this to the memory of her brother Juan Carlos Mendes.” —Ryan Gosling, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture—Comedy or Musical (La La Land)

“I really, really, really wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for some extraordinary women. I’m going to thank them. One of them is Queen Elizabeth II. She has been the center of the world for the past 63 years, and I think the world could do with a few more women at the centre of it, if you ask me.” —Claire Foy, Best Actress, Television Drama (The Crown)

From Jimmy Fallon

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“Just got off the phone with Mariah Carey and she thinks Dick Clark Productions sabotaged my monologue.”

The best bits from the presenters

“I am here to announce—fractionally weird because I am in it—a movie about an elderly woman dying of syphilis, which is always comedy gold.” —Hugh Grant introducing Florence Foster Jenkins

“If I could live my life with a fraction of your wit, integrity and your unapologetic fierceness, I’d be on the road to doing it right.” —Sarah Paulson to Marcia Clarke after winning Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Movie for The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

“I have the privilege of presenting this award because I was the winner last year…for The Martian. That fact itself is funnier than anything in The Martian.” —Matt Damon, presenting Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.

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With files from the Associated Press.

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