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Meryl Streep's Golden Globes Speech Belied An Inconvenient Truth About Hollywood
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The Huffington Post
Eleanor Goldberg 3 hrs ago
When beloved actress
Meryl Streep used her lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes Sunday as an opportunity to denounce the president-elect, her fans ― along with critics of
Donald Trump ― predictably went wild.
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The president-elect denied that he’d mocked Kovaleski, and dismissed Streep as a “
Hillary flunky.” His supporters claimed the speech epitomized everything that’s
wrong with the liberal elite. But they weren’t the only ones with criticism: Many members of the disability community pointed out that Streep’s comments stand in stark contrast to the ways in which people with disabilities are shut out of awards shows and the entertainment industry as a whole. Outside of Streep’s reference to Kovaleski, there was barely a mention of anyone with a physical disability during Sunday’s show.
Hollywood is willing to touch on the issue of disability without actually inviting any members of the community to partake in the conversation, according to New York Times best-selling author and disability activist Kody Keplinger.
“I couldn’t help rolling my eyes,” Keplinger told The Huffington Post. She’s a co-founder of Disability in KidLit, an online resource regarding the depiction of disability in children’s and young adult literature. “The applause in the room felt almost self-congratulatory.”
"Can Hollywood really pat itself on the back when disabled actors are still so rarely cast -- even to play people like themselves?" Kody Keplinger, author and disability activist
Nearly
1 person in 5 in America has a disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But Hollywood hasn’t made much room for this demographic. In 2015, only
2.4 percent of notable characters in the top-grossing 100 movies had disabilities.
What’s most disheartening, Keplinger notes, is that when people with disabilities are depicted on the big screen, they tend to be played by actors who are able-bodied in real life.
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Streep concluded her Golden Globes speech with a quote from her late friend, the actress Carrie Fisher: “Take your broken heart and make it into art.”
Now if only Hollywood would just extend that invitation to people with disabilities.
Meryl Streep's Golden Globes Speech Belied An Inconvenient Truth About Hollywood