Streep takes a swipe at Trump: Disrespect invites disrespect

Meryl Streep (Paul Drinkwater/NBC via AP)

There were a lot of swipes directed at US President-elect Donald Trump at the 74th Golden Globe Awards on Sunday (shown Monday morning in Manila on RTL CBS), but nothing as powerful as the one delivered by Tinseltown’s Queen Meryl (Streep).

Upon accepting her Cecil B. DeMille trophy, an honorary Golden Globe award bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (to the stellar likes of Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Martin Scorsese and James Stewart) for outstanding contributions to entertainment, the 67-year-old actress put Mr. Trump to task for allegedly mocking the physical disability of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that results in joint muscular contraction that affects movement of the limbs.

The actress, who has 30 Golden Globe nominations and three Oscar wins so far, explained, “This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone powerful on a public platform, filters down into everybody’s life, because it gives permission for others to do the same thing.

“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose… We need the principled press to hold power to account…to call them on the carpet for every outrage.” —RITO ASILO