Meryl Streep Makes the #MeToo Movement Even More Political

Some had predicted and openly worried about the potential of the #MeToo movement being twisted and manipulated for political purposes — and now that seems to have happened.

Meryl Streep is still Hollywood’s most praised and awarded actress, but her standing with American audiences has grown more controversial ever since her fiery and divisive political speech aimed at Donald Trump at last year’s Golden Globes.

Despite the backlash she received, Streep has continued down a political road — and now cannot even answer a question about sexual harassment in Hollywood without taking a dig at the president.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Streep answered a question about her initial silence on the Harvey Weinstein accusations by saying, “I don’t want to hear about the silence of me. 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 [Trump]. I want her to speak now.”

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There it is. One of Hollywood’s elite is taking the valuable work that has been done by many others and trying to use it to push forward her own political agenda.

What’s even more telling about Streep’s words is that she doesn’t go after the president directly. She tries to shame two other women for what she presumes to be “silence.”

Streep, who stars in the new film “The Post,” received heavy criticism online after the initial reports about producer Harvey Weinstein first came out. She released a statement three days after those reports — and was criticized for her initial silence. Streep had last worked with Weinstein on 2011’s “The Iron Lady”; they reportedly had a new project they were putting together.

Actress Rose McGowan also recently accused Streep of knowing about Weinstein’s behavior in a now-deleted tweet. A street artist in Los Angeles even put up posters of a picture of Streep with Weinstein with the words, “She knew,” plastered over the actress’s eyes.

Streep responded to McGowan’s initial accusation through a statement that read in part:

I am truly sorry she sees me as an adversary, because we are both, together with all the women in our business, standing in defiance of the same implacable foe: a status quo that wants so badly to return to the bad old days, the old ways where women were used, abused and refused entry into the decision-making, top levels of the industry. That’s where the cover-ups convene. Those rooms must be disinfected, and integrated, before anything even begins to change.

Streep will be attending Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards (she is nominated for Best Actress for “The Post”); recent developments are further proof the telecast will likely go heavy on the politics and light on everything else. It remains to be seen whether that political bent will include Streep’s continuing to use sexual misconduct stories to insult and attack conservative women — all in an effort to seemingly distract from accusations against her.

PopZette editor Zachary Leeman can be reached at [email protected]. 

(photo credit, homepage image: Donald Trump at Aston, PA September 13th, CC BY 2.0, by Michael Vadon / Meryl Streep & Prime Minister Abe Shinzo…, CC BY 2.0, by Dick Thomas Johnson; photo credit, article image: Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore / Meryl Streep from “Florence Foster Jenkins”…, CC BY 2.0, by Dick Thomas Johnson)