Golden Globes Awards: Meryl Streep, Hugh Laurie take on Donald Trump

Actor Meryl Streep was presented the Cecil B Demille Award at the 74th Golden Globes Awards, and in her acceptance speech underlined the importance of a “principled press” to “call him on the carpet for every outrage”, referring to United States President-elect Donald Trump. During his campaign, Trump had threatened to “open up” libel laws which would curtail press freedom.

Streep also requested the “famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press” (the organisation that conducts the awards) and others to support the Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit that promotes press freedom worldwide.

Calling Trump’s presidential campaign a “performance”, Streep criticised it for propagating an “instinct to humiliate”. “Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence,” she said. “And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.”
Streep’s speech invited a deluge of support on social media.

Streep wasn’t the only one to take a dig at Trump at the ceremony. “I’ll be able to say I won this at the last-ever Golden Globes,” British actor Hugh Laurie said in his acceptance speech. “I don’t mean to be gloomy, it’s just that it has the words ‘Hollywood,’ ‘Foreign,’ and ‘Press’ in the title,” he explained.