Clooney & Streep on Trump: When the Powerful Use Their Position to Bully Others We All Lose
Meryl Streep accepts the Cecil B. DeMille Award life achievement award and makes a comment on Trump as a moment that broke her heart. Many question the character of the President-elect given his sexual attitudes towards women, his fear of difference and luxury lifestyle. He certainly reflects a fearful demeanor. I look into his eyes and I see sadness. When a person has bullying attributes it comes from powerlessness within, they need to get power in order to feel powerful. The features of bullying are: physical aggression, verbal abuse, isolation of others, undermining and other negative behaviours. They are disconnected from their natural power which is inherent in values so the ego compensates to feel in control. They exhibit qualities of control and abuse. What I can say is my greatest teachers were bullies so perhaps on a global scale some deep lessons will arise. In my life experience I found I was strengthened by those bullying as I had to find my inner power.
So how will the Trump leadership impact US relations with the rest of the world?
Will like attracts like?
Universal values will be next on the global agenda after there is a realisation of what a values free world co-creates. How determined are the world’s people in standing up for a true democratic global order where the people have a say through presidents and prime ministers. May we attract leaders who are in service to humanity and the planet without platitudes or attitudes of self service. That is the leadership that pre-serves life. I believe Trump is a catalyst expressing what is values that many find concerning. Maybe he is a disabled woman in the next life, that would be funny.
George Clooney is the latest in a long line of Hollywood a-lister’s to speak out against Donald Trump’s social media criticism of Meryl Streep.
On Monday, Donald Trump, 70, took to Twitter to label Meryl Streep as “one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood” after she used her platform at the 74th annual Golden Globes Awards to excoriate the president-elect in a politically charged speech.
And now, George Clooney, 55, a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter and former costar of the 67-year-old actress, has addressed the brouhaha at a reception hosted by The Clooney Foundation for Justice.
“I’ve always said that about Meryl,” Clooney told PEOPLE sarcastically.
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© Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP George Clooney worked with Meryl Streep on ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’. With a smile plastered across his face, the Money Monster star added, “She’s maybe the most overrated actress of all-time. She and I worked together on Fantastic Mr. Fox as husband and wife and I will tell you even as a fox, a female fox, she’s overrated.”
George decided to end his rant by asking the president-elect a rather cheeky rhetorical question.
He said: “Aren’t you supposed to be running the country?”
According to The Guardian, when questioned about his own thoughts on president-elect Trump, he said “I didn’t vote for him, I don’t support him, I don’t think he’s the right choice.”
“At this moment in our lives we have to hope that he doesn’t destroy everything. The reality is you have to hope he will do a decent job because if the United States fails, really terrible things happen, so you have to hope that he can.”
He added: “I don’t see any signs of it.”
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Meryl used her acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award – a lifetime achievement award, of sorts – to call out Trump for appearing to mock a disabled New York Times reporter in 2015.
The Florence Foster Jenkins actress said, “There was one performance this year that stunned me.”
“It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. 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.”
Speaking to a room filled with Hollywood a-listers she added, “It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
“That instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in a public platform, it filters down into everyone’s life because it gives permission for others to do the same.”
“Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.”
George Clooney isn’t the first celebrity to back Meryl’s courageous act. In the aftermath of her speech, many of her Hollywood peers took to social media to offer their support, describing the three-time Academy Award-winning actress as “brave” for carrying out the biting speech.
Among the star-studded tributes were Shonda Rhimes, Ellen Degeneres, Diane Kruger, Lily Collins, Sharon Stone and Jesse Tyler Ferguson – just to name a few.