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Life On the Rocks
What Great Roles Has She Done?
Above is Denzel Washington starring in the movie he directed, from the play he starred in. Did he win Best Actor for his outstanding performance in a movie still widely watched and highly regarded? No. Did FENCES win Best Picture? No. A movie called MOONLIGHT won. Ever hear of it? No. Neither did I? Why Not? It was a big zero. Why is Hollywood terrified of Denzel Washington? Because they don't own him.
A quote lavishing praise on Meryl Streep that regularly makes the rounds of the Mainstream Media: "WIDELY regarded in the industry and by the public as the greatest living actor "
BALDERDASH!
If she's such a great actor, (notice she is gender free, like all liberals, she doesn't even know how to be a woman, much less a human being,) where is her interpretation of any of the great and defining female roles?
Where is her Lady Macbeth? With fourteen Academy award nominations, she had only to pick up the phone and it was a done deal, money no object, give her anything she wants.
And don't try to defend Hollywood with the tired canard that the public won't show up for high brow stuff. In 1913, the great and distinguished actress Margaret Anglin toured the nation in Euripides MEDEA, IPHIGENIA IN AULIS and ELECTRA to sellout crowds. Yeah, it wasn't the public that got small, it was the actors. But of course, Margaret Anglin was a real actress.
John Barrymore became a household name for his performance in HAMLET. Lynn Fontanne was famous for THE TAMING OF THE SHREW and Eugene O’Neill’s STRANGE INTERLUDE.
Katherine Cornell played the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning to acclaim in THE BARRETS OF WIMPOLE STREET.
Julie Harris towered in the one woman show THE BELLE OF AMHERST in 1976 when she transported audiences, on Broadway and nationwide, to the intellectual community of Amherst in the Nineteenth Century, enchanting them with the most delicate murmurings from the soul of the poet Emily Dickenson. And she managed this prodigious feat all by herself on stage using only some props, some lights and her ACTING. A real actress.
A friend has just reminded me of Anne Bancroft. Who can forget her iconic performance as Annie Sullivan in THE MIRACLE WORKER?
As another friend reminded me, what about the superstar actress Elizabeth Taylor, who married enough rich men to spend her life sipping champagne and munching bonbons. Well, let’s see. She played Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, the daunting role of Martha in Edward Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, and Shakespeare’s TAMING OF THE SHREW with Richard Burton, among many other demanding and serious acting roles. Taylor was everything: superstar, super actress and dedicated humanitarian.
Or Denzel Washington in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING? In anyone's book, this man is a serious contender for the title of 'greatest living actor.' Why? Because he's a dangerous actor, which makes him exciting to watch. He takes chances. He's not another Hollywood lap dog, and they know it and fear him. No chance of him getting the title of greatest living actor until he's safely dead or senile.
So, you can't blame the audience. They showed up for all that highbrow stuff in the past and they surely would again. And, no, the Russians didn't hack Meryl's Blanche Dubois in STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. She's never done any of the great American playwrights on screen. No Tennessee Williams, no Eugene O'Neill, nor has she done any Russians. No Chekov, except on the New York stage where she was a critic's darling, who was assured of great reviews no matter how mediocre her performances.
What do we get from Meryl in the movies? We get impersonations of Margaret Thatcher and Julia Child. Impersonating someone is a parlor trick, not acting. It doesn't illuminate that person's character, it merely reminds you of them by copying their speech patterns and physical mannerisms.
When has Meryl Streep EVER shed any light on the human condition, the agony and ecstasy of life, the moral and physical challenges that make being alive such an exquisite glory and terror, so capable of nobility and depravity? You know what I mean, when did she ever do any ACTING???
Don't fact check all the spurious awards she's received from liberal newspapers and organizations. Mere rubber stamps, easy calls. Who will argue with them? More lies, just like the #FakeNews always lies.
She's the queen of the fleshpot called Hollywood. This means she doesn't have to pee or get naked and have her private parts rubbed by other actors on the screen to get to work. She's the designated 'great actress'.
But really, what great role is she associated with? What great acting has she ever brought to the stage or screen?
Trump is absolutely right, only he didn't go far enough. She's not just over-rated, she's a complete fraud as an actress. She doesn't act, she pompously preens.
And if you think I'm wrong, remember Ava Gardner, who never got an Academy Award, in Mankiewicz’s THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA or Tennessee William’s NIGHT OF THE IGUANA or Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES. She may not have been the best actress ever, but she was damn sight better than Meryl Streep. And she was a woman, all woman.
Or Katherine Hepburn in one of the most touching American classics Booth Tarkington's ALICE ADAMS, where she plays a young woman who loves her family, but they are an embarrassment that holds her back in her career and social life. Heartrending.
Or Irene Dunne in I REMEMBER MAMA. Or Irene Dunne in PENNY SERENADE. Or Irene Dunne in anything.
Let me be crude for a moment. MERYL STREEP WOULDN'T MAKE A PIMPLE ON THE ASS OF ANY OF THOSE GREAT ACTRESSES!!! There, I've wanted to make that point for years.
(Now that Harvey Weinstein has been, you’ll pardon the expression, exposed as a put out or get out kind of producer who regarded actresses as his personal stable of honeypots, Meryl’s many Academy Award nominations can’t save her from the perception that she took the bribe of the his support in giving her the great actress accolades in exchange for hiding his misdeeds behind her superstar actress status. "Harvey Weinstein is a god", she is on record as saying. Yeah, right, Meryl.)