Meryl Streep startled audiences when she called Walt Disney a racist and sexist at the National Board of Review Awards while presenting the Best Actress award to Emma Thompson for her performance in Saving Mr. Banks.

Saving Mr. Banks, a film produced by Disney, is a fictionalized telling of the weeks Walt Disney spent courting author P.L. Travers to adapt her book into the now classic Disney musical Marry Poppins. Thompson plays Travers opposite Tom Hanks’ Disney, and the film has been criticized for glossing over Travers’ negative reaction to the film and presenting a biased, idealized portrait of Walt Disney.

Streep Honors Thompson, Criticizes Walt Disney

Streep’s speech reflected these criticisms, though she did not mention it directly. In fact, her speech was a hit at the award ceremony, as Streep made jokes at her own expense and dismissed the concept of award season entirely. Streep began by mentioning the cliché that all artists are, somewhat, unlikable, and applauds Thompson for defying this trope, in comparison to Walt Disney.

“There’s something so consoling about that old trope, but Emma makes you want to kill yourself because she’s a beautiful artist, she’s a writer, she’s a thinker, she’s a living, acting conscience,” Streep said.

In contrast, Streep described Disney as a man who contributed beautifully to the world, but had his faults.

“Disney, who brought joy, arguable, to billions of people, was perhaps… or had some racist proclivities. He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobbying group. And he was certainly, on the evidence of his company’s policies, a gender bigot,” Streep stated.

Streep went on to read a letter sent by the Disney company to a young woman in 1938, dismissing her job application and declaring that “women do not do any of the creative work… as that task is performed entirely by young men.”

Streep then moves on, praising Thompson’s performance and reading a sweet poem dedicated to her friend:

“ ‘An Ode to Emma, Or What Emma is Owed’
We think the Brits are brittle, they think that we are mush
They are more sentimental, though we do tend to gush
Volcanoes of emotion concealed beneath that lip
Where we are prone to guzzle, they tip the cup and sip
But when eruption bubbles from nowhere near the brain
It’s seismic, granite crumbles, the heart overflows like rain
Like lava, all that feeling melts down like Oscar gold
And Emma leaves us reeling, a knockout, truth be told”

You can read the speech in its entirety here.

Disney Backlash

While Streep’s comments were fairly harmless, and did not contain any new allegations against the legendary Walt Disney, her speech caused a small outrage among some attendees and Disney enthusiasts. Author Douglas Brode, who wrote a book about the Disney company’s relationship to diversity, spoke out in defense of Disney, saying that there is no proof to back up Streep’s allegations against Disney.

“There is zero hard evidence that Disney ever wrote or said anything anti-Semitic in private or public,” Brode stated.

However, it is true that Walt Disney was a member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), which was an anti-Semitic lobbying group.

Despite her negative ideas about Walt Disney, Streep herself has no problem working with Disney Studios, as she just finished filming Into the Woods for the studio. And, while some speculate that her Disney diss could hurt her chances at winning an Academy Award for her performance in August: Osage County in March or even hurt Saving Mr. Banks’ Oscar race, it is unlikely that Academy voters will take her comments to heart.

Streep and Thompson are both nominated for Best Actress in a Feature Film at Sunday’s Golden Globe awards, but they are not competing in the same category (Streep is up for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, and Thompson is in the running for Best Actress in a Drama).

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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