Meryl Should Do What She Pleases
I’m hearing criticism of Miss Streep for doing “Florence Foster Jenkins,” an admittedly inferior movie. Why, people ask, did she apply her talents to such a silly project? Why doesn’t she play more significant women? My answer: throughout her career, Streep has played women of accomplishment, from Margaret Thatcher to Isak Dinesen to Eleanor Roosevelt to Holocaust survivors. Streep also has been tireless in her work for the environment, women’s history, poetry societies, actors’ funds — work for which she hasn’t received a dime. She is a frequent speaker in support of Hillary Clinton. So if Meryl occasionally wants to do a frivolous picture or a musical, I say: Good for huh! If anyone’s earned the right to comic relief, she has.
