Josephine Sjelhøj
Actress Meryl Streep made some controversial statements during a debate about diversity in film industry Thursday afternoon.
Streep, who is currently the jury president at The Berlin International Film Festival, said that she was devoted to reaching equality and inclusion of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions. The actress was asked about the lack of people of colour in the jury, as well as in the movie industry. Streep answered,
“This jury is evidence that at least women are included and, in fact, dominate this jury, and that’s an unusual situation in bodies of people who make decisions.”
Last month, the Academy Awards nominees were revealed and people were outraged that for the second year in a row, no people of colour were nominated in any of the categories. It was also mentioned several times how the jury who chose the nominees consisted of middle-aged white men. The negative reaction caused the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to announce that they would be changing its membership rules.
Because of the Oscar controversy, the topic of diversity was brought up three times during the Berlin International Film Festival conference. An Egyptian reporter asked Streep if she understood films from the Arab world and North Africa. The actress responded,
“I’ve played a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. There is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture, and after all, we’re all from Africa originally. You know, we’re all… Berliners, we’re all Africans really.”
What do you think about Meryl Streep’s comments? Leave a comment below or send us a tweet @CelebMix.
