Meryl Streep is the head of this year’s Berlin Film Festival jury. She, along with Clive Owen and others jury members, will be deciding which film goes home with the Golden Bear, the festival’s grand prize. Apparently, this year’s jury at the Berlinale is all-white, which wouldn’t be that big of an issue in previous years. But considering we’re still having conversations about and around #OscarsSoWhite, the jury members were asked (during their press conference today) specifically about the lack of racial diversity in this year’s jury. And Meryl’s answer was… well, what you would expect from someone who has the most convoluted and blatantly stupid answers to questions about feminism.
The Berlin International Film Festival became embroiled in the debate about diversity in the movie industry Thursday, with jury president Meryl Streep dismissing questions about the all-white panel by telling reporters that “we’re all Africans really.”
Streep, who heads a festival film jury for the first time, said she was committed to equality and inclusion “of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions.” The seven-member jury will choose the winners of the Golden Bear and various Silver Bear awards at the first of the year’s major European movie festivals.
“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,” Streep said. “So I think the Berlinale is ahead of the game.”
Asked by an Egyptian reporter whether she understood films from the Arab world and North Africa, Streep said that while she didn’t know much about the region, “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,” she added. “Berliners, we’re all Africans really.”
[From The Associated Press, via US News & World Report]
If you’re looking for another example of the destructiveness of non-intersectional white feminism, look no further. A white woman looking out for her own self-interest (as long as Meryl heads the jury, then she has no problem with anything), then dismissing the actual lived experiences of racial minorities with a blasé shrug of faux-togetherness. “We’re all Africans really”?? Girl, what happened to you?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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