It also doesn't inoculate people against corruption or denial.
Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes didn't mention that, when she was young, she went to Vassar and Yale, which are and always were expensive and prestigious schools. The young celebrities who just read that sentence and who are snorting with derision because I'm always talking about the importance of education would be advised to notice that Ms. Streep has been the most respected woman in the entertainment industry for decades. She is world-renowned for being the best actress of her generation and one of the best actresses ever, whether she deserves it or not. She is a testament to the power of all of the things that I'm telling you every week are crucial to having a lot of people respect you, and that's not including the expense and prestige of her education.
From what I know of her, she doesn't swear in public when she's not acting. She's not chronically late or chronically rude. Although her youth preceded the Internet, the youth of her body was not notoriously, meticulously documented by the ancestors of Internet social media and pornography. She did not spend her life chasing men or encouraging people to think of her as a sex symbol. She did not spend her life inebriated. She is respected even by the most crass and misogynist people of the entertainment industry, as much as those people are capable of respecting a female. What they couldn't take from her, they took from me by force. Don't think that wealth versus poverty isn't about force.
She has clout, and she knows it. Whether she always uses it how and when she should is much less certain.
Did she ever give a speech in which she said that President Obama promoted sexual harassment, voyeurism, involuntary pornography and child molestation? I don't think she did.
Copyright L. Kochman, April 23, 2017 @ 4:35 p.m.
