Meryl Streep calls Walt Disney a ‘gender bigot’

http://sosogay.co.uk/2014/meryl-streep-calls-walt-disney-gender-bigot/
Meryl Streep calls Walt Disney a ‘gender bigot’
Posted by: Jazz Tangcay 9 January 2014

Meryl Streep braved the Polar Vortex to attend the National Board of Review dinner ceremony in New York and present Emma Thompson with an award. Taking to the stage, Streep honoured Thompson with a nine-minute speech and even wrote an ode to her Angels In America co-star.

However, Streep is coming under fire for her digs at Walt Disney in her speech for calling him 'Anti Semitic' and a 'gender bigot'. In the speech, Streep said, 'Some of his associates reported that Walt Disney didn’t really like women. Ward Kimball, who was one of his chief animators, one of the original “Nine Old Men”, creator of the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and Jiminy Cricket, said of Disney: ‘He didn’t trust women or cats.’ And there is a piece of received wisdom that says that the most creative people are often odd, or irritating, eccentric, damaged, difficult. That along with enormous creativity come certain deficits in humanity or decency. We are familiar with this trope in our business: Mozart, Van Gogh, Tarantino, Eminem.'

She went on to say: 'Ezra Pound said, "I've never met anyone worth a damn who was not irascible." Well, he would say that because he was supposedly a hideous anti-Semite. But, his poetry redeems his soul. Disney, who brought joy, arguably to billions of people, was perhaps, or had some…racist proclivities. He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobby. And he was certainly, on the evidence of his company’s policies, a gender bigot.'

The full speech was posted by Vanity Fair, the Walt Disney Museum posted a comment on their Twitter page in response to Streep's speech....