Meryl Streep: white male Hollywood studio bosses are blocking diversity

Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep told young actors at the Berlin Film Festival Sunday, February 14, that Hollywood would never resolve the diversity row until studio boardrooms became less white and male. Giving a masterclass for 300 budding actors from around the world at the cinema showcase, where Streep is serving as jury president, the most acclaimed US film actress of her generation was asked whether sexism and racism in show business had waned over her 4-decade career. Streep lamented that it was hard to get “40 to 50-year-old white males to be interested in stories about their first wives or their mothers.” The good news, she said, is that younger men are. “I think it’s moving in a very positive direction. I think you have to make noise to have room at the table, for people to move aside and let you pull your chair up to the conversation.” The movie industry is embroiled in a bitter debate about unequal pay between the sexes and a shut-out for non-white actors in the main acting nominations for this month’s Academy Awards, for a second year in a row. 

Meryl Streep blasts white male studio bosses for blocking diversity