May 13, 2008

A superior human being, by the numbers

She doesn't mean much to me personally, but, objectively, Meryl Streep is one impressive person:

Oscar nominations: 14
Children: 4
Husbands: 1
Rehabs: 0

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think living in LA has made you set your standards low.

Anonymous said...

I think living in LA has made you set your standards low.

BWAH HAAHAAHAHAHAH!

Maximilian said...

I just watched "Out of Africa" this past week. I love the book, and so I was willing to take a chance on watching the movie despite the fact that it starred Merryl Streep and Robert Redford, two of my least favorite performers.

I found the movie unbearable, but most of all I was struck by Merryl Streep.

1. In some of the shots you can see that she really is a very beautiful woman. But she is so totally unattractive. Has any man ever willingly watched a Merryl Streep movie?

2. The reason she is so unattractive despite her beauty is that she is so unfeminine. All of her gestures and mannerisms are unfeminine. Her speech is harsh, and her voice is low. She persistenly played roles that represented positive feminist stereotypes.

3. She bears a heavy load of culpability for misleading millions of women. As the leading actress of a certain time period, she had enormous influence on women who looked to her to see how they should look and behave. She gave them the false impression that a woman can be successful despite being unattractive to men. She portrayed a butch stereotype that could only have led to disastrous lives for the women who imitated her but who lacked her natural gifts and her wealth.

Anonymous said...

Meryl Streep looked her best in the Deer Hunter.

Anonymous said...

She bears a heavy load of culpability for misleading millions of women. As the leading actress of a certain time period, she had enormous influence on women who looked to her to see how they should look and behave. She gave them the false impression that a woman can be successful despite being unattractive to men. She portrayed a butch stereotype that could only have led to disastrous lives for the women who imitated her but who lacked her natural gifts and her wealth.

Oh, puh-leeze. That's like blaming Al Pacino for gangsta culture.

Unknown said...

I haven't enjoyed her onscreen dramatic perfs, and I have a theory that the reason she's a big deal is that she has been a perfect actress for media women to project their fantasies on. But I've sometimes thought she was pretty funny, or at least liked her for trying to mess around and mess up her screen image. Never saw her onstage myself, but friends who saw her before she became "Meryl Streep, Great Actress" tell me she was a very gifted stage comedienne.

Anonymous said...

She was excellent as the author in Adaptation.

- Fred

Anonymous said...

maximilian said...
"I just watched "Out of Africa" this past week."

max, I'm out of Africa, South Africa to be precise, but i have travelled Kenya with a bike. The movie is just another romantic Hollywood lie about the colonial days. Most of the colonists were simple Englishmen and they had pretty shit lives to say the least. Only a small upper crust lived the lives of fancy and luxury which most of the movie portrays. The locals are also not as nice as the movie of course suggests. So you can just dump the movie into the closest trashcan.

For what its worth and considering Obama's gushing for that dump: anything there which still works can be traced back to the British days or recent Indian businessmen.

Anonymous said...

Meryl Streep looked her best in the Deer Hunter.

Yes. Having only watched her later movies, I thought she was unattractive until I saw the Deer Hunter. She was a beauty back then, but she lost her appeal soon afterwards, perhaps in part because she has deliberately masculinized herself, as Maximilian suggests.

Anonymous said...

She is great as a comdienne. In The Devil Wears Prada she was pure, deadpan gold. That's what people mistake about her--she really doesn't take herself as seriously as they think except that anyone who makes her salary is taken seriously. That irony under the surface--she's playing us.
As for beauty--it's there in an austere, deadpan way. She is probably secretly amused that anyone would find her beautiful.
As for her being a projection of women's fantasies, what's your problem with that? Not to put to fine a point on tit, what good did being "feminine" do for Marilyn Monroe? A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. Men have had some pretty peculiar projection fantasies too.
Anyway, she's better than Posh Spice, Britanny, or, oh, Bette Midler. Not that there's anything wrong with them.

Anonymous said...

Meryl Streep is a beautiful woman - always has been. I've no accounting for youse guys taste. I've never understood why men claim to like the super-model look. Fashion models are selected by fashion designers - mostly gay men, who don't really care what women look like anyways.

You want every girl to look like Barbie? If so, then here's a movie for you:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073747/

Unknown said...

Streep was and is nature's royalty. She looks like something out of a Dutch Masters portrait. (Streep is a Dutch name.)

On the other hand, her daughter Mamie has all of her quirks and none of her beauty.

Anonymous said...

Streep's uniquely successful career is no reflection of her supreme talent as an actress. While a decent actress with moments, Streep is very limited in her effective range and notably cold lacking charm or charisma.

I credit her agent, business managers and sheer luck for steering her into a steady stream of movies with hollywood supported PC-themes, pop themes of the moment, established actors and/or big budgets. Many of her award nominated/winning movies are undistunguished or even crap like Sophie's Choice, The Bridges of Madison County and Out of Africa.

kurt9 said...

I've seen "Out of Africa" and actually liked the movie. It IS a hollywood romantic fantasy and as long as you accept it as that, it is quite good.

I have never been to Africa. However, I am under no illusions of what the colonial period (or any other period before the present) was like or that hollywood would be capable of realistically portraying what it would have been like.

Real life is unromantic. The purpose of entertainment is to provide romantic escape from real life. That is why its called entertainment.

Anonymous said...

I understand she was in love with John Cazale(?) the guy who played Fredo--"I'm smaht! I can handle things!!!"--Corleone,taking care of him as he died of cancer. So,personally,I always thought of her as a pretty impressive woman. But then,as someone once said,"No man is a hero to his valet!" So who knows! I am not much of a fan,most of her movies are not geared to me. :) Her role as the ex-wife turned lesbian in Woody Allens Manhattan was pretty good tho,as she projected a kind of angry la belle dame sans merci image,that,George Costanza-like,may have caused "it" to move! BTW:I just saw "Apocalypto" last nite.Allin all,a really good movie. (I looked in vain for a Sailer review but couldnt find one! Just as well...what would be left to say after Steve's review??:) ) The 1st parts were fantastic,the capture and the journey. The escape was good...the priest knew the eclipse was a coming,right? But once he got into the jungle,it became more of an(admittedly)very very hi quality Arnold movie,with Jaguar picking off the bad guys one by one. The lead bad guy reminded me of George Carlins old routine: The Indian Drill Sergeant!! "You ovuh dere,playin' wit da horse--knock off the horseplay!" As one who lives in an area with a very large number of Mexicans/Latinos,I have to say Mel picked some very nice looking Indian women to be in the movie. Jaguars wife was a really,uhm,you know. Most "mestiza" women tend to be stout and not so attractive...not that theres anything wrong with that!!!

Anonymous said...

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8023/550/1600/streepapalooza.jpg

Her face is interesting. From some angles, she looks classically beautiful, in others, rather ordinary.

She gave them the false impression that a woman can be successful despite being unattractive to men.

Successful at what? International superstardom? Having a family? Having a successful career? Because women who are not catnip to men somehow manage the latter two all the time, no?

Anonymous said...

Wow, the misogynists show up in force. Streep has a longlasting marriage to a man and gives birth to four kids...I'm thinking she's maybe pretty feminine. Just because you don't want to wank to her doesn't mean she's "masculine".

Anonymous said...

There is something a little creepy to me about her. I am thinking about her playing herself in Stuck On You. Seems a little smug too.

I agree she has a good resume, but she's still just an actress and Cameron Diaz is way hotter.

Anonymous said...

"She bears a heavy load of culpability for misleading millions of women. As the leading actress of a certain time period, she had enormous influence on women who looked to her to see how they should look and behave"

Well that's the dumbest thing I've read this week. All those millions of women were misled by a movie actress?

Anonymous said...

Meryl Streep looks very Dutch. Aristocratic if just a bit horsey (comes with the statuesque long bone structure).

Needless to say, this type (mostly men, though) was on lots of posters during a certain era.

Anonymous said...

Meryl Streep looks very Dutch. Aristocratic if just a bit horsey (comes with the statuesque long bone structure).

Agreed. She has that long, bird-like face, a certain sort of nose, and those narrow, dreamy eyes I tend to associate with a more aristocratic class of Dutch. She isn't an extraordinary beauty in still photos, but she looks better on film.

I always find it interesting how some women look better on television than in photos. Even Salma Hayek's face looks a lot better on television and in movies than in stills.

Anonymous said...

"I agree she has a good resume, but she's still just an actress and Cameron Diaz is way hotter."

Regardless what one thinks about Streep as an actress or sex object, the writer of this comment is an effing moron.

Sometimes blogs frighten me with how starkly they expose the ignorance and shallowness of most Americans.

Anonymous said...

First of all, for those of you who were dissing Meryl Streep, from about 1975 until about 1995, she was the greatest actress of her generation [frankly, no one else was even close], and she was the only actress of that era who could plausibly be compared to her predecessors - Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Olivia de Havilland - without provoking laughter and derision in the process.

Then, in the late 1990's, Cate Blanchett finally began to emerge as her successor - so that, in the age of feminism [and sodomite dominance of the Hollywood casting couch], it looks like we will be getting a great actress about once every generation [whereas, in the bad old days of patriarchal chauvinism, we got a great actress maybe once every other year].

mq: Wow, the misogynists show up in force.

In fairness to the misogynists, you need to google Meryl Streep and Alar - she almost single handedly destroyed an entire American agricultural specialty, and, with it, the livelihoods of tens [or even hundreds] of thousands of Americans.

Martin: You want every girl to look like Barbie? If so, then here's a movie for you:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073747/


Dude - I just watched The Stepford Wives for the first time the other night - ironically enough, I had read the novel years ago, as a little boy, but I had never gotten around to seeing the movie.

But having seen it now, I can assure you that The Stepford Wives movie is about as crushing a condemnation, and as devastating a demolition, of feminism, as I can possibly imagine.

[SPOILER]

In particular, Katharine Ross didn't have a sexy bone in her entire body until after she was Stepford-ized.

[/SPOILER]

Anyway, there's nothing quite like the sands of time to turn a parody into a parody of a parody.

Anonymous said...

A few others who come to mind:

Maureen O'Sullivan, who was Jane, to Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan, and who made seven babies with John Farrow.

Patricia Neal [still alive!!!], who starred opposite Gary Cooper in one of the most visually stunning movies ever made - Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, almost sixty years ago - and who went on the make five babies with Roald Dahl [and among whose grandchildren is the exquisite Sophie Dahl].

Elisabeth Shue, who quit her Hollywood career to make three babies for her husband and to finish her degree from Harvard.

Cate Blanchett, who is both the greatest actress of the last forty years [probably since at least Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins & The Sound of Music], and who has now made three babies, the youngest of whom was born about a month ago, and who is named after Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, and student of John the Evangelist.

And since we're handing out kudos for making three or more babies, we might as well mention the most beautiful girl who ever walked the face of the earth, Grace Kelly.

On a slightly different tack, Hedy Lamarr, for being both the world's first pr0n actress as well as the inventrix of spread spectrum frequency hopping, not to mention the mother of three children [albeit by six different husbands].

And special kudos to Olivia de Havilland [who is also still alive!] for working with The Gipper to rid Hollywood of the Reds - at least temporarily, that is.

Anonymous said...

Lucius Vorenus,

Good point about Cate Blanchett. As with Streep, she does seem like a superior human being, not only in talent but mental stability as well.

The celebrity lifestyle screws up nearly everyone who lives it. As Robin Williams put it, cocaine is God's way of saying you have too much money. So celebrities who go about living ordinary, scandal-free lives are pretty remarkable.

Blanchett's husband (an unproduced screenwriter, IIRC) hit the wife jackpot, I think they've been married since before she became famous. If she hasn't traded up for a celebrity partner by now, I guess he's safe.

Anonymous said...

Lucius Vorenus: Blanchett's husband (an unproduced screenwriter, IIRC) hit the wife jackpot, I think they've been married since before she became famous. If she hasn't traded up for a celebrity partner by now, I guess he's safe.

There are very, very few guys on this earth of whom I might be jealous, but that dude has got to be #1.

Here's a little Lucius Vorenus proprietary info which you are NOT at liberty to share with the ladies: The performance Cate gave in The Gift is like a fantasy of what I'd be looking for in the perfect woman - the kind of girl whom, if I ever could cross paths with her, I'd work really, really hard to try to convince to marry me.

Anonymous said...

If you value Oscar noms and child production as some measure of value.

I guess.

Anonymous said...

Anyone remember She-Devil, in which an accountant (Ed Begley, Jr) left his dumpy wife (Roseanne Barr) for his client (Meryl Streep)? Easy to see why. No, neither Meryl nor Glenn Close, for that matter, are luscious, but both have a kind of aristocratic feminine handsomeness.

Anonymous said...

I agree she has a good resume, but she's still just an actress and Cameron Diaz is way hotter.

Meryl Streep: Degree from Yale

Cameron Diaz (on "The View"): "Yeah, like if you think that, like, rape should be legal, then, yeah, you like shouldn't vote, ya know?"

FWIW, I think any woman who manages to look halfway decent on the bigscreen is gorgeous in a way we're just not used to in real life. So Streep, however she appears to us onscreen, is attractive.

And the Alar scare? I'll give you that, but it was almost 20 years ago, and she doesn't seem to have made the same mistake since.

She is still a political lefty. She's made contributions to Wesley Clark, Barack Obama, and Al Franken(WTF????). But she appears to have actually legally taken her husband's surname: Gummer.

I will admit, though, that breeding lefties scare me a bit. My whole view of the future is based on the presumption that white leftists don't bother to breed, and that all future whites will therefore be conservatives.

And I'm with everyone on Cate Blanchett. She seems to be a truly class act.

Anonymous said...

"agree she has a good resume, but she's still just an actress and Cameron Diaz is way hotter."

Diaz can make 20 million dollars for being in a movie. I'm sure Streep does well, but no way is she making anything like that.

As far as the market is concerned Diaz beats her by a mile.