On Sunday night, renowned Hollywood actress Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes criticizing Donald Trump sparked wide-ranging debate in the Western world. This debate has also reached China, as numerous netizens have started weighing in on who they support.
While accepting her Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Streep joked how those gathered at the ceremony that night - Hollywood, foreigners and the press - were "the most vilified segments of American society right now."
Taking aim at rising xenophobia in the U.S., she pointed out how several of the talented actors and actresses among the audiences came from different countries, and followed with "if we kick 'em all out, we have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."
She continued to condemn Trump, who she never named during her speech, for "mocking" disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski of the New York Times.
"Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence…we need the principled press to hold power to account," Streep said.
In response, Trump told the New York Times in a brief telephone interview the next day that he was not "surprised" that he had come under attack from "liberal movie people" after the Golden Globes.
He then later tweeted a message on Twitter calling Streep "one of the most over-rated actresses" and insisted he wasn't mocking the disabled reporter at all but "showed him 'groveling' when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad."
As supporters on both sides in the West took to Twitter, the debate also became a top topic in China. Streep's speech made headlines in Chinese media and became trended on Chinese's social networks.
A number of Chinese praise her for her bravery and wisdom. Tao Tao (20) told the Global Times that she not only felt Streep was a true artist, but also liked the actress as a person.
"An artist who won a lifetime achievement award should be able to speak for a larger group of people, as well as care about society and her country," Tao said.
Tao explained that Streep's speech inspired her to seek out more information so she could better understand what was happening in the U.S.
"I'm surprised by the current xenophobia and hatred in the U.S. Are Americans really going to abandon the national spirit they built hundreds of years ago because of a businessman?" she asked.
However, not all Chinese have taken Streep's side.
WeChat user Ding Chenling, who stated that he is pro-Trump, told the Global Times that he felt it was "so sad" and "so funny" to see some of his well-educated, intelligent friends admiring what Streep was saying.
"Streep hasn't figured out that Trump is against illegal immigrants, not all foreigners… The most important thing is that he never actually mocked a disabled reporter," Ding said.
After Ding noticed Steep's speech was being reposted, he wrote an article on WeChat in defense of Donald Trump. The article received 80,000 views in one day and quite a lot of support in comments on the article.
"Streep, and many other Hollywood actors are basically idiots… They have been living a pretty good life for a long time and have no idea about what's going on in the world," Ding wrote.
