Monday, October 5, 2015

Streep to team with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on new project?

Earlier this year, Meryl sat on a discussion panel at the Women in the World Summit in New York, alongside director Ava DuVernay and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.  Today, Obaid-Chinoy posted a comment on her own Facebook page, indicating she's going to be involved with Meryl on a new project:


Of course I had to look up Faiz Ahmed Faiz.  Turns out he was a Pakistani poet and left-wing intellectual who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature four times.  

The real question is "what's the project?"  When I first saw the title of the article in my news feed, I didn't immediately recognize Obaid-Chinoy's name.  It seemed vaguely Indian to me so of course my weird brain went straight to thinking Meryl is finally going to portray Indira Gandhi.  What is more likely is that Obaid-Chinoy, herself Pakistani, is going to be making a documentary feature about Faiz and Meryl has agreed to narrate it.  Looking forward to learning more about the viability of this project.  Stay tuned.  

9 comments:

  1. Long Winded PessimistOctober 5, 2015 at 5:56 PM

    So I take back all my complaining about the disappointment of Ricki... this past week as been a million times worse. Between that humanist comment and these slave t-shirts I feel like Meryl shattered a careers worth of pristine reputation with one interview. She's getting absolutely murdered on social media from all sides. So not only is Meryl now a bad feminist but she's also an insensitive racist. So frustrated with all these people just jumping to conclusions. I feel like Meryl is so well intentioned and she just can't win these days. Of course no one mentions her promotion of India's Daughter, Shout Gladi Gladi or this new project which all center around ethnicities other than her own. Its like she's being punished for being a rich white woman. I hope she's extremely prepared to explain all this controversy away this week. This just sucks so much. Meryl does so much to promote equality from all aspects and I feel like she lost large a part of what make her unique in Hollywood- universal likability. And once something like this happens it's seemingly impossible to regain your reputation even if you weren't in the wrong in the first place. This is just so upsetting. I wish she'd never agreed to do this film... she's barely in it, won't get awards for it and now she's destroyed her reputation promoting it. So now not only has so been going downhill film wise, now her character is being questioned. So upset. I wish we could just erase the last few months.

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  2. She'll survive... I do not think she did anything wrong.... The inverview was in England and the quote on the Tee is from a famous line from Pankhurst... And she believes for equality for all... She did want to be limited to just feminism but humanism.... Besides, regardless, the woman has supported more things monetarily than most- Women's history museum, the female writing lab.....- Jamie

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  3. Long Winded PessimistOctober 5, 2015 at 7:15 PM

    I don't think she did anything wrong either... she's always been so good about being "politically correct" which is overrated anyway... it's just so hard to see such an upstanding woman get so torn down over nothing. It's just that all this bad news has been a trend... Ricki disappoints and then there's all this controversy with the sex worker thing, the humanist thing and now this stupid t-shirt. It frustrates me that people can automatically hate her over nothing. It's like a lifetime of good work, advocacy and good moral character is just blown up in a second by one interview. And once people get it in their minds that they don't like you, they usually don't change it. None of these people even give her the benefit of the doubt. The era of "Meryl Streep can do no wrong" is over and its disappointing because she's so well intentioned. I hope she can somehow talk her way out of all this but anything you say will sound defensive and will likely make the situation worse. It's like there's no way out.

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  4. Of course Meryl is a feminist. I truly believes she considers herself a feminist. I'm disappointed she couldn't say something like "I'm a humanist. Which means I'm a feminist." She's seemingly trying to negotiate a fine line of not alienating some group. White male filmmakers? Who knows. She should've done better.

    The t-shirt is dumb. Yes, it's a Pankhurst direct quote and taken out of context is far more divisive than it was 100 years ago. But I think it's really stupid promotion strategy. I recognize that there is more to the history of worldwide slavery than the plight of African American in the U.S., but everyone's mind is going to go straight there, and it just seems in poor taste. Thank goodness most people are exceedingly fickle about these things.

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  5. Long Winded PessimistOctober 5, 2015 at 9:30 PM

    I really hope it blows over... but people seem really mad about it. It surprises me that no one's giving her the benefit of the doubt considering her history of advocacy and overall good character. The whole situation just sucks. I was so excited for the promotion this week but now I feel like she might end up digging herself into a deeper hole. I was so proud to be such a fan of someone who was such an amazing person she escaped bad press. But now I don't know. It's hard. I was disappointed by the humanist thing. I've always admired Meryl for speaking her mind but now its like she's censoring herself. And this t-shirt thing is the dumbest thing ever. I'm just surprised Meryl didn't foresee this happening. I wish she had some less controversial project to draw attention away from this.
    Do you see this going away? The thing that saddens me the most is that now I fear her reputation might be irreversibly damaged.

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    1. It'll blow over. Like I said, picture people are predictably fickle. Meryl has a few interviews over the next week where I'm sure it'll be brought up and she can explain. She's eloquent. I imagine she won't want to be misrepresented, misunderstood and to detract from a film she feels is important.

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    2. Long Winded PessimistOctober 5, 2015 at 10:31 PM

      Also cannot get over the irony that this is all occurring right when Shout Gladi Gladi comes out (of course this goes unmentioned)...but Meryl is an ignorant and privileged white feminist... just unbelievable. If people would just open their eyes and see that Meryl is really making an effort to support the causes of all races and worlds.

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    3. Of course her reputation won't be damaged, this is just a blip. No one in the public eye who has the courage to talk about tough and important issues can go through life without criticism or making a few mistakes.

      This will all be explained and we'll move on. Fingers crossed for the film and the documentary. We are just seeing Meryl taking a few risks and unfortunately there's a little fallout. Come on - people will soon be over this!

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    4. Long Winded PessimistOctober 6, 2015 at 12:57 AM

      A little fallout? Have you seen what people are saying? I don't think she's been criticized this harshly in 40 years! I just don't see people getting over this. I can't even think of anything she could say to get out of it. Regardless of what she says, some people will never let her off the hook now. It's just so disappointing. I wish people would give her the benefit of the doubt instead of writing her off so quickly.

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