Meryl Streep Throws Walt Under the Bus

[Dixie Springs]

Perhaps she was passed over for the PL Travers role?


From Parade Online:

The Walt Disney Family Museum isn’t too happy with Meryl Streep.

The actress blasted Walt Disney at a recent awards gala, calling him a “gender bigot” and anti-Semite with “racist proclivities.”

“Some of his associates reported that Walt Disney didn’t really like women,” Streep said during a ten-minute tribute to Saving Mr. Banks star Emma Thompson.

At one point, Streep read aloud a letter that Disney wrote in 1938 in response to a young woman who had applied for a training program in cartooning. “I’m going to read it here in Emma’s tribute because I know it will tickle our honoree, because she’s also a rabid, man-eating feminist, like I am,” Streep said.

The letter read:

"Dear Miss Ford,

Your letter of recent date has been received in the inking and painting department for reply. Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that task is performed entirely by young men. For this reason, girls are not considered for the training school. The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink, and then filling in the tracing on the reverse side with paint, according to the directions."

Streep’s speech took the Internet by storm, and a few days later, the Walt Disney Family Museum, which was founded by Disney’s heirs, responded to her remarks with a sarcastic Tweet to @officialMStreep (a fan-created handle):

The museum also linked to a blog by veteran Disney animator Floyd Norman, who worked on 1958’s Sleeping Beauty, 1966’s The Jungle Book, and other Disney classics. In a post titled “Sophie’s Poor Choice,” Norman defended the legendary animator:

“To be sure, Walt Disney had his faults like the rest of us. He was not a perfect man nor did we expect him to be,” he writes. “Like most of us, he continued to grow as he moved through life and in time he recognized women could compete alongside men. He knew that talent had no color or ethnicity and he judged people by their ability to do their job and do it well. Walt Disney was a man of his time, but he was determined not to be imprisoned by it. He dreamed of a better world and even had the audacity to try and build it. Hardly an American to be vilified. Walt Disney deserves to be celebrated.”