Meryl Streep Takes Ill-Conceived Swipe At MMA

Hollywood actress Meryl Streep took an ill-conceived swipe at Mixed Martial Arts last night during her acceptance speech for a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes.

In all fairness, the overall speech was targeted squarely at President-Elect Donald Trump, but Streep made a blunder when she mentioned MMA while discussing the level of diversity in the acting community.

“Who are we, and what is Hollywood anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places,” Streep proudly claimed as she referenced a number of stars in attendance who hail from all corners of the globe.

“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick them all out you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”

The martial arts have been practiced for thousands of years and deserve more respect than that, but it’s the part about “outsiders and foreigners” that feels particularly naive on the part of one of Hollywood’s most revered actresses.

After all, who are we, and what is MMA anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places.

Take the next big UFC On FOX card for instance, which will be broadcast to millions of people on January 28th from Denver, Colorado.

It will be headlined by Valentina Shevchenko, a Russian woman who began her career in Krygzstan and now lives in Peru, and Julianna Pena, who’s ‘Venezuelan Vixen’ nickname is a proud reference to the country her father came from to start a new life in the United States.

Need we also point out that Amanda Nunes, the woman who just successfully defended her bantamweight title against global superstar Ronda Rousey is an openly gay woman who rose from abject poverty in Brazil, or that the current heavyweight champion of the world and Cleveland firefighter, Stipe Miocic’s parents hailed from Croatia?

In fact, what Streep clearly failed to appreciate when making that divisive, direspectful remark was that you’d struggle to find a more diverse, hard-working group of people than those residing within the mixed martial arts community.

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.