Meryl Streep's "Iron Lady" and Her Political Films

Received a message on Twitter this morning requesting my thoughts on Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. Seems she's in talks to star as the Iron Lady herself in an early 80s set film about the lead up to the Falklands War. [src]

My thoughts, eh?

Me think about Streep? Never! But with Great Hope Springs and this one, it seems that the two-time Oscar winner will just keep reaching for the bait until a third is hers.

Though I can already sense that the rest of the internet will be gung-ho about this idea, I would urge caution. Perhaps it's silly to get caught up in any "Meryl will win her third Oscar for Thatcher" speculation.

The rest of the internet seems to have forgotten that this film will supposedly reunite Meryl with her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd. Since Lloyd couldn't even manage the basic building blocks of film in Mamma Mia! (camera placement, editing, etcetera) and since there'll be no buoyant ABBA tunes to gloss over film weaknesses, and since Thatcher won't give Streep the opportunity to win shocked/amused hearts by jumping around with boundless 'can-you-believe-I'm-practically-a-senior-citizen?' energy ... well, I can't really see this as a crowd pleaser or a serious Oscar bait project. Yet.

The cynicism comes from another more political place, too. Though I greatly admire Meryl Streep's political activism offscreen and love it when she gets political in her acceptance speeches at awards shows, I'm not sure she's a true fit for political films. The last time I saw Streep playing a conservative politican (The Manchurian Candidate) I found it to be one of her hammiest and most predictable performances. And the great actress's other recent political films Lions for Lambs and Rendition didn't interest the public or Oscar voters. In point of fact, none of her political films have.

from left to right: The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Plenty,
The Manchurian Candidate, Rendition, Lions for Lambs

Zero Oscar nominations for a movie set in the political world probably doesn't sound that shocking until you stop to consider this second fact: Meryl Streep has appeared in 43 pictures and she has been nominated for 16 of them. That 37% nomination ratio beats just about anyone in any field (save James Dean of course). Yet, this seems to be the genre that wins her no love.

But then there's the biopic factor. And that's significant. That could change things.

I am sad to imagine that Streep would have to resort to mimicry to win (For all that she's given the cinema, to use a commoner's tactic?) but it may come to that since they never have time for her as a "winner" and they always have time for biographical performances. Thatcher is certainly a well known figure with an instantly recognizable voice that people will love hearing Streep nail in the same way people loved those flouncy vowels from Julie & Julia. [Note: Julia could, come to think of it, destroy my thesis since she plays a government official's wife in that one and was nominated. But the kitchen is that film's true location, not the government.]

Here's a few pie charts I whipped up about the past decade in Oscar acting winning character trends: real people in blue, fictional characters in red.


One could argue that the Academy voters can only choose from what films are made and released and women are the leads in fewer pictures than men. It's possible (though I'd like to see statistics) that they get more "true story" opportunities than not because you can't exactly change someone's gender in a biopic for better bankability (let's leave the hugely depressing 'men are more bankable' factor out of the conversation). But regardless, it's clear that when it comes to the Best Actress category itself, The Academy values character creation less than character recreation. That totally disturbs me though I readily admit it disturbs me far more than it does your average Oscar watcher and more than once I've been told to shut up about it already. Maybe it's just a personal hangup.

So this is why I was rooting so hard for Meryl Streep to win in 2006 for The Devil Wears Prada and Johnny Depp to win in 2003 for The Pirates of the Caribbean. Creating a perfectly realized instantly classic character that people will obsess about for years to come, even if you're creating it from bits and pieces of real life figures of your choosing, is far more of an imaginative creative feat for an actor than recreating the vocal cadences and posture of a famous person.

"I said to myself. 'Go ahead, take a chance. Hire the smart fat girl'"

That's all.

Are you excited to see Streep as Thatcher or do you wish she'd hook up with a true auteur who would challenge her mightily. Was Adaptation (2002) the last time?
*