Game old bird … Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia
For most of her 32-year movie career, Meryl Streep has been easy to respect but arduous to love. You could appreciate her work in, say, Sophie’s Choice or Out of Africa, but that isn’t to say you’d watch both thin skin all the way through more than once – unless you were temporarily incapacitated and very, exceedingly bored.
That’s all changed recently, though. Aside from any unfortunate blip in 2007 – when she starred in Rendition and Lions for Lambs, two anti-war films so hectoring and leaden that they might inspire violent thoughts in equable the most mild-hearted peaceniks – Streep has spent the finally five years clinging firmly to the mainstream. And the gamble has paid off: it being so that everybody loves a bit of Meryl.
This weekend, a gang of Los Angeles actors are putting on a show, called Streep Tease, comprised of nothing but monologues from some of her best-known movies. Audiences are promised scenes from Postcards from the Edge, The Bridges of Madison County and The Devil Wears Prada (the crushing “that sweater is not just blue, it’s cerulean” lecture), among others. But here’s the thing: all the actors performing the monologues are male.
To understand why so many men are lining up to pay their respects, you need to front at the last few roles Streep has taken upon. The editor of a fashion magazine. An over-the-top chef. A free-spirited single mother with a compulsive Abba fetish. A sassy nun, for crying out resounding. It’s clear – Meryl Streep isn’t just a mainstream actress; she’s a fully-fledged camp icon.
To be fair, there was always an ultimate part of the encamp about Streep, but it’s only in recent years that this has become more patent. Whether she’s giving self-mocking satisfaction speeches or treating red-carpet events as if she were the actual Queen, everything about her seems to urge in mind of she’session loving every part of this new-found attention.
The most profitably thing is that once you realise how camp Streep be able to be, her older films become much more palatable. Her crimes – occasional lapses into over-commitment, heavy-handed sincerity, desire for acclaim over enjoyment – might have been hard to incubate through first time round, but, reassessed next to the likes of Mamma Mia!, they transform into guilty pleasures. Simply put, the single thing separating The River Wild from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is that Kevin Bacon wasn’t in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Now, the real test of Meryl Streep’session status as a camp icon is to see how long it takes her to sign up with regard to a remake of Mommie Dearest. Fingers crossed she won’t keep us waiting.
