Meryl Streep is not too fond of the late Walt Disney and the Oscar-winning actress was not shy about her feelings at an awards dinner in New York this week.
Streep attended the National Board of Review gala Tuesday to present Emma Thompson with the best actress award for her role as "Mary Poppins" author P. L. Travers in the Tom Hanks film, "Saving Mr. Banks." The movie tells the story of Disney's struggle working with the notoriously difficult Travers on the film adaptation of her beloved book.
But after extolling Thompson's talents, Streep blasted Disney and called him a "gender bigot" who "supported an
anti-Semitic industry lobbying group," according to Variety.
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"Some of his associates reported that Walt Disney didn’t really like women," Streep said, according to the magazine. She then quoted animator Ward Kimball, who worked with Disney years ago, as saying, "He didn’t trust women or cats."
Streep, who is ironically scheduled to star in the upcoming Disney film "Into the Woods," then went on to read from a letter that the filmmaker's company reportedly sent an aspiring female animator in 1938.
"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," the company reportedly wrote.
According to the Los Angeles Times, "Saving Mr. Banks" omits any trace of sexism or anti-Semitism and paints Disney as a "wholesome, good-natured genius whose main concern is making merriment."
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