Sharon Stone is right: it’s not about Meryl Streep

Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival/VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Image Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival/VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Image

 In a story that’s been making the rounds, Sharon Stone raises a challenge to Hollywood’s narrative that Meryl Streep is the be-all and end-all of actresses. Her admiration of Streep isn’t in question; she’s asking why actresses (and for that matter, audiences) are basically brought up to see Streep as “the good one.” 

Stone lists a number of actresses just as good as Meryl and that Hollywood and society for that matter, pit women against each other. She points out that there can only be one queen in the execs’ eyes and there are all these other, lesser ones (Stone says she herself is probably “the queen of smut”). But the larger social aspect isn’t so different. The way women are categorically labeled; this one’s a fine mother compared to that one who’s a slut; she’s good because she’s there for her husband and kids and that one over there is so selfish because she focuses on her career, and so on.

I have friends who find much of Streep’s performances actor-y and perhaps mannered, and I know what they are talking about but mostly, she remains one of the strongest performers around. She doesn’t showboat, she knows how to listen, and even in her worst moments, she never snoozes like Bobby Deniro or Al P (interesting that they’re the first actors - and male - that come to mind). But there are others, just as good (and in some roles, better) because this is how acting works, this is how humans are. 

You may be far more proficient than I at writing (not a stretch); but I may be much better at toasting bread. Okay, that was frivolous and lame, but the point is legitimate; not all roles are made for specific actors and sure, I may consider Hopkins the best Lear ever, but Scofield’s is often looked at as the summit. Does that mean that Scofield would have made a better Hannibal Lecter? Not likely, but Mads Mikkelson’s take on the character shows another dimension and a different and equally great approach. Is Mikkelson the better actor? No. Is Hopkins better than Mikkelson or Scofield? No. That’s not the point and it’s often a fatuous question, particularly when considering the breadth and depth of the skill sets of those individuals.

Stone’s right: there are other actresses (and yes, I’m using the gendered nouns now because this centers on women actors) who are just as good and in some roles better. Stone mentions Viola Davis, Winslet, and others. I’d throw in Glen Close, Julianne Moore, Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Rampling, Angela Bassett (who should be getting more roles, anyway) and that’s just right off the top of my head. 

Stone makes it clear this has nothing to do with Streep; it’s just that Streep is the one who early on in her career, producers latched onto. It’s not unprecedented: Kate Hepburn was the gold standard for decades and as a young guy I recall Meryl being referred to as the next Hepburn ad nauseam.  

Hepburn could be just as full of tics as any great actor, though. Just as mannered, just as studied. It’s damning that Hollywood (and the movie going public) couldn’t or wouldn’t afford the same accolades or largesse to other equally powerful actresses. But Stone’s comments invite greater reflection on a number of other fronts, not the least of why there is this tendency to laud one above all others and turn the arts (and for that matter, society) into a sports arena where there are winners and losers. 

There lies the rub: life isn’t a competition and strictly speaking, neither are the arts. It is part of human nature to recognize great effort and the extraordinary fruits of others’ labors. This is actually a nice thing to do. It’s fitting that Pindar wrote odes to the greatest athletes of his time and is looked upon as the greatest poet of his day; but is he the alpha and omega of poetry? No, of course not.

In the seventies, as a teenager at a performing and visual arts high school, a running cliche was the three B’s of music: Beethoven, Brahms, and The Beatles. Not gonna rain on anyone’s parade; we wouldn’t have music as we know it without them, but did everything they write rain gold upon the ears? Nope. Are there other composers and musicians out there who are as “great”? Once we get away from talking about innovation and what they brought to music that was uniquely theirs, yes. But no one takes seriously the question anymore of “who are the next Beatles?” That died out in seventies, too. No one seriously asks who is the next Picasso? We don’t live in that kind of world anymore, at least when it comes to music and the plastic arts.

So why do we tend to vaunt one actor above all others? Do we, though? Daniel Day-Lewis may have retired, but no one frets if you say Joaquin Phoenix is the greatest living American actor. There might be some push-back, but if you countered and said, randomly spit-balling, Sean Penn, you might raise eyebrows but it wouldn’t result in universal condemnation. But if you say “Olivia Coleman is the greatest actress alive”, the first words would be - more than likely - “Nope, that would be Meryl Streep.” 

Is Streep prodigious? Yes. Does she have a vast range? Yep. Is she uniformly consistent in delivering a solid - if not quite often, strong - performance? Yes, of course. Is she the only one? Nope. But no one would say this about male actors. No one is pitting Ryan Gosling against his peers on a regular basis or using any male actor as the summum bonum of what an actor should be. Meryl Streep had the talent and chops to prove herself early on and was a groundbreaker in many, many ways. She held her own and more with Deniro, Hoffman, and others who were already legends when she was coming up. She deserves all the honors for advancing women’s voices in cinema and showing that you didn’t have to be tarted up to win the public’s adulation.

As such, to Stone’s point, she became “the good one”. Looking ahead, I hope that Stone’s remarks get people talking more about how the singular adulation of one above all will finally come to a close. There are more diverse voices in Hollywood and mirroring the demographic of the country itself, that plurality will make it easier, I hope, for more exceptional creators to present their work and make their voices heard and at the same time, instead of one “the greatest”, there will be many.