Two very brave women have won lifetime achievement awards, one overseas and the other here in Israel. I'll start with Meryl Streep, who about a year ago used her courageous speech of thanks to slam President Donald Trump to a room packed to the rafters with Hollywood liberals. Streep said with well-timed bravery what the audience wanted to hear. Horrified, she excoriated the president for mocking a disabled journalist by mimicking the man's disability (which turned out to be a complete lie, but when it comes to courage, the narrative is stronger than the truth) to loud applause form the homogeneous crowd that was expecting its pound of flesh.
No one mentioned the fact that Meryl Streep stood up and applauded at a different ceremony, where director Roman Polanski – who was convicted of a serious sexual offense – was given a prize.
Not surprisingly, the liberal media in the world (and in Israel) repeated the speech and praised the predictable bravery, and Streep became a Joan of Arc figure because of a single Golden Globes ceremony where she bravely said what was expected of her.
Last week, another brave woman won a lifetime achievement award and demonstrated her courage in a long speech, saying what she was expected to say to a captive audience. The brave remarks by journalist Ilana Dayan enthralled the audience of clones, particularly the part where she defended the objective media – which has no political bias but rather works only to uncover the truth. It might have been convincing if only the speech hadn't been biased toward the side of all those sitting in the air-conditioned studios – the Left.
What was really lovely in Dayan's speech was its inherent oxymoron – to cast doubt, never cast doubt; to discover the truth, don't investigate the truth; in the name of objectivity start with the subjective "truth" of the media hegemony; in the name of democracy, give law enforcement a superior status that protects dictatorships; in the name of the media hegemony's sinking ratings, always believe us, even when we make politically biased speeches and claim to be completely objective. Courage, indeed.
The speech was so brave that Dayan's safe wager made waves in the media, whose cup overflowed with wonder, as in Streep's case. One couldn't listen to Dayan's speech without recalling the only time she ever dared to go against the left-wing hegemony with a piece on pacifist activist Ezra Nawi. As a result of that probe, the media almost threw this golden girl out of its circle. Dayan, alarmed when the tribe had its say, shelved the second episode of the program. That was an issue that demanded real courage on her part, but she buried the report and got back on the straight and narrow.
Streep's and Dayan's cases are almost identical – they both reflect the same cultural war being waged in the western world. The cultural and media hegemony is becoming detached from the people like a hot air balloon that rises from the ground of reality. And while they applaud each other in the rarified air far above the people, down here on the ground the people's frustration has set social media on fire, and it could burst the balloon at any moment.
