Meryl Streep addresses the ‘distorted reporting’ of ‘we’re all Africans’ controversy

The veteran actress was actually answering a totally different question to the one reported

Meryl Streep has clarified comments which shrouded her time as president of the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival after she made the remark “we’re all Africans really”.

Streep made the comments two weeks ago during a press conference when asked whether she understood films from the Arab world and North Africa. In response, she answered: “I’ve played a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. There is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture, and after all, we’re all from Africa originally. We’re all Berliners, we’re all Africans really.”

Following the 66-year-old’s comments, a multitude of news outlets implied Streep made the comments in response to being asked a question about heading a nine-strong all-white Jury, which wasn’t the case. This provoked backlash especially considering the ongoing #OscarsSowhite controversy which surrounds this year’s Academy Awards.

Writing a blog for the Huffington Post, Streep “set the record straight” and hit out at the “distorted reporting” of her remarks for overshadowing the successes of the film festival of people from a range of cultures and countries.

“Contrary to distorted reporting, no one at that press conference addressed a question to me about the racial makeup of the jury. I did not ‘defend’ the ‘all-white jury’ nor would I, if I had been asked to do so. Inclusion – of races, genders, ethnicities and religions – is important to me, as I stated at the outset of the press conference.”

As well as explaining the question she was asked which prompted the “we’re all Africans” answer, she clarified those words: “I was not minimising difference, but emphasising the invisible connection empathy enables, a thing so central to the fact of being human, and what art can do: convey another person’s experience. To be in Berlin is to see proof that walls don’t work.”

The actress also urged the press to recognise the artists that took part in the festival and give them as much attention as was “directed at my misconstrued remarks”.