The Bitterness of Meryl Streep

Last night Meryl Streep won her third Oscar.  Most people would say, "three Oscars, that's pretty good!"  And so it is.  So why did she say, we would not see her up there on the receiving platform again?  It was a little reminiscent of Richard Nixon saying to the press after his California gubernatorial loss, that we would not have Dick Nixon to kick around any more.  So what's the problem?

Whether we are happy with our numbers -- be in in dollars earned or our standing in the polls or whatever is viewed by numerical measurement -- all depends on our expectations.  If we are working for, say, $20 an hour, and we expect a 20% raise, and it comes in at 10%, we are disappointed.  Likewise, we are thrilled to get that 10% raise if we were expecting nothing.  The objective 10% does not affect happiness; how it lands against an expected return does.  Managing these expectations is a chore we all have to do or we get swamped by emotional disappointment.  Certainly actors going to auditions have to temper their hopes; unpublished writers fend off despair by reminding themselves how difficult the stats are for getting published.  We all know that the trick to sanity is to not take these numbers, these results, personally.

But it is hard, especially when one's nose is rubbed in it.  Before this Oscar season, Meryl Streep had been nominated 16 times -- an amazing accolade, that -- but won just twice.  Two out of 16:  that's 12.5%.  That's low.  If random chance were operative, in each pool of five nominees, the result should have been 20%.  Rounded, she should have won 3 times -- if each award was indeed the result of a random selection process: assuming each candidate was as good as the next.  But the awards are supposedly not random, they reflect appreciation by the voters and quality in the recipient.  She has been told mathematically, in effect, that while of course she deserves accolades -- she was nominated, after all -- she's really is not quite on the level with her peers.  Oh, one might want to dismiss this as a ridiculous analysis, but when you go to the ceremony year in and year out and see -- feel -- these results, it is hard to remain, shall we say, philosophical.

Now with 3 wins from 17 nominations, Meryl Streep has won 17.6%.  It's not 12.5%, but while it is not 20% either, it is in respectable hailing distance.   The Oscar for Best Actress must have been very welcome, statistically bringing her up to a rounded par.  But it was late in coming, and the pain from missed expectations can be hard to bear, even when we know oh so better and have girded ourselves to accept rejection.  I do not doubt there is some bitterness in her cup, but this win, this validation, should do much to sweeten it.