Meryl Streep under fire for controversial T-shirt promoting film Suffragette

MERYL Streep has attracted backlash for wearing a shirt with a controversial slogan to promote her new film. People have slammed the move as racially insensitive.

Meryl Streep Time Out Magazine cover. Picture: Time Out

ACTORS Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan have come under fire for wearing T-shirts with a controversial slogan to promote their film Suffragette.

The T-shirts read “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave”.

The quote is attributed to British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, who is portrayed by Streep in the new film.

But the T-shirts have been labelled racially insensitive because of the connotations to black slavery in the US.

“No one thought this was a bad idea? Come on Streep. You’re smiling with the word slave on a T-shirt,” tweeted Celeste M.

Meryl Streep wearing the shirt on the cover of TimeOut.

Mixfem tweeted “Meryl Streep does not know how the label `slave’ follows people, that’s why she’s able to smile while wearing her shirt.”

“Meryl Streep has to know better. And if not, her publicist should have,” tweeted Deray Mckesson.

Kerry tweeted “Whitesplaining gets on my nerves, and I’m not black. It is a thing. I wouldn’t wear such a shirt.”

The film is about the British suffragette movement which helped women get the right to vote.

Last week Streep made headlines for calling herself “a humanist” rather than a feminist, during an interview with TimeOut London.

Originally published as Meryl Streep under fire for controversial T-shirt promoting film Suffragette