Helen Mirren recently summed up Donald Trump and his inability to lead a country in turmoil in one astute statement: "It's a bit like watching a car crash. There is a sort of mesmerizing horror—it's why we love horror films," she told Allure for its September cover story.
Cut to Trump Tuesday morning, as all the world watched in the wake of the Charlottesville tragedy, retweeting a meme of a train bearing Trump's name barreling into a man with a CNN icon for a head. Mirren probably didn't expect to be that literally prophetic.
To celebrate 72 years of being, well, Helen Mirren, Mirren discussed feminism, sexiness, and politics, and how each intersects with the others with Allure. She lamented that Melania Trump has never done more than swat Trump's hand away in front of the cameras on their Eurotrip, despite being "one of the most powerful women in the world because she could take him down." She also shared her utter distaste for Ivanka Trump, who strategically builds her brand on empty catchphrases about feminism and equality: "[Ivanka] talks a good game, but there's no substance," Mirren said. "Her book is so ignorant about how the majority of women live, talking about 'Make time for yourself to have a massage.' Puh-lease."
And yet, these two Trumps are marketed as the best hope for women in a misogynistic White House backed by a Congress that is disproportionately white and male. Feminism isn't exactly thriving in D.C.
Mirren's own relationship with feminism took time to develop. She started making a name for herself in the '60s and '70s, when she felt it was "a no-no" for feminists to wear makeup and heels, both of which she did. She also had a complicated self-image, because she thought she did not fit the standards of beauty when she was younger.
"I could see why—when I got far enough back from my young self—they called me sexy in those days," she said. "I fell into the cliché of sexiness: blonde hair, tits, waist, which I hated at the time because it was not fashionable. You had to be thin and have a cigarette and only wear black. And I just never fit into that look."
Looking back, she said she wished told more people to "fuck off" and stopped being so "bloody polite." But it was her against "the culture." "You become a voice in the wilderness. No one wants to listen," she recalled. And in 2017, as the politicians fail feminists, we're fucking listening to what Helen Mirren has to say.
