Helen Mirren, Hollywood’s most dogged advocate of footwear favored by strippers, gave the commencement address at Tulane University on Saturday. In general, the grand dame’s humor is at times irreverent, playful, sexual, political, and deeply British (that means anything you want it to mean). The Tony- and Oscar-winner’s speech at Tulane was all of the above (with the obligatory wisdom tucked in).
Forty years from now, for example, she hopes that the graduates from Tulane remember that nothing good can come of tweeting at 3:00 A.M. Also, this zinger: “Today’s speech will contain advice for any of you born in England who decide to become Shakespearean actresses, and end up doing nude scenes in 10 films. I mentioned that just to see if any of your fathers are getting out their cellphones now to Google me. Dads. Stop. Inappropriate. Put it away. I mean the phone!”
But between dirty jokes and presidential digs, she got to matters of import, like how she came to feminism. Mirren explained that she had always “believed in the obvious: that women were as capable and as energetic and as inspiring as men, but to join a movement called feminism just seemed too didactic, too political for me.”
“However, I have come to understand that feminism is not an abstract idea but it’s a necessity if we—and really by ‘we,’ I mean you guys—are to move us forward and not backward into ignorance and fearful jealousy. So now, I am a declared feminist and I would encourage you to be the same.“
She quickly added an addendum to that rule: “Never again allow a group of old, rich, white men to define the health care of a country” whose majority is women.
This and other pearls of wisdom are fresh (call your parents, don’t procrastinate or dive into shallow pools, “don’t be afraid of fear”), but others echo advice she’s touched on before, notably at ELLE’s Women in Hollywood event (don’t listen to internet creeps and don’t be one either, marry later in life, support your partner). As celebrity graduation speeches go, it’s a satisfying one. But it is early yet in the commencement season. Who will be the next celeb to try and top Dame Helen?
