Russia bans Meryl Streep movies

[Sara S]

by Andy Borowitz
Not the News

MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—In a sweeping act of official censorship, the Russian government has banned all Meryl Streep movies from the country, effective immediately.
Moviegoers at Moscow’s Kinoteatr 16 movieplex were taken aback on Monday night when government agents stormed the projection booth and seized a copy of “Florence Foster Jenkins,” the 2016 Streep film that was unspooling.

But the full force of the ban was not felt until Tuesday morning, when the Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered police to go door to door, confiscating Streep DVDs from Russian citizens.

“I was terrified,” Vasily Dmitrovic, who lives in St. Petersburg, said. “They broke down my door. My wife was screaming. They would not leave until I handed over ‘Mamma Mia!’ ”

In an appearance on state television, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered no reason for the ban, other than to say that Streep was “overrated.”

Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report for newyorker.com.