TOPEKA, KS—Three-time Oscar-winning actress, Meryl Streep, who is considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, won a prestigious, albeit relatively niche award, reportedly attributed to her “glorious, inspired, ascendant” performance clogging the toilet in her room during her stay at the Airport Hilton in Topeka, Kansas. Streep was apparently on a two-day layover in Kansas, due to the rise of aviation crashes, investigations, and FAA layoffs by the Trump Dictatorship leading to a strain on the aviation industry. Streep, traveling on a private jet headed to Los Angeles from New York, following her debut SNL appearance during the recent 50th anniversary special, was rerouted to Topeka out of an abundance of caution as the air traffic over the middle of the United States was particularly chaotic. “Am I going to be responsible for the probable death of our nation’s finest female actress, who has moved the craft again and again while breaking barriers for women in the film industry? Absolutely not!” said local area Air Traffic Controller Charles “Chubs” Chubbibelli, who made the decision to radio Streep’s plane to make a landing in Topeka, to allow enough time for a flightpath to be devised, accounting for current, chaotic circumstances. It was unclear whether Chubbibelli, an ostensible Streep fan who was wearing a custom printed Kramer Vs Kramer t-shirt1 had intentionally grounded Streep’s plane in an attempt to meet the famed actress.
Meryl Streep, one of our industry’s finest actresses, was notified that she was up for an award shortly after a phone call she’d left with the front desk. “Hi, this is Meryl Streep in room 211. I think I need a plumber as, how do I put this, the toilet seems to be clogged,” said Streep in her “humble,” award-buzzy performance that was described by the front desk attendant. “I knew she was up for a “Big Shit,” said front desk attendant Marleen Weathers, apparently referring to the name of the obscure award ceremony the hotel puts on during which its staff celebrates any guest who has clogged the toilet in their room in a “compelling way.” “It’s Meryl Streep, our finest living actress, and a clogged toilet – she was a shoe-in,” Weathers speculated. “Or should I say, ‘poo-in.’”
A Ceremony with a Stinky Past
The ceremony reportedly started as a joke. “A guest clogged the toilet,” said Airport Hilton of Topeka owner Laurendo Curt.
I don’t know, I guess I felt bad for the guy. It was kind of embarrassing for the group he was staying with, and my plumber wasn’t going to be able to fix it in a reasonable time, so I upgraded them to a suite. I guess the turd of an idea sorta amassed from there.
Airport Hilton Owner, Laurendo Curt
The name of the ceremony, “Airport Hilton of Topeka ‘Big Shit’ Awards,” or “Big Shits for short,” came from a cross between colloquial terms, “big shot” and “the shit,” as well as the literal description of the size of the bowel movements that clogged the plumbing.
Competition for the Big Shits had apparently grown fierce over the years.
Previous winners include Gordon Ramsay, the famed British celebrity chef who visited the Airport Hilton of Topeka during an episode of his show, Hotel Hell, in an attempt to resurrect the “fledgling” hotel.
Describing his experience, Gordon nearly threw a chair at TTT reporters. “That dodgy place is a bloody racket! Whatever they served me, inedible, and then they gave me this thing – batty blokes gave me a glazed shit for my troubles!”
A fellow celebrity chef, Guy Fieri, had a different response. “Holy moly! Looked like frijoles rolling out me bottom holey!”
Whereas Ramsay was awarded “Best Formed Shit,” an award honoring the shape of one’s bowel movement, Guy was awarded two statuettes, for “Biggest Shit” and “Smelliest Shit,” respectively.
Other celebrities who have won a “Big Shit” award have included Scottish actor Brian Cox2 and American actor Mel Gibson3; comedians Jack Black, Jane Lynch, and Sarah Silverman; as well as famed pop star Taylor Swift4. Current American Dictator Donald J. Trump has attempted unsuccessfully to win the award for years, calling the ceremony “rigged!” and “sad!”
“His shits are very big and definitely disgusting,” Airport Hilton of Topeka owner Laurendo Curt explained of Trump. “But we have a rule: we don’t give the award to people who are literal pieces of shit.”
“A Tremendous Honor”
This year, competition for the ceremony’s top prize, “Best Shit,” was highly competitive.
Among the nominees included Bud Baily of Wichita, a factory worker visiting family in Topeka; Grady Mack, a truck driver “just passing through on the way to the Pacific”; Loraine Sweedie, a waitress at Topeka’s family restaurant; Clean “Cock” Juan, a local c-list celebrity5; and Meryl Streep, a Hollywood actress who has won the prestigious Academy Award three times.
Meryl Streep would go onto win the prestigious statuette – acclaim she’d describe as “a tremendous honor. “I’ve won lots of false praise in my career, but this is a tremendous honor and a beautifully authentic sentiment culminating from a night of true human experience that is universally known, but seldom captured artistically or acknowledged so publicly.” Streep would go onto describe an arduous night, being redirected to Topeka abruptly, a meal of stomach-upsetting chili at the Topeka Family Restaurant where she met one of her fellow nominees, and a bowel movement that was “as true as Sophie’s Choice.”
Grady Mack, less impressed, described the experience as “rigged, a popularity contest, given to a Hollywood elite,” adding it should have gone to the true “best shit,” explaining, “my shit was ten times the size of Meryl’s, and twice as smelly!”
The Academy conceded to the legitimacy of Mack’s objections, though they upheld their ruling, noting: “Meryl Streep’s excretion was certainly one of the daintier to win ‘Best Shit,’ but it was nonetheless representative of an act most foul, exhibiting painful humanity, and therefore its recognition must stand.” Meryl Streep, who has been nominated for the most prestigious acting accolade, the Academy Award, 22 times, thus won Topeka-area’s most prestigious award recognizing excellence in one’s bowel movements significant enough to clog the toilet at the Airport Hilton. In addition to winning “Best Shit,” Streep also won another statuette, for “Most Beautiful Shit,” an honor she finds “highly meaningful.”
Streep’s Shit Already Getting Oscar Buzz
Although the Airport Hilton of Topeka ‘Big Shit’ Awards are a relatively niche awards show, Meryl’s recognition at the ceremony is already generating buzz within the film community, some film experts even speculating if the Academy Awards will take the unprecedented step to revise their already released nominations to make room in their “Best Actress in a Leading Role” category for Meryl.
Brian Rowe, a film critic who runs the YouTube channel The Awards Contender, released a video titled, “OSCAR SURPRISE (FINAL * FINAL * PREDICTION: WILL MERYL STREEP WIN FOURTH BEST ACTRESS AWARD (FOR TAKING A HUGE SHIT AT AIRPORT HILTON)?”, in which he discussed the likelihood of Meryl being nominated, and even more surprisingly, winning in a category in which Meryl Streep doesn’t even have a film role under consideration.
Crazier things have happened. Not many people know this, but I follow the Academy Awards closely. Back in 2016, immediately following the Oscars ceremony, a fan submitted a clip of Meryl walking past Walmart, which many within the industry were convinced would lead to her 19th nomination. I saw the clip. It was one of the most breathtaking performances by any actor I’d seen. Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 22 times, but the Academy has gotten it wrong many more times. I think Meryl’s breathtaking performance in this year’s “Big Shits” will cement her fourth Oscar without question. They may bump Mikey Madison, who has already been nominated for 2025. I personally loved Mikey Madison’s performance, but let’s face it: she played a hooker, and the Academy has been resistant to give praise to performances about prostitutes in the past. And although there is no footage of Meryl Streep squeezing out the actual dump, which I’m told was a painful push, the ceremony itself was televised, and Meryl, as always, gave a tearjerking speech—I’m confident Meryl’s speech alone would be enough for the Academy to give her her fourth gold trophy.
At press time, Monsieur (Mick) Montage, Film Editor and Contributor for the Thirsty Thespian, in agreement with Rowe’s critique, noted that the Academy Award’s 2025 nominations are by no means set in stone. “It’s anyone’s game,” Montage noted, adding that “it is very likely” Airport Hilton of Topeka owner Laurendo Curt, “to use Rowe’s colloquialism, will ‘take home the gold trophy’ for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and possibly even Best Picture” for architecting the 2025 “Big Shits” awards with Meryl’s win. Curt would likely usurp Anora’s Sean Baker, Curt explained, simply adding: “That guy’s a hack.” -TTT.
Footnotes
- Kramer vs Kramer, a 1979 legal drama following the fallout of a couple in the midst of a divorce, was the first Oscar win for Meryl Streep, suggesting Chubbibelli, who wore a promotional t-shirt commemorating the film to work, has likely followed Streep’s career since early on. ↩︎
- Brian Cox is best known for his role as patriarch Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession, as well as for playing a drunken police captain in Broken Lizard’s 2001 reverent comedy film, Super Troopers. ↩︎
- Though he is best known for his role in Brave Heart, cast and crew attributed Mel Gibson’s strongest asset on set was his “Brave Fart,” normalizing flatulence in the workplace. ↩︎
- Taylor Swift didn’t stay at the Airport Hilton but, unusual for the ceremony, won for her 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department, which the hotel staff described as “an undeniable pile of steaming horse shit.” ↩︎
- Clean “Cock” Juan is known in Topeka as a c-list celebrity for his many pursuits. Juan is a soap opera actor on a Topeka public access show, “Woah!” Is Me. Juan also is a tattoo artist at Topeka Ink and is known semi-nationally for having won the title of “Ink Master” on the hit reality tattoo competition show, Ink Master, during an unaired season. Finally, Clean “Cock” Juan is also known as the lead singer of rockabilly band, The Cockpit Caterpillars. ↩︎
The Thirsty Thespian 