Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Is anyone else as sick of her as I am?


From perezhilton, Santa Angelina flew from New York to Syria on Monday. In Damascus, she visited a UNHCR registration center and spend hours talking to Iraqi refugees in their homes.

On Tuesday, the mother of four crossed over to Iraq to meet with 1,200 refugees camped out in a makeshift outpost at the border, because they are unable to leave the country.

“I have come to Syria and Iraq to help draw attention to the humanitarian crisis and to urge governments to increase their support for UNHCR and its partners,” Jolie said in a statement. “My sole purpose in both countries is to highlight the plight of those uprooted by the war in Iraq.”

Besides her activities for UNHCR, Jolie also met privately with American troops and other multi-national forces in the region.

9 comments:

Jordan said...

Why are people "sick of her"?

It borders on the perverse. Step 1: canonize celebrity (the word "canonize" deliberately chosen, of course); Step 2: rabidly pursue all information about the celebrity; 3) figure out what's "wrong with" the celebrity and start loudly bitching about that; 4) Declare that one is "sick of" the celebrity (with reference to what's "wrong with" the celebrity).

Finally there's a movie star who cannot be attacked: she's beautiful, smart, talented, picks projects carefully, has an Oscar, has the world's most sought-after boyfriend; is on the fucking Council on Foreign Relations right next to Kissinger, is a UN envoy, adopts underprivileged kids etc. etc. in other words, conspicuously has nothing wrong with her and is beyond reproach. The "haters" have nothing to grab on to, so they fall back on being "sick of" her.

It's pathological. In a world filled with Lindsay Lohans, Angelina Jolie's sin is, apparently, that there's not enough wrong with her, which obscurely bothers people enough that they get "sick of" her. If she was a drunk or made bad movies or was involved in a scandal, would she become interesting again?

JPX said...

I don't hate her by any means. I'm simply tired of hearing about her daily "saving the world" gestures. I love her as an actress and she's hot, of course, but just like I'm sick of Bono I'm tired of hearing about this stuff. It's terrific that she's taken on this revamped persona but I think you get more credit for this stuff when you do it privately, kind of like an anonomous donor.

Jordan said...

But you don't get more credit for this stuff when you do it privately.

What she's doing is precisely the sort of public gesture celebrities should make as often as they can. When movie stars get involved in these issues they get their fans interested too. It's probably the best possible way to handle being famous. I don't understand your objection at all.

Movie stars have been instrumental in advancing political causes. Redford, Newman, Beatty, etc. have all been involved in popularizing important causes. It seems to me that it's exactly what celebrities should be doing, rather than driving around in SUVs going to clubs and throwing up on the sidewalk like the Lohan types.

JPX said...

I completely agree with everything you say but for some reason I feel like her behavior is insincere. I have no proof of this, of course, however she has a long history of unstable behavior and I'm always a bit skeptical when there's such a sudden seachange in personality. Perhaps she's just matured?

Jordan said...

It's pretty clear to me that she's matured.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Totally with Jordan on this one. I have no problem with Angelina whatsoever. At first I rolled my eyes when I heard she was going to play Dagne in Atlas Shrugged but when I thought about it, I really couldn't come up with someone better for the part. If anything she's too hot for it.

Octopunk said...

I'm kinda with both viewpoints on this one. Jordan's absolutely right on every point but doesn't acknowlege that it can be genuinely annoying to continually see someone putting themselves out there for causes even for the noblest of reasons.

And yes, that's pretty much the problem of the annoyee, because it's great for high profile celebs to do what she's up to. As a function of this country's celebrity craze, it is perverse to be sick of hearing about it, just as perverse as feeling better about oneself because some teenager is strung out on drugs and is followed constantly by photographers so that you can see pictures of her strung out on drugs which is at least partially due to the pressures of being surrounded by photographers so you can feel better. Uh, drugs.

Anyway, the whole system is pretty screwy.

DKC said...

yada, yada, yada. I still totally dig her.

Julie said...

Not only is she a humanitarian, she's got to be a sex pervert. I vote yes for both of these things.

But she should buy Jennifer Anniston one of those orphans as a compensation prize or something.

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