Angelina Jolie in Chad

thank you Jared for cleaning up the thread you’re the Best….
But you know that.. :)

Oh, Shiloh has Brad’s expression totally in one of the new pics. Lovely family. Haters are exploding…

JJ you are the best. Thanks for cleaning up the thread. There are so many things that are important in life, Angie is contributing to what matters and we want to have a place where we can share without having the thread polluted.

ange is one hell of a smart lady.i read the whole article from the washington post.very impressed.u guess can check it from people.com

My tears dropped while ready her account. It is always touching for us Africans to see such people concerned about the conflicts in our continent. Though African leaders can do a lot better cos the continent could have been surviving without depending much on international aids, but our leaders are so greedy and AFricans have come to loose the altruistic nature that they have inherited from their ancestors. As they say in french “Chacun pour soi, Dieu pour tous,” that is the new moto of AFricans elite, or let’s african at the helm or with some kind of authority

aisha saysi am also African.which country are you from?

please lets support the article on people.com

This is an old post by AG about celebrities and activistism.

128 African Girl aka Time Out Says:
November 9th, 2006 at 8:33 am

This is my third and hopefully, last post on this thread. Usually, I’d read the posts but I had to post on the Jolie Charity vs. Jen Charity. This is for the Aniston Fans… You say she gives quietly which is good but she can do better. Various studies have shown there is an increase in donations when a celebrity is attached to a cause. Using her status as a celeb, she can quadriple her donations by creating and awareness.

Chloe Sevigny said recently…
“Educate yourself and try to get out there, especially with celebrities, go to different events and lend your name and help to raise money.”

She understands that with celebrity comes certain responsibilities. It’s one thing to attend a charity dinner worth 10,000 and it’s quite another to be a voice for a cause. I don’t expect much from the Paris Hiltons, Nicole Riches of the world but with Jennifer Aniston….okay, let’s look at it this way, if her hairstyle created so much hype and imitation, can you imagine what will happen if she stood firmly behind a cause? Try to be reasonable, forget your hate or dislike for Angelina Jolie for one second and think about this. If some of you still think JA giving quietly is the best way, that’s fine BUT I beg you, don’t demean what Ms. Jolie is doing by calling it a “photo-op”. In case you aren’t aware what an Ambassador for the UN does, then let’s make it clear….They help SHINE the light on issues. She’d be doing her ambassadorship a disservice if all she did was behind the scenes. I’ve included an article from USA Today, which in my opinion, sums up the importance of celebrity advocates.

HEADLINE: Hear them out

Celebrity activists are an easy target. After all, when Hollywood stars stoop down to help the underprivileged, their efforts often appear pious or self-serving. The results, though, tell a different story.

Celebrity gossip has gotten to be a drag.
While it used to be a kick indulging in the
guilty pleasure of showbiz dish — marital
infidelities, movie set tantrums, the
randomly tossed telephone — nowadays
Hollywood headlines seem more suited to
page one than Page Six.

In the past few months alone, say the
papers, Nicole Kidman was appointed
goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Naomi Watts and Matt Damon were in Zambia, sounding an alarm about HIV/AIDS, and George Clooney was kicking up sand in
Darfur, hoping to shine a spotlight on that
war-torn region. Oh, yeah — and Los
Angeles cops plucked a protesting Daryl Hannah from a walnut tree.

When did everything get so darn serious?

The truth is, celebrity activism has been
around since Charlie Chaplin first kicked
that beach ball-globe as The Great Dictator, and War Bonds saleslady Hedy Lamarr sold kisses for at least $25,000 each in support of our GIs overseas.

But as the news and entertainment industries continue to morph into one another, do-goodism of the rich and famous has become just another front in the culture wars. As a result, the TV, movie and music stars who pipe up on behalf of pet causes often earn more bile than bravos among grumpy pundits.

Politics vs. culture

“The problem with the humanitarianism of
the entertainers is that it perpetuates a
confusion of politics with culture,” argues
New Republic columnist Leon Wieseltier,
who calls Angelina Jolie “the African
queen” and deems longtime rabble-rouser
Michael Douglas unworthy of discussing
international peace. “(This) teaches
Americans to live vicariously … in slavish imitation of people luckier than themselves.”

Then there’s the hypocrisy factor. Peter
Schweizer, author of the celeb-cause wrist slapper Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, reports that Barbra Streisand spends $22,000 a year watering her lawn and gardens, while she lectures Americans on the need to cut back on water and gas consumption by hanging out their wash and junking their SUVs. Oh, Babs.

On one hand, the critics make a good
point. Those more accustomed to signing autographs than to penning policy papers often raise eyebrows, not awareness, as they move from the sound stage to the sound bite. (Bo Derek’s vacant-eyed endorsement of President Bush, for example, continues to amuse me.) And even when a star knows of what he preaches, the delivery tends to teeter between the riotously pious and hopelessly hammy.

Who can forget Richard Gere’s infamous attempt to mind-meld with Chinese leaders over the thorny issue of Tibet from the stage of the Academy Awards? Not exactly a Bono moment.

But to write off all celebrity activists as windy, whiny and woefully out of touch is to ignore the unique advantage celebrities have in getting their message out.

For starters, entertainment idols are notoriously image-conscious, so when they put their careers on the line for a cause,
you’ve got to figure they’re drop-dead serious about their positions. (See the Dixie Chicks as exhibits A through C.) But more important, tarring all stars as know-nothing opportunists unfairly undermines those who rise above garden-variety activism and actually conduct the research required for good advocacy. Take Martin Sheen. Because of the veteran actor’s famous outspokenness — not to mention the fact that he played the president on TV — conservatives have practically called for an all-out jihad on the guy, depicting him as the worst thing to happen to America since the invention of the Chia Pet. But why not give Sheen his soapbox, especially considering his street creds? Arrested for protests more than 60 times, he has engaged in the kind of investigative legwork expected of journalists and scholars, not empty-headed leading men. He has stood with impoverished migrant workers, provided hands-on aid to the “scavengers” of the Payatas garbage dump in the Philippines, and continues to speak with authority about the hazards of nuclear waste. If this kind of substantive homework doesn’t earn a fellow the right to spout off, what does

Jolie educates viewers

Meanwhile, Leno and Letterman can make all the cracks they want about Angelina Jolie, but when the actress sat down last week with CNN’s Anderson Cooper for her first post-Baby Shiloh interview, I learned more about child starvation in Namibia than I’ve ever gotten from the nightly news. For my money, I have come to appreciate what celebrity activism brings, not to the rancorous roundtables but to where it’s needed most: the coffers.

Last summer, Primetime Live’s Diane

Sawyer followed Brad Pitt to Africa, where the actor was doing work on behalf of the ONE campaign to fight global AIDS and poverty. Sawyer wanted Pitt to spill about his breakup with Jennifer Aniston, and he agreed — provided the show would devote equal coverage to ONE’s battle. While the dashing actor’s romantic confessional made headlines — then evaporated — within a single news cycle, the wrenching images of hungry and impoverished African children clearly had a lasting impact. Within two days of the broadcast, ONE had recorded a 560% leap in Web donations and a sevenfold increase in the sponsoring of needy kids.

That’s activism.

What’s amusing about all of this is that conservatives are the ones who most often sneer at Hollywood cause-peddlers — and yet they seem to have short memories. After all, 26 years ago this November, didn’t they take a particular shine to a movie star-activist themselves? And if I remember correctly, the guy wasn’t even that good an actor.

The Reality is, it’s is not about you, me or even the celeb in question, it is about the people at the receiving end. Do you think they care what the celebrity’s motives are, do you think they care what we…as celeb watchers think? I highly doubt it….When is comes to starving and sick people, let’s agree that the end justifies the means.

If you care to, do a quick google search on CELEBRITY ACTIVISM to read more but just in case it’s too much work, here are a few links….

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/05/ING9QD1FIE1.DTL

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/11/quest/

http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00282/more_celeb.htm

The Operative word here is ACTIVISM…which means taking a DIRECT action to support a cause…not sitting in the sidelines or taking a back seat. Angelina Jolie is an Activist, Jennifer Aniston is a donor. Being the former requires you to be out there, so it’s a little silly to fault Jolie for doing so.

I am a gambian leaving in working in senegal and where are you from

My posts about systemdoctor have been deleted from the other thread. I don’t know if the other posters complaints about it were deleted too. But it is odd….

My comment is awaiting moderation. I posted an old post from AG about celebrities. It was a good post for the Jenhens.

It is a good thing Shiloh looks like Brad, considering all the lies we dealt with. She’s like dad!