"In fact, for the malcontents of Hollywood, academia, and the catwalks, Chávez is an ideal ally. Just as the sympathetic foreigners whom Lenin called "useful idiots" once supported Russia abroad, their modern equivalents provide the Venezuelan president with legitimacy, attention, and good photographs. He, in turn, helps them overcome the frustration John Reed once felt—the frustration of living in an annoyingly unrevolutionary country where people have to change things by law. For all his brilliance, Reed could not bring socialism to America. For all his wealth, fame, media access, and Hollywood power, Sean Penn cannot oust George W. Bush. But by showing up in the company of Chávez, he can at least get a lot more attention for his opinions.
As for Venezuelan politics, or the Venezuelan people, they don't matter at all. The country is simply playing a role filled in the past by Russia, Cuba, and Nicaragua—a role to which it is, a! t the moment, uniquely suited. Clearly, Venezuela is easier to idealiz e than Iran and North Korea, the former's attitude to women being not conducive to fashion models, the latter being downright hostile to Hollywood. Venezuela is also warm, relatively close, and a country of beautiful waterfalls.
Most of all, Venezuela's leader not only dislikes the American president—so do most other heads of state—but refers to him as "the devil," a "dictator," a "madman," and a "killer." Who cares what Chávez actually does when Sean Penn isn't looking? Ninety years after the tragedy of the Russian revolution, Venezuela has become the "kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer" for a whole new generation of fellow-travelers. As long as the oil lasts."
Anne Applebaum
If you crave more:
and by all means, make your opinion heard, it's likely to be more coherent than naomi campbell's.
3 comments:
It seems that celebrity obsession is one language we can all speak. Sadly, Sean Penn's self-aggrandizing presence with Chavez might be the only way we give a shit. Same goes for the current would-be presidential candidates: Fred Thompson? I have no words other than You've got to be fucking kidding me. Also, Rudy Guiliani? Of course his wife is all over the place too, campaigning. WHY?? She's not running! Why should we care what someone's spouse is like? They should have no hand in running the country, as they were not elected. Hillary is a different story, obviously, but Bill still is not getting elected so should stay in the background.
We are obsessed with celebrity and inner lives of the people we love to hate: "they're just like us!"
were you really awake at 6:30? damn girl, you are a writer.
It also seems to go back to our generation in an insane, crazy and mad search for ourselves and what makes us us--how we identify ourselves. So when we see a celebrity showing emotion off the big (and ever biggening) screen, we DO think they're one of us.
But...i'm tempted to think that involvement is involvement. i've gotten over the fact that our generation has a twisted idea of free love, peace and unity that our parents embodied. so nostalgia won't save our asses. But...what if seeing sean penn and p.diddy is the only way to get the kids these days involved and "caring"?
sick (i.e. disgusting) motives, but imagine if these celebs weren't being seen doing any of these stunts at all?
It's a strange time when celebrities act more like leaders of the country than our actual leader.
mrr
yes, MRR, I reckon that you are right: even if it is Sean Penn who is annoying and has bad facial hair, I think we can all agree that his ideals are far more close to "good" than our own damn president's. Same goes for N. Campbell. She might be similarly annoying and likely incredibly stupid, but the article says she's some sort of ambassador/helps children eat or something. It may be a vanity project, but if it puts food in kids tummies, how can we really criticize it?
I also really like your search-for-self-in-celebrity idea. It's like the only way we know how to act or feel is from movies and music. I think this is a really interesting question that would take hundreds of pages and years to write. I think it has something to do with the fact that as we become more and more secularized as a society, we break further and further from any truth we ever had. This means a lot of freedom but also a lot of confusion. (kind of pertains to Xate's jihad post.)
Finally, and related to nothing in this post, I sometimes think of when rock and roll (the devil Chuck Berry) came out, and old people said "ahhh! this is the end of western civilization as we know it! society is going to hell in a handbasket!" Now I'm not making a case against rock and roll as I think we have a fun time in this "hell," but I sort of think they were right.
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