Scrivener.net

Monday, January 31, 2005


"People like us can do more harm than good. Except for us."
Angelina Jolie, the Tomb Raider star voted the sexiest woman alive, said Saturday that celebrities grandstanding as advocates of the poor can do more harm than good...

"Celebrities have a responsibility to know absolutely what they're talking about, and to be in it for the long run," said Jolie, 29, who has spent four years as goodwill ambassador to the UN's refugee agency UNHCR.

Celebrities have taken unprecedented prominence in the World Economic Forum, held in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. Film stars Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and Jolie teamed up with musicians Bono, Lionel Richie, Peter Gabriel and Youssou N' Dour at the business summit to plead for aid to the poor.

In October, a poll in Esquire magazine named Jolie the "sexiest woman alive." That month, she toured Sudan's Darfur region, calling the humanitarian crisis there "unbelievably horrible". [China View]
Is there an odd juxtaposition in this story? Or am I just becoming more of a cynic every day ...?