Madonna and Brangelina and Exotic Pets
for release Ides of March 07
Washington DC
I was in a pet shop the other day when I thought about Madonna and Angelina Jolie. Then I thought about Oprah and Mia Farrow.
Celebrity adoptions are nothing new. Actresses have been doing it for years in order to enjoy the bliss and warmth of motherhood without sacrificing their waistlines. Betty Davis and Joan Crawford both adopted. Bob Hope adopted four children, but I don't think it was for the benefit of his waistline, nor do I imagine that Rosie O'Donnell was thinking about hers. Or Walt Disney.
At one time celebrities were more discreet about their adoptions. But in the sixties it became a political statement. Luminaries like Andre Previn and Mia Farrow and Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards, Yul Brenner, adopted refugees from the Vietnam war. It was fashionable.
But nowadays it seems that good old domestic orphans are not good enough. The upwardly mobile and socially conscious celebrity wants an exotic child for a pet, one from a place you've never heard of but is torn by war and steeped in poverty and disease. It's ever so much more romantic than adopting from the local animal shelter.
Mia Farrow adopted 10 children from developing countries. One ended up on Woody's woody. Meg Ryan brought home a girl from China. Ewan (Obi Wan) McGregor and his wife went clear to Outer Mongolia to choose their daughter. Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer, producer Steven Spielburg and his wife Kate Capshaw all have adopted outside their own races and nationalities. It's the in thing. Call it Noblesse Oblige. If you have more money than god, then you are expected to share some of it with the needy and downtrodden. And little large eyed, starving children are so cute and photogenic.
A picture comes to my mind. It is the classic caricature of the the hefty matron who is dripping jewelry and wearing a feather boa and carrying one of those impossible little dogs that are born with hairdos and wear sweaters and have psychiatrists. Little Fifi is a nervous wreck because she is so over-bred and over-pampered. I wonder how an adopted child from Malawi feels like living in Madonna's London palace?
Yes, at one time the Hollywood studios and the public relations people would avoid talking about adoptions by celebrities. If a couple adopted, it was due to issues of sterility or homosexuality, they didn't want to talk about that. Now, they publicize the event of an adoption. Every tabloid in the check-out aisle at the grocery store trumpets, "Saint Celebrity Rescues Child from Hopeless Poverty" and like Queen for a Day or American Idol the child is suddenly catapulted into fame and a privileged life. Ah, The American Dream.
Does anyone else find this tawdry and cheap and exploitive? Vanity projects, public praying? Madonna and Brangelina and Oprah are all casting themselves as Mother Theresa. They are going into the Third World and bestowing the blessings of their money and fame on poor, suffering souls. It's so noble. And it sells.
Last year we adopted a cat from our local animal shelter. He is a white cat. I know that's déclassé, but he's just a regular white, anglo-saxon, Protestant American cat. He needed a home. So we gave him one. I guess we should have adopted a Siamese. Then The Poet's Eye could see our picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. --I Corinthians
