CMinor has up a piece about "Our Lady of the Wal-Mart" (via Man with Black Hat), a rather aggressively ugly painting that thinks it's clever in depicting Angelina Jolie hovering Madonna-like over the aisles of Wal-Mart, Cambodian orphans filling in for cherubs. Perhaps Americans are thirsting for role models, but I can't really see Ms. Jolie as a latter-day Mother Teresa simply because she has adopted a child. Unsung families all over the country are adoptive parents, and many more long to be but don't have Hollywood money to put their applications on the fast track.
I'm amused by the fascination with the absolutely mundane aspects of the lives of the rich and photogenic. Standing in line at the grocery store is worse than attending a church function for speculation about who's pregnant, who's not, or snide remarks about who hasn't lost her baby weight. "Friends worry Brit's PREGNANT!" "Jen Longs for a Baby!" "Julia Pregnant AGAIN!" How am I supposed to get excited about the natal travails of the stars? I have three children; no one cares. My first two are sixteen months apart, and there were no paparazzi shadowing me to comment on my tell-tale baby bulge. Guess what? Real women get pregnant, sometimes less than a year after a previous pregnancy. We battle the baby bulge, and it's not a big deal, really. Why should it be news that Katie's stomach is slightly rounded? That's life, guys. Get a sense of perspective. Sure, it's work to have children, but it's not unusual to have children. If the only suffering required to be canonized is going through labor unanesthetized, start checking Enquirer for photos of me up in the Celestial Rose. I'll be the one with the baby bulge.
Francisco Goya
2 hours ago
4 comments:
Great point. You rock.
Perhaps we could start paparazzi blogs for each other. I'll spend all my time endlessly speculating about every single detail of your life, you can splash headlines like "WILL JEN EVER LOSE THE BABY WEIGHT NOW?!" on yours. It'll be awesome.
I think that would be spectacular. I'm going to write articles about you headlined, "Jen: Will she or won't she?" but never actually mention what the deed in question is. I'll also post pictures of you getting out of your car wearing sunglasses, and have your garbage man find out what brand of baby food your daughter eats.
Also, if you could arrange to make an appearance on Oprah, that would be real convenient for my site meter.
But the real question is, will you ever meet the Bat Boy?
I'm hoping (though I'm by no means certain) that the "artist" meant to ridicule the apotheosis of celebs rather than apothesizing them. Whether she did that well is questionable. OTOH, I'm pretty sure she knows how to get attention and what sells! I guess she'll be crying all the way to the bank.
I can't figure the fascination with celebrity; it's amusing right up until it interferes with real news filtering through to the general public. Tabloids I can laugh at, but when the network news starts running celeb gossip I get irritated.
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