Goodwill Ambassador: The New Celebrity Fallback Career
Stars like Ben Affleck and Nicole Kidman are busy distracting public attention from everything the U.N. doesn't do.
Following a story about Nicole Kidman, goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, a commenter on a British news site asked a really pertinent question: “Why can’t they name ordinary people goodwill ambassadors?” It’s not that ordinary people don’t have the sympathy for global concerns; it’s just that the United Nations is partial to people who have cameras following them around all day, thinking that if they get celebs who can snap their fingers and make their publicist fetch, they’ll command the whole world’s attention for the cause du jour.
And doesn’t reaping a celebu-wow or two do a fine job of distracting public attention from all the things the United Nations doesn’t do (like, fire a gun when genocide comes calling)?
I wouldn’t automatically question the motivations of most goodwill ambassadors, who either have big hearts and want to do good (even if they don’t know a lick about policy) or got a stern lecturing from their managers at some point about the publicity value of being the U.N.’s pretty face. But as Affleck offered comments aplenty to the media during his Congo sojourn, one particularly caught my attention.
“I thought a lot of people are advocating on Darfur. I’d just be a very small log on a big fire. I started getting interested in Congo and I thought, this is a place where I can have a really big impact,” Affleck said.
What, the Darfur cause got too crowded to make it on camera? Maybe it’s because he had too far to go to make it to Darfur activist George Clooney’s U.N. crown: the title of “messenger of peace,” which is only bestowed for an initial period of three years, perhaps to make sure that celebs don’t wage bloody conflict within that time period.
But there’s little chance of Clooney letting the U.N. down. At his acceptance ceremony in January, Clooney spoke about a two-week trip to Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo that he’d just taken with the U.N.’s Assistant Secretary-General of Peacekeeping Operations Jane Holl Lute. “When I stood in the hospital next to women who had been raped and set on fire two days earlier, they looked up to me and said, ‘Please send the U.N.’ – not the U.S., not China, not Russia – just the U.N. You are their only hope,” Clooney said.
Though that quickly conjures up memories of the South Park episode “Smug Alert,” it seems Clooney may have missed the second part of that plea: Please send the U.N … and make them actually do something.
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Bridget Johnson is the online opinion editor, an opinion writer, and a blogger at the Rocky Mountain News.
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11 Comments
1. Craig:“I thought a lot of people are advocating on Darfur. I’d just be a very small log on a big fire. I started getting interested in Congo and I thought, this is a place where I can have a really big impact,” Affleck said.
Yes….by all means, let’s send in more U.N. help to the Congo. They’ve helped so many women and children!
Dec 15, 2008 - 3:49 am 2. Phil:That last quote by Clooney makes me want to barf. I worked for an relief organization in Tajikistan and Northern Iraq, and people who needed aid could have cared less about the UN. It was all the smaller, less well funded NGOs that seemed to do all the good work.
Dec 15, 2008 - 4:27 am 3. Sandra:It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. The celebutards wear their best Eddie Bauer/LL Bean gear, strike a pose, feign empathy for the poor wretches who live in despicable conditions under murderous regimes, then hop back on their private jets (the B-listers have to settle for Biz class on commercial aircraft) and get the hell out of there. But they have a nice film clip or two testifying to their PR mission, a couple of good soundbites to remember and the UN can feel gratified that they have once again made an immpact(??). The follies will continue until someone starts questioning the real purpose of these appearances. Couldn’t that promotional money be better spent on the needs of desperate people who really don’t give a rat’s ass about an celebrity. Heck, I wager most of them have never seen a movie or owned a TV set.
Dec 15, 2008 - 7:20 am 4. cedarford:I agree with Clooney. “Send in the UN! (not the USA)”
Of course, the UN will do nothing.
That is the world’s problem. After 5 years of nonstop America-bashing about us being in Iraq, a shattered economy – with ongoing high security risks in vital areas of our interest in the ME, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran (Plus China’s massive buildup of naval and air forces + Somali sea piracy) – peripheral areas like Georgia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Darfur, the Congo are out of luck. President Obama will soon realize that there is little to no support from the American people or military families for bogging us down in adventures in Russia’s backyard or in 3rd World “human rights” morasses.
Our plate is full. Let someone else try doing the lifting and take up those burdens.
Americans also know that the American human rights lawyers and NGO activists that scream the loudest about “Genocide!!” and how “America must do something!!” are the same people that despise the US military, would never serve themselves or want any family member to serve. Who after attending a Darfur protest go right over to the “GITMO must close” protest, write to their law school demanding that ROTC remain a “stain” to be shunned, and demand prosecution of US Marines for “endless atrocities against innocent civilians.”
Aside from getting prosperous countries that take a free ride and almost never show up in a conflict area to shed their own blood for “Social Justice” (Russia, Germany, Korea, China, Japan, Brazil) – perhaps we need to give the American Left and EuroLeft (No blood for Oil!)a chance to put their money where their mouths are.
Announce an opportunity for NYC Lawyer’s sons and daughters, Boulder Vegans, and SF gays – as well as an international contingent of Oxford Brits and Belgian deconstructionists and Greek Marxists to join a “UN-led” force for ending “atrocities”. And a UN ROTC commission for Lefty college grads.
4-year hitch. Pay and benefits same rate as US soldiers, but they would only kill and die at the behest of the UN, not America.
Open recruiting stations. Hold your breath waiting for masses of Lefties to sign up and risk THEIR asses for “noble Darfurans”.
And Hollywood celebrity spokespeople would be allowed to accompany squads on missions in “hot zones”. George Clooney and Angelina would get a one-month boot camp and get an M-16 and gear and go into the African bush with Lefty troops trying to find & stop child soldiers from cutting other African’s hands and feet off. For extra fun, Clooney & his fellow stars and the Lefty troops would also be monitored by Kenneth Roth and his Human Rights lawyers so that any missteps by Clooney or buds could be criminalized as war atrocities.
Dec 15, 2008 - 8:30 am 5. mk:“I agree with Clooney. “Send in the UN! (not the USA)”
Of course, the UN will do nothing.”
don’t be silly, darling. The UN peacekeepers will watch Israelis being butchered, women and children being raped, other UN people selling weapons, food, etc to the highest bidder, and people in Rwanda, The Sudan, Bosnia, etc being ethnically cleansed.
Of course, you don’t seem to care about any of that, just that people don’t like the United States….. (boo, fricking hoo to you too)
Dec 15, 2008 - 10:07 am 6. TomJW:These idiots provide cover for all the children taken and used as sex slaves by the UN Blue Helmets themselves. Six years ago one person from the UN reported on these happenings in the Congo. He came back 5 years later and said nothing has changed.
When I here about these ‘goodwill’ ambassadors I know they are partly responsible for the raping of children, some have been reported as young as 4 years old. They disgust me. They also provid cover for the 23 billion dollar ‘Oil for Food’ embezzlement. Of course given today’s bail out money, that has become chump change.
Dec 15, 2008 - 11:16 am 7. Tex Taylor:The do crowd from Hollywood is as worthwhile to the charitable cause as NOW is to the female cause; personal agenda, self-promotion, photo shoots, and utter hypocrisy.
This post reminds me of Martin Sheen when he used to sleep one night a year on the streets to experience homelessness, before driving back to the mansion.
I’d be a lot more impressed with cowards like Clooney and Affleck if they dropped the cameras and grabbed a rifle.
Dec 15, 2008 - 11:34 am 8. 11B40:Greetings:
That one year of Jesuit education which my beloved parents inflicted upon me has long caused me to wonder about this issue, and, basically, I guess that I have concluded that celebrity, among other things, erases critical thinking ability inthose exposed to it.
It seems to me that most of these celebrities do not have much in the way of formal education or advanced degrees. Additionally, a great number of them are actors and actresses, who, if I remember correctly, are people who speak the words and portray the emotions of others for pay.
Perhaps, President-elect Obama can include this issue in Stephanie Powers portfolio.
Dec 15, 2008 - 12:20 pm 9. 888:Why doesn’t Affleck walk the walk and talk the talk by shelving out millions of dollars of donation to the poor in Africa, like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have done for their many causes? For that matter, why doesn’t Obama do the same since he’s received millions from his books being bestsellers?
When last year Jolie talked about the importance of staying in Iraq rather than a quick withdrawal as Obama and Hollyweird were pushing, some in tinseltown were upset with her outspoken support for helping Iraq.
These Hollywood Democrats and liberals have a strange way of showing that they care or are truly compassionate. If they truly wanted to make a difference in the lives of the disadvantaged, impoverished or war-ravaged, they could easily provide monetary contributions. After all, they do have the money to give. Posing with the less fortunate and making asinine statements prove these no-nothings are not to be taken seriously. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Dec 15, 2008 - 2:29 pm 10. uburoisc:Cedarford, Amen to that
Dec 15, 2008 - 2:36 pm 11. The Historian:ROBERT REDFORD: GOOD ACTOR, FAILED PUNDIT
This guy should let his success speak for itself and keep his mouth shut:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/actors-lead-fantasy-lives.html
Dec 18, 2008 - 4:42 pm