Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumScarlett Johansson isn't naive: She prefers profits to human rights
http://972mag.com/scarlett-johansson-isnt-naive-she-prefers-profits-to-human-rights/88449/In her first explicit response since the Sodastream-Oxfam controversy, actress Scarlett Johansson told The Guardian Sunday that she stands by her decision to sign as brand ambassador with the Israeli company that has a factory in a West Bank settlement, stating, “I was aware of that particular factory before I signed it.”
Reiterating her original defense that the Sodastream model is a “fantastic sanctuary of coexistence,” Johansson told the British paper that “I’m coming into this as someone who sees that factory as a model for some sort of movement forward in a seemingly impossible situation.”
Responding to the journalist’s insistence that the international community deems settlements illegal, Johansson says, quite disturbingly, that the issue is “very easily debatable,” adding, “I was literally plunged into a conversation that’s way grander and larger than this one particular issue. And there’s no right side or wrong side leaning on this issue.” That is shirking responsibility and a copout.
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R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)play people of moral character in the movies that they must be the same way in real life. Then some wake up and realize that they idolized Dennis Miller, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Baldwin et al.
When actors sell out for money over principle perhaps what it tells us is that they were always that kind of person.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)...that actors are people too, and thus are flawed.
Let me take Dennis Miller as an example. Dennis Miller was a funny guy whose rants made me laugh, poking infinite fun at the rather smugly stupid nature of our political system and society as a whole. Then he got a scare and became a typical fear-mongering xenophobic asshole. Something punctured his safety zone and he's all embittered now because of it. To say he was ALWAYS that kind of person implies that people don't change or aren't changed by what happens to them. And that's just a lazy way to think about people when you know how complex and maddenly capricious we all can be.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)And perhaps Scarlett is just cashing in now without a very sound PR campaign.
But I guess she still has her fans who believe in her.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)Perhaps you just expect too much from people. But you've definitely chosen to lash out at someone in the public eye. Perhaps she's being mercenary. But you definitely seem uninterested in that nuance. Perhaps actors don't get the same consideration we might otherwise give others, being in the public eye and having fun careers that make them money we can't possibly get near. But they definitely do not have an obligation to rise up to any expectations onlookers may have.
Yeah. I think I get the difference.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)That was the nugget of my point in post #1.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)Because it sure seems like you're intimating the opposite, that on some level they DO have that obligation.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Here. Let me re-post it for you.
I am reminded how people so identify with actors so much; believing that if they play people of moral character in the movies that they must be the same way in real life. Then some wake up and realize that they idolized Dennis Miller, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Baldwin et al.
When actors sell out for money over principle >>>perhaps<<< what it tells us is that they were always that kind of person.
I never mentioned that actors have an obligation. I did mention that some sell out. I also mentioned that some fans are surprised when their hero turns out to be an asshole, boozer, philanderer or right wing republican.
I can also see where some may have seen Scarlett as their hero, but perhaps now are...confused.
On edit: Perhaps you need to read the article instead of attempting the nit-picking.
As I reported in a previous piece, Oxfam is not a proponent of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, as it does not oppose blanket trade with Israel. Rather, the organization specifically opposes trade with settlement entities.
Johansson has therefore proven she is neither naive nor misinformed, but rather consciously prefers her own profits to human rights. Her statements leads me to conclude that she is well aware of the status quo, in which Israel continues to profit from military and economic control over the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank, and has no problem taking active part in it by being the face of a company directly and indirectly involved with this system.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)Or maybe we should bear in mind that actors are people too, and thus are flawed. When I remarked that perhaps people weren't always that kind of person, that perhaps it's a lazy explanation which denies that people change or are changed (not selling out for the money over a principle), you took umbrage and proceeded to question my ability to understand perhaps over definitely.
You use the words 'sell out' very specifically, which indicates to me that in some way you're arguing that these people hold a position from which they may 'sell out' their principles. You also use the term 'heroes'. While I would argue that people don't generally confuse actors with the roles they play, being sane and whatnot for the most part, you are engaging in very moralistic terms. Heroes selling out and cashing in, and such.
Pardon me for reading something into this sort of language, but it does seem like you are suggesting a higher moral bar for people in the public eye exists, even though you've said outright that it doesn't.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)You're reading in too much to what I have written, and I never suggested that actors have a higher moral bar than anyone else.
Their moral bar should be as high as anybody else, really, and as the title of the OP states "Scarlett Johansson isn't naive: She prefers profits to human rights" it says a lot about her moral bar at the moment.
Read the article.
You can always state that you disagree with it and we can go from there.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)...perhaps I have read too much into it.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)attempt thread hijacks and going in circles?
It's nothing new in I/P.
Or perhaps you're just upset about Scarlett?
Read the article. We can go from there.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)It seemed to me you were, like so many other times I've seen it happen as it does on DU, having a go at that 'celebrity' because he/she/it did not hold themselves to a higher moral standard because of whatever specious reason people think that celebrities should.
If you're going to attach malicious intent to that, I can't help you.
As to the topic, my interest in it is limited to this perception, which I've already stated is in error, and thus it concludes my participation in that topic.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)I'm so sorry that you've been upset by my casual observation which you demand is malicious.
It doesn't wash.
Just go away if you can't be bothered to read the op. Stop wasting my time.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)I didn't demand that your observation is malicious. I stated that if you read malice into my statements, you're wrong, and I can't help you with that. So it appears that your reading comprehension is as remedial as mine is today.
I've been quite civil about this misunderstanding, and I've stated the mea culpa rather clearly. Whether it "washes" with you is precisely immaterial to me.
I actually looked at the article and what struck me most about the relationship between the OP that you posted and the article itself is that their might be a political point to mine from it, however, you've chosen not to do that, really, at least not in exposition. You post the link, then in your reply (to yourself) you opine about selling out and how it applies to celebrities and good lesson there in how these are real people. This. This was your grand takeaway? This merited your self-reply? Of all of the tacks to take in discussing this article, your first statement is some hamfisted attempt at exposing a life lesson of sorts?
You know, I think I will go away now, but not because I can't be bothered to read the OP, it's rather because I actually did take a look at the bloody thing, and from what you seem to think is important, discussing it with you would be the true waste of time.
Now quick, you better think of some other goading reply lest people think you didn't get the last word in.
I think you covered it well ..
Welcome to IP
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)something that the habarists have been doing back-flips over trying to sell Israel is not violating, she might have thought differently about the whole matter.