InterOuts

What Will We Do About Angelina, Bono and Others .

Listen To The Article.

On the day I walked into the premises of the International Outsider, a strangely calm day compared to what we are used to, I made my way and checked my mail etc. as per usual, when I noticed that 2 of my colleagues were playing chess. They did not notice me because while conversing, their eyes were focused on the chess board. Then I heard Julia saying, ‘I got you because that is the Kasparov move’. Anton’s face was worth seeing, horror is an understatement, and he started to protest but rapidly admitted he was defeated. But it was Julia’s comments that caught my attention and ultimately is the reason for this article. She said ‘You know Kasparov was one of my greatest heroes for years and today, I am almost ashamed to quote his name because of the stance he took on the Ukrainian War’. This filled me with troubled thoughts and I thought that I too was in the same situation. You see I love Mark Hamillin his Star Wars role as Luke Skywalker and a few years ago, when I saw him returning back to the screen in The Force Awakens, I thought that he had aged quite nicely. Recently I developed a distaste for Mark Hamill. This is not due to his cinematographic performance but regarding his stance on the Ukrainian War. I was not angered but disappointed the day I learned that the President of Ukraine named him the ‘Drone ambassador’ and this gave me the idea for this article. How should we react to the heroes or stars of the screen, music and other creative arts that we adore and worship when they give an opinion which is totally different to ours? What should we do when these people that we consider as role models engage themselves in political activities that are diametrically opposite to ours? Taking the risk to be the ‘Spoiler’ in the story, I can say to Julia that she should enjoy the Kasparov moves just like I should enjoy an appearance, present and future of Mark Hamill in Star Wars because he is an actor, someone that can embody multiple personalities at will, something that I and the majority of people cannot do.

We will examine multiple examples since those 2 actors are not the only global public figures to have given their viewpoint on the war in Ukraine. I asked the question of the other player of the chess match ‘did he have a similar issue with particular ‘stars’. He said of course, I liked Angelina Jolie and appreciated her role in Wanted which was an insane unreal comic book driven tale which also married both Russian and Western cultures with an extreme amount of violence. I thought she was great in that movie and learned to appreciate her in other movies like Salt. I was gobsmacked when she became so active on Ukraine’s behalf and I asked myself, should I still like her and watch her movies?

Personally, I went through great angst or at least like to think I did, regarding some of my youthful idols who took a very hard and often quite unpleasant stance regarding what they saw as the rights and wrongs of the both sides in the Ukraine Russia war, often with what I perceived to be total faith in the MSM version of the issue. To be fair, way back, Elvis Presley was quite ridiculous when asked to publicly head an anti drug campaign in the 70’s with Tricky Dick, President Richard Nixon, on TV and in print, as it was common knowledge that he was a heavy user of ‘substances’ which were semi illicit (given the quantities involved) even if officially prescribed by a ‘legitimate’ doctor. Bono of U2 whose rousing anthemic song was enjoyed and listened to occasionally years later is another example. His visits to Kiev and public utterances with the regime, the Pope and other luminaries only further cemented the public’s acceptance of the MSM version as being the true one to my dismay. After the initial anger, cold dislike and distaste and a feeling of being let down, I had to accept that though I disagreed with his pronouncements and ego driven media grabbing antics like discussing the issue with the Pope, I still liked the song and could listen to it without reference to the man himself interfering in my enjoyment although I cannot really find it within me to have any measure of respect for him. Another problem arose with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comments which were pro Ukraine and anti Russia and were so heavily publicised that we ended up including him in an article that we published as an editorial on the14/6/22. I still find him good to watch in most of the movies he made as he is just an actor playing a role, usually slightly woodenly but with a lot of fast action and surprisingly, with a self deprecating sense of humour, purely because his opinions are not relevant to the person or the being that he is portraying on screen.

I definitely find it difficult to take Sean Penn seriously after his visits to Kiev and the gifting of his Oscar to the nation were coupled with excessive global media attention which was unsurprisingly carefully orchestrated though I have to admit, I never regarded him as a great actor. Whereas, regarding Milas Kunis and Ashton Kutcher who raised 35 million dollars for refugees and that I understood was motivated by compassion as opposed to media headlines, I will look to see newer roles they will undertake. Unlike Bono, both Robert de Niro and Imagine Dragons supported Ukrainians with ‘supportive’ words which though to my mind were misguided were at least heartfelt and whose roles as actors and musicians I enjoy considerably to this day. Alyssa Milano raised money for Ukrainian civilians affected by the War and Jennifer Lopez helped raise funds for children badly affected by the ongoing crisis with only the necessary media attention needed to fulfil the fund raising. Initially, I was not overly impressed with their actions but understanding the true nature of their involvement brought me round. There are of course many other ‘stars’ of the screen, music and other arts who can be referenced but in most cases, they were motivated or so I choose to think, by true compassion and the hope that they could help those negatively affected the most in a productive way. I would like to say that the fake news about them being paid millions to publicly support Ukraine by USAID have not been substantiated and only served to discredit them initially, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth as to who put these revelations into the public arena, something which began in the United States and then spread globally.

If we have spoken mainly about the western stars of the screen and music, the same thing exists on the other side in Russia. Anton spoke to me about a singer that he adored called Valery Meladize whose origin is Georgian and who was extremely popular in the Russian Federation. I also like his music and songs as they elicit great emotions and feel that he will still remain in my collection despite his opinions. To conclude I want to say that I want to be clear, all the actors, singers, songwriters and the variety of creative people that we all appreciate because they give us insights into different ways of being, seeing the world and whose behaviour is sometimes antithetic to our own, are just that, creative people whose opinions may differ radically from ours. But they are just people. We should continue to love and appreciate their work for what they represent for us. A point in time, a love story, an intense sadness and melancholia.....or sometimes, a realisation. When they give their opinion in the real world, we must respect these opinions as well as retaining the right to disagree with them. We can fight them but ultimately, we do not have to hate them but instead, accept the differences.

In a final conclusion, you see I never really liked the movies of Steven Seagal even at the peak of his career with their fast paced action scenes but should I re-appreciate or re-evaluate or like them? Should I appreciate his acting skills now that he has taken a pro Russian stance? I will tell you, I cannot do that even for the love of the Rhodina (this is the word for Russian in the Russian language) but I can promote his words when I see them and when I see that they conform to what I perceive to be the truth.