What Team America Did Next
The International Olympic Committee must have, at one time, thought that sending that famous torch in the direction of Beijing was a good idea. Whether they would privately maintain that opinion is something that seems increasingly doubtful, given the ludicrous firestorm of abuse they have received recently from some unlikely sources.
In a scenario that is oddly reminiscent of the movie Team America (for the uninitiated, Hollywood’s elite form a politically active union called the Film Actors’ Guild- F.A.G for short), the IOC have found themselves harangued by none other than actress turned UN Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow. The sixty-one year old starlet of yesteryear has gone so far as to call the Beijing games “the Genocide games”, and has forced the powers that be to answer some very awkward questions about the Chinese government’s support for the Government of Sudan after atrocities carried out in Darfur in 2004.
What Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, must be feeling is anybody’s guess. His organisation runs itself on a strictly non-political mandate to use sport as a power for good around the world. To be accused of being in favour of genocide by a greying Hollywood veteran is, I would venture, new ground for them.
Mia Farrow did not stop with the organising committee, however. None other than Steven Spielberg, that grand old duke of Hollywood, has been dragged into the melee because he is currently acting as an artistic director for the Olympics. In a comment either devastatingly critical or horrendously unfortunate, the man who brought us Schindler’s List is told he is in danger of becoming “the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing games”. Leni Riefenstahl was, of course, the woman who produced all sorts of Nazi propaganda films for the 1936 German Olympics- you would imagine for Spielberg, the Jewish director of the world’s most famous holocaust movie, that’s got to smart just a little. He immediately joined in with Farrow’s criticism and demanded that China condemn Sudan’s behaviour.
Rogge, for the record, avoided the Darfur question when it was put to him recently, but did insist that he hoped the Games would eventually be a "force for good" in China. In fact, all this ludicrous celebrity pressure seems to have worked, and the Olympics may well end up being a force for good, as Rogge wishes. The Chinese Government, clearly unused to dealing with the pressures of high profile celebrity haranguing, promptly sent officials to Darfur and asked the Sudanese government to clean up their act. It is unfortunate that it was they who sold the weapons to Sudan in the first place for them to commit such atrocities, but let us not nitpick. Let us dwell instead on the reassuring power of Hollywood.
Soon, we must hope, Angelina Jolie and Madonna will arrive in Beijing, each with shopping trolleys full of Sudanese refugee babies, freshly exported for the inevitable photocall in Tiananmen Square. Arnold Schwarzenegger will appear to add his considerable weight behind the “Genocide Olympic movement”. Alec Baldwin, the leader of F.A.G in Team America, will also be there, taking his eleven year old daughter on an apology holiday for recently calling her a pig in a voicemail message that found its way onto the internet and into the homes of millions. Soon the cause will be the perfect way of salvaging credibility for the disgraced celebrity- Jade Goody and Danielle Lloyd will offer to carry the Olympic torch. And everyone will forget that behind the scenes, in the parts of Beijing they won’t let you see, the government are happily bulldozing swathes of centuries-old traditional Chinese homes, glad of the celebrity distraction Hollywood is providing.
Jacques Rogge may well be scratching his head at the onslaught of criticism; or maybe he’s delighted at the publicity. Perhaps, after London 2012, he had pencilled in North Korea and Iran as the next two hosts. A fabulous idea; by that time McAuley Culkin will be forty years old and in need of a Geldof-like reinvention, Lindsay Lohan will be onto her third nose, and Daniel Radcliffe will be looking for “a new challenge.” Countless others will join them under the flag first raised by the venerable Mia Farrow. Ridiculous though it is, in the case of the Chinese, it may well have worked.
In a scenario that is oddly reminiscent of the movie Team America (for the uninitiated, Hollywood’s elite form a politically active union called the Film Actors’ Guild- F.A.G for short), the IOC have found themselves harangued by none other than actress turned UN Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow. The sixty-one year old starlet of yesteryear has gone so far as to call the Beijing games “the Genocide games”, and has forced the powers that be to answer some very awkward questions about the Chinese government’s support for the Government of Sudan after atrocities carried out in Darfur in 2004.
What Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, must be feeling is anybody’s guess. His organisation runs itself on a strictly non-political mandate to use sport as a power for good around the world. To be accused of being in favour of genocide by a greying Hollywood veteran is, I would venture, new ground for them.
Mia Farrow did not stop with the organising committee, however. None other than Steven Spielberg, that grand old duke of Hollywood, has been dragged into the melee because he is currently acting as an artistic director for the Olympics. In a comment either devastatingly critical or horrendously unfortunate, the man who brought us Schindler’s List is told he is in danger of becoming “the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing games”. Leni Riefenstahl was, of course, the woman who produced all sorts of Nazi propaganda films for the 1936 German Olympics- you would imagine for Spielberg, the Jewish director of the world’s most famous holocaust movie, that’s got to smart just a little. He immediately joined in with Farrow’s criticism and demanded that China condemn Sudan’s behaviour.
Rogge, for the record, avoided the Darfur question when it was put to him recently, but did insist that he hoped the Games would eventually be a "force for good" in China. In fact, all this ludicrous celebrity pressure seems to have worked, and the Olympics may well end up being a force for good, as Rogge wishes. The Chinese Government, clearly unused to dealing with the pressures of high profile celebrity haranguing, promptly sent officials to Darfur and asked the Sudanese government to clean up their act. It is unfortunate that it was they who sold the weapons to Sudan in the first place for them to commit such atrocities, but let us not nitpick. Let us dwell instead on the reassuring power of Hollywood.
Soon, we must hope, Angelina Jolie and Madonna will arrive in Beijing, each with shopping trolleys full of Sudanese refugee babies, freshly exported for the inevitable photocall in Tiananmen Square. Arnold Schwarzenegger will appear to add his considerable weight behind the “Genocide Olympic movement”. Alec Baldwin, the leader of F.A.G in Team America, will also be there, taking his eleven year old daughter on an apology holiday for recently calling her a pig in a voicemail message that found its way onto the internet and into the homes of millions. Soon the cause will be the perfect way of salvaging credibility for the disgraced celebrity- Jade Goody and Danielle Lloyd will offer to carry the Olympic torch. And everyone will forget that behind the scenes, in the parts of Beijing they won’t let you see, the government are happily bulldozing swathes of centuries-old traditional Chinese homes, glad of the celebrity distraction Hollywood is providing.
Jacques Rogge may well be scratching his head at the onslaught of criticism; or maybe he’s delighted at the publicity. Perhaps, after London 2012, he had pencilled in North Korea and Iran as the next two hosts. A fabulous idea; by that time McAuley Culkin will be forty years old and in need of a Geldof-like reinvention, Lindsay Lohan will be onto her third nose, and Daniel Radcliffe will be looking for “a new challenge.” Countless others will join them under the flag first raised by the venerable Mia Farrow. Ridiculous though it is, in the case of the Chinese, it may well have worked.
Labels: Sport / Politics
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