What a pleasant surprise. Good for them.NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.
The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper.
It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.
"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.
"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.
"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."
A who's who of Hollywood heavyweights joined Kidman on the ad. The actors listed included: Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt.
Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names.
Other Hollywood powerplayers supporting the ad included Sumner Redstone, the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul, Haim Saban.
(h/t Instapundit)
3 comments:
The only reason I think it is important for this group of people to speak out against terrorism this way is that, sadly, it is not a given anymore. It should be assumed that terrorism is a terrible thing. I mean, I can't imagine these people taking out a huge ad in a paper to declare: murder is wrong. That is understood. So I guess the sad thing about this post is that there are thosein the world who don't see terrorism as a bad thing. Still, I'll take the good from the article (the unity of these community members coming together to condemn atrocities.)
Ken Stringfellow, a notable musician who plays with REM and The Posies said in a recent article, "I don’t find modern musicians any more fascinating than, say, Mesopotamian farmers, and in reality, I would much rather read about the latter."
His general point is that musicians, like celebrities, don't particularly matter much more than anybody else and anybody else is probably more interesting. I'd say that's true of Nicole et al. So to the ad, I'd probably say "Who cares?"
The ad basically says "We Celebrities Say Terrorism is Bad." It might just as well be a full page ad by Dairy Farmers that says "We Dairy Farmers Say The Sky is Blue" Just as pointless and just as unimportant.
I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that celebrities' opinions are unimportant in the grand scheme of things (except, perhaps, for a guy like Bono, who uses his celebrity to try to bring relief to the poor and destitute). I usually find their opinions not well considered and oftentimes...wait for it...emotion-based.
But, it's so rare to see a group of celebrities not reflexively blame an isssue like the Israel/Hezbollah conflict on America and President Bush that it warranted some recognition, in my mind. It was the shock factor, I guess.
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