Strollerderby : angelin jolie

Madonna/Angelina Dichotomy: Why is Adoption Okay for One Star but not the Other?

Shannon LC Cate — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

This is something I just don't get. Why is it that Angelina Jolie is supposed to be a saint for adopting children from poor countries while Madonna is criticized for same?

All the pros and cons of international adoption aside (it has well justified groups of both supporters and detractors), it seems that when Jolie swoops into a country and adopts a child, she is considered to be, well, some kind of Madonna, whereas when, er, Madonna goes to Malawi and adopts, leaving an NGO to support the entire country's children in her wake, she gets all kinds of push-back from the press who bother to ask international adoption critics what they think. For example, a UK charity, Save the Children spokesperson commenting on Madonna's plan to adopt a Malawian sister for David said "You cannot literally take every poor child who may only have one parent living, or no parent living, across the world and transport them all into Kensington in London. It's not a solution." Well, duh, hence Madonna's NGO.

I am awfully sympathetic to the view that that children should, whenever possible, stay in the countries and/or communities of their birth and be cared for by their own relatives or at least community members who share their cultural origins. I chose domestic open adoption to make sure my own kids would not lose contact with their biological and cultural origins. But I'm also sympathetic to the fact that Madonna, having adopted one child from Malawi, sees the need for him to have another member of his family share his background. I'm a transracially adoptive mother of two, (rather than one) for similar reasons.

There is some pretty good evidence that the orphanage where Jolie adopted son, Maddox, is corrupt in its practices, perhaps manufacturing "orphans" for lucrative international adoption placements. Madonna's adoption of son, David (who retains his original surname, Banda), was a case in which no one pretended the child didn't have living relatives--indeed he has a father who apparently visited David in the orphanage regularly and agreed to his adoption. Madonna has taken David to visit his biological father on several occasions since his adoption. In fact, she seems to be doing international adoption as well as it can be done.

Now mind you, I pity any child raised by a celebrity, regardless of how she ended up in the family. I can't imagine a much worse environment for a kid, except perhaps an orphanage--but even that would depend on the orphanage. I'm neither advocating, nor poo-pooing Jolie or Madonna's adopting ways. And I'm not a big fan of either of them. I simply don't understand why the media treats them so differently when it comes to their children.

Is it age? Madonna is fifty while Angelina is 30-something. Is it public image? I didn't think Jolie's celebrity identity was all that squeaky clean before she started having kids, am I wrong? Maybe people just don't like Madonna. Maybe they just like Jolie.

Then again, maybe the strong light cast on Madonna's first adoption, in which questions were raised about the biological father's consent and the laws of Malawi has allowed people to see the complexity of international adoption in a way that Jolie's less publicized adoption details do not. But the fact is that all adoption is fraught with controversial details and questions about what is truly in a child's best interest. All adoptions raise the spectral question of how to help all the children who are left in need, and not adopted; of how to help parents and communities keep their own children and raise them to healthy adulthood. No adoption is pure and uncomplicated. Not the purest, least complicated one. Madonna deserves no more criticism than I do, or than any adoptive parent does. But all members of wealthy societies--adoptive parents or otherwise--need to take a look at their own culpability in perpetuating systems and governments that render some parents and children so desperate that adoption becomes their best option.

Brangelina Won't Marry Until the Gays Can

Shannon LC Cate — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:02:00 GMT

In an interview with W magazine, Brad Pitt discussed his strong support of same-sex marriage. Having given the anti-Proposition 8 campaign $100,000 last summer, Pitt explained to W that

"People who are against gay marriage do not understand the very freedoms that they themselves are enjoying. What if someone said, ‘Sorry, no Christianity here? No Judaism. Certainly no Mormons.’ No one would stand for that, and I wouldn’t allow anyone to say that either. I’d fight them in the same way.”

Pitt claims he and partner Angelina Jolie refuse to marry until the right to do so is afforded everyone.

Who should know better than the unmarried parents of six kids the hassle of not being married? While money--which both of them have in truckloads, of course--can provide a lot of familial security, the basic rights of both parents are not protected without marriage. Even Pitt's biological children are his only if Jolie says so and allows him onto the birth certificate. If the couple were married, any children born to Jolie would be Pitt's legal children. Same-sex couples usually must adopt each other's biological or adopted children to become both legal parents. And sometimes that option isn't even available. Pitt and Jolie have a unique understanding of this, having been through second-parent adoptions for their children who were born in places that don't allow unmarried couples to adopt together (as most U.S. jurisdictions do not, if that couple is two members of the same sex).

Brangelina are hardly ordinary folk. Like I said, their money can fill a lot of the cracks legal difficulties cause for us mortals. But I appreciate them putting their power behind the cause of standing up for those without the privilege of wealth--or the privilege to marry.

Image: wmagazine.com

Best of FameCrawler: Week of November 21st

Whit Honea — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

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