Sharon Stone’s Comments Get Her Movies Banned in China

This journal believes movie star Sharon Stone couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. However, she does still get work in movies, and she is a box office draw. That said, some comments she made at the Cannes Film Festival last week about Tibet and the killer earthquake in the People’s Republic have got her films banned in China. Not only can’t she act, she can’t tell when to shut up.

In situations like this it is best to let the person’s own words hang him or her. So, here’s what she said on the red carpet in Cannes. “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else . . . . I’ve been concerned about how we should deal with the Olympics, because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma – when you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?”

This just goes to show that the regressive, religious right in America doesn’t have a monopoly on misunderstanding natural disasters. They happen as and when they do according to the laws of physics, geology and meteorology. When her friends' houses in the Hollywood Hills burn as they so often do in California, she hasn’t suggested that they are behaving badly. The earthquake in China occurred because of plate tectonics that have raised up the Himalayas and that continue to do so. The death toll was increased by crap construction due to corruption among Chinese builders. That may seem like a sort of karma, but if that were so, only the corrupt builders would have died and not 80,000 innocents.

The Chinese, who are feeling rather nationalistic these days, have taken umbrage. The Times reports, “The popular Beijing Times quoted Ng See-yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain, as saying that no film featuring Ms Stone would be shown from now on at any UME cinema in Hong Kong or in the mainland. Her most recent film, The Year of Getting to Know Us, and four other movies starring the actress, are scheduled by 2010. The Chinese public relations company acting for cosmetic and couture house Christian Dior – which uses Ms Stone extensively in its advertisements – had distanced itself from her remarks, the newspaper said. Dior boutiques in major Beijing department stores had removed images of Ms Stone in advertisements by yesterday evening."

There is, though, a certain karma effect in all of this. Ms. Stone has said something rather stupid and quite offensive to a nation of 1 billion who are feeling a bit sensitive regarding their national image. As a result, they are going to boycott her movies, thus making less money for the studios and ultimately for her. Perhaps in her next film, she can use as a theme song John Lennon’s “Instant Karma,” and the movie can be about the harm talking without thinking can cause.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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