America needs its celebrities to do the RIGHT thing

Every now and then, when I feel I need a good snicker and an invigorating rush of blood to the obstreperal lobe, I read the USA-based conservative punditry website Townhall.

I didn't even bother with the usual wingnut fare of anti-immigration, anti-judges, anti-gay-rights and global-warming-isn't-happening stuff, because that's all just retreaded pap, and I wished for novel pap. (There was no way either that I was going to read the trophy bilebag's column desperately touting her new book by including its name in the title of her column - AC feeds on our outrage, so starve her, people!)

One title stood out though "Anderson and Angelina" (I thought the Anderson would be Pamela, but no) by Debra Saunders. Ooh, Townhall does celebrity smackdown: this should be fun!

Saunder's column was about Ms Jolie appearing on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN. The column opened with a gratuitous swipe at Cooper for low ratings when he took over that timeslot in November 2005 from Aaron Brown. (CNN says the ratings increased when Cooper joined Newsnight as co-anchor, and his book is currently a bestseller, but she wants to paint him as some sort of failure, it seems). Then in terse, pursed-lipped prose she almost reflexively mentioned Jolie's tattoos, her divorce from a Hollywood actor (but not her earlier divorce from a British one) and her recent delivery of a baby "sired by a movie star who just last year was someone else's husband".

Then she got onto describing the actual interview:

It promised to be a package of everything annoying about celebrity culture -- the rich and statuesque preening as they bemoan the plight of the destitute and forsaken.

Not so. As a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency, Jolie, 31, is doing important work as she spreads the word about people who have nothing.

The rest of the piece is fluff about how Jolie is a truly admirable activist (as indeed she is):

I like Jolie's message of hope. Celebrity interviews often emit a vampire-like quality, as breathless interviewers feed on stars' personal tragedies and setbacks and the celebrity-victim comes across as the latest pouty facelift with a story that says, "Poor me."

For Jolie, the focus is on the truly poor, and the many things Americans can do for them if they open their wallets. She sees the suffering, but also she sees the resilience of people who have endured unspeakable loss -- yet it is not too late to help them.

By this stage, with the article nearly finished, I was confused. Why has Saunders been so complimentary of this very non-traditional woman? Where is the extended wingnut whine about her unconventional lifestyle choices I've come to expect? WHERE'S MY FIX!?!

I should have known that Saunders wouldn't let me down. She waited until the very last sentence, after those laudatory paragraphs above emphasising how Jolie's charity work encourages Americans to open their wallets for poor people in other countries. You see, if Jolie wants Americans to do that for other people, then she needs to do something for America in return:

Now, Angelina, think of little girls in this country who see you as a role model. Marry your baby's father.

Oh. Yes. Finding yourself a man who wants to be a hands-on coparent and co-adopt all your children, not just the one he "sired", isn't nearly good enough unless you get that ring on your finger, missy. It's downright anti-American, asking people to donate money to poor people when you're blatantly unmarried with a new baby and we see that the baby's father hasn't run out on you. Why, it's cheating the American people, that's what it is. That's the stuff. Give it to me, baby.

The marital status of Jolie is a recurring theme in Right-Blogistan. Apparently, Pitt going through all the bother of legally adopting Jolie's children and changing their surname to include his own means that obviously he is going to be a meaningless and impermanent feature in their lives, because all that means nothing without a wedding certificate. In fact, the wingnuts would be much happier if Pitt and Jolie had got married without him adopting the other children at all, as apparently then he would "really" be their daddy, instead of just legally their daddy.

Forget about doing good work for people in danger from trivial things like starvation and disease. America needs you to protect all those little girls from unwedded bliss. Right now! Before they get minds of their own!

Give something back to America, you selfish pair - walk down the bloody aisle.

Oh, that was good wingnut.