Recaps, commentary, highlights of your pop culture favourites and mine! Email me: timmybopper@yahoo.com

 
I know it's a little out-dated, but I thought I'd post something I wrote for the paper a month ago. Unfortunately, it didn't get printed... sniff, sniff...


I open up the new issue of GQ and right in the middle of the magazine, in between pages of ads for Marc Jacobs and Lacoste, is a donation form for "Aid the Children" - an anti-poverty agency. Does anyone else see an irony in this seemingly innocent benevolent act? You'd think that a magazine encouraging donations to aid the poor wouldn't be stressing the importance of buying a $150 shirt on the page immediately after y'know? But sadly, that's the whole "GQ" (by way of Hollywood) mentality - which is: It's okay to spend hundreds of dollars on unnecessarily expensive products for yourself, as long as you toss a penny every now and then to a random "charity case" or two.

Britney Spears' mother recently had to post a message on her website to defend Britney's no-show at her own "Britney Spears Foundation" camp. Blah blah blah, Britney's "knee injury," blah blah blah. Britney's supposed knee injury is healed. Have you not seen the photos of her "frolicking" around the beach, or well, walking? The thing is, a lot of people like Britney Spears believe they're patron saints by donating money to a "good cause" or sponsoring a charitable event But I bet Britney doesn't really know what her camp even does. Or who attends the camp. Or where the money goes to. She doesn't pay attention to her camp because, frankly, isn't it enough that she gives them money? Well... no.

And don't even get me started on the whole American "Rock the Vote!" movement (It's more US Weekly than US-A, if you ask me). By the number of celebs jumping on this campaign I swear it's the new kabbalah. Ashlee Simpson was recently photographed wearing a "Vote or Die" t-shirt, as was Lindsay Lohan and Mariah Carey. It's awesome for these pop cultural "role models" to be encouraging kids to vote, but I'll bet that most of them don't even know what they're voting for. Lindsay Lohan engaged in political conversation? Right... And with Mariah making millions of dollars and busy perfecting her "I'm of bi-racial heritage" tan, I don't think she's too concerned with public administration or the war on terrorism - which is unfortunate for her, because Mariah knows a thing or two about bombing...

Now don't get me wrong; there are a lot of celebrities out there who are genuinely interested in and concerned for, the welfare of those less fortunate. And these individuals should be commended for using their visibility to promote worthy causes and for fostering a united spirit of compassion. Yet when “banding together” becomes a “band-wagon,” there's more than a slight cause for concern. Sure it’s easy to be enticed by a purring Paris Hilton to donate money to PETA. But it's also easy to get confused when Paris is prancing down the catwalk in mink the next week. And getting Madonna to talk up the moral values of religion is like letting Snoop Dogg takeover the D.A.R.E. program. It just isn't right.

Jessica Simpson was recently hired to be the spokesperson for a foundation that provides re-constructive mouth surgery to kids. Asking Jessica Simpson to endorse something is like… well… pointless really. This girl can't tell tuna from chicken and we expect her to educate us about developments in medical sciences? Something smells fishy here. And it's not the tuna.


posted by Tim at 4:23 PM