In appearance Cameron Diaz is someone lovely enough to make me believe – if only for a second – in ‘intelligent design’ – but even those most inclined to give her the benefit of every doubt have to contend with the sneaky, troubling, suspicion that she is as dumb as a particularly stupid rock. First there were those ‘rape’ comments during the election, and now there is this:
“The 32-year-old Diaz, who earns a reported $20-million a movie, boasted that the cow-dung slathered walls of a Nepalese village hut were “beautiful” and “inspiring,” and she called the primitive practice of “pounding mud” with sticks to construct a building foundation “the coolest thing.”
There is something rather disgusting about the richest of the rich world rejoicing in the primitive squalor from which mankind is – all too slowly – emerging. There is also something profoundly condescending and, at its root, maybe even racist, in the way that Diaz (and, read the terrific article on all this nonsense here, Drew Barrymore too) appear to imagine that the third worlders trapped in desperate poverty do not share in the material aspirations of the more fortunate portions of humanity.
And as, for those ’spiritual’ values that Diaz purports to find in picturesque hellholes such as Bhutan, I suspect that, given the chance, most of those bowers, scrapers and chanters would be pleased to junk their shamans, temples and priests in favour of running water, electricity and decent education.
And they would be right to.
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