No Appetite for Fame?

Bloody celebrity do-gooders! I don't know about you, but frankly, Ive come to the end of my tether with their attempts to co-opt every form of protest and every humanitarian cause to their own self-glorification. OK, I know that I've never had much time for celebrities per se, let alone their charitable campaigning, but I've finally been pushed over the edge into total intolerance by Mia Farrow's bloody 'hunger strike' for Darfur refugees, (not, I'm sure, that any of them actually asked her to do it). If anything ever highlighted the way in which celebrities want all the kudos and self-satisfaction which accompany dramatic gestures for good causes, but don't actually want to endure the inconvenient and unpleasant consequences that such sacrifices entail, then this debacle does. To cut a long story short, Farrow has given up her 'hunger strike' because it made her ill. Well, no shit! Isn't that the point of hunger strikes - that in order to draw attention to a cause someone forces the rest of the world watch them become ill and, ultimately, die?

But not to worry, Britain's village idiot, Richard Branson, has come to the rescue, agreeing to take over where Mia Farrow left off. But only for three days. For fuck's sake! This farcical affair has to be the ultimate in celebrity dilettantism. Either take the concept of a hunger strike seriously, or don't bother. Really, if you don't feel strongly enough about your cause to give your life for it, then fuck off. How would it have been if Bobby Sands had decided that he was going to give up his hunger strike after a few days because he was feeling unwell? Does anybody believe that if the Indian government hadn't thought that Gandhi was serious in his intent to fast-until-death in 1947 they would have made any attempt to heal the sectarian rifts which had prompted his actions? Of course bloody not! But of course, that doesn't matter where celebrity campaigns are concerned. The whole point - as they see it - is that everyone should be overawed that someone as wealthy, famous and generally fabulous as them should even consider taking such drastic action. The authorities should be so shocked that they've driven the great and the good to not eat for three days that they automatically mend their ways! What next, I wonder? Perhaps Bono will threaten to immolate himself over third world debt, except that he'll douse himself in water, rather than petrol, as that's better environmentally. Besides, actually burning himself to crisp would increase his carbon footprint and contribute to global warming. Celebrities, eh? What a bunch of fuckwits.