Sunday 16 March 2014

update: Scarlett is on the Zed Team

[Superchick: Hey, there's some Palestinian children with rocks]

No, it's not a new action movie
based on a graphic novel. It's not
a goofy comedy, with cleavage.
It's the scariest, most powerful political team
on the planet, that threatens to bring us
to the brink of WW3.

Oh, what a con job.
We all have fallen for the cute girl who can't act.
Except, some think she can:
"Allen has gone on record about Johansson's abilities as an actress:
how she is "sexually overwhelming"; how she has a "zaftig humidity";
and how he believed that she has the "acting ability to be not just a
passing pinup girl but a genuinely meaningful actress"."
But, what does that neurotic wimp know about sex or sexy?
He rolled his own. That's probably affected his judgement on SJ's acting.
In Woody's "Point Whatever" movie, she was horrible.
Anyway, when it comes to acting, she knows how to place her butt.

If you remember, I wrote about the Palestine Blues,
a few stories ago. I was wondering about why
Scarlett Johansen signed up to represent Soda Stream.

Well, now I have the answer. Essentially, she has
some relativist arguments for the employment
the factory provides and then she gets a bit
evasive on details.

When an interviewer mentions that she lost her
post as ambassador for Oxfam, she let's the
bomb drop. She criticises Oxfam for participating
in a BDS campaign against Israel. So, she's upset
that Oxfam is into Boycott Divestment and
Sanctions against the homeland of her mother.

Now, everything makes sense. No discussion
of the righteousness of BDS, the near concensus
in the UK for BDS, or the mess she's got herself
into. It's an issue of blood, and by extension, politics.
The interviewer didn't catch that angle. She's British.
End of story. End of a lot of things.
End of the connection between
SJ's body
[the 2-dimensional image, that is]
& my phallus.
Story and letter clips, below:

checkit: The Observer
Scarlett Johansson interview: 'I would way rather not have middle ground'
The star talks to Carole Cadwalladr about playing an alien in Under the Skin – Jonathan Glazer's low-budget sci-fi film set in Glasgow – and her role in the recent SodaStream controversy

Carole Cadwalladr
Sunday 16 March 2014
...
She's flustered, and since I've been given the wind-up signal by the publicist, I move on to an even more difficult subject. SodaStream. When I Google "Scarlett Johansson" the fizzy-drinks maker is the third predictive search suggestion in the list, after "Scarlett Johansson hot" – before even "Scarlett Johansson bum". A month ago, Johansson found herself caught up in a raging news story when it emerged Oxfam had written to her regarding her decision to become a brand ambassador for SodaStream. The company, it transpired, manufactures its products in a factory in a settlement on the West Bank, and while "Oxfam respects the independence of our ambassadors," it wrote, it also "believes that businesses that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support".

Johansson responded by stepping down from her Oxfam role. From afar, it looked liked she'd received very poor advice; that someone who is paid good money to protect her interests hadn't done the necessary research before she'd accepted the role and that she'd unwittingly inserted herself into the world's most intractable geopolitical conflict. By the time Oxfam raised the issue, she was going to get flak if she did step down, flak if she didn't. Was the whole thing just a bit of a mistake?
But she shakes her head. "No, I stand behind that decision. I was aware of that particular factory before I signed it." Really? "Yes, and… it still doesn't seem like a problem. Until someone has a solution to the closing of that factory to leaving all those people destitute, that doesn't seem like the solution to the problem."

But the international community says that the settlements are illegal and shouldn't be there. "I think that's something that's very easily debatable. In that case, I was literally plunged into a conversation that's way grander and larger than this one particular issue. And there's no right side or wrong side leaning on this issue."

Except, there's a lot of unanimity, actually, I say, about the settlements on the West Bank. "I think in the UK there is," she says. "That's one thing I've realised… I'm coming into this as someone who sees that factory as a model for some sort of movement forward in a seemingly impossible situation."

Well, not just the UK. There's also the small matter of the UN security council, the UN general assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice… which all agree that they're in contravention of international law. Half of me admires Johansson for sticking to her guns – her mother is Jewish and she obviously has strong opinions about Israel and its policies. Half of me thinks she's hopelessly naive. Or, most likely, poorly advised. Of all the conflicts in all the world to plant yourself in the middle of…

"When I say a mistake," I say, "I mean partly because people saw you making a choice between Oxfam – a charity that is out to alleviate global poverty – and accepting a lot of money to advertise a product for a commercial company. For a lot of people, that's like making a choice between charity – good – and lots of money – greed."

"Sure I think that's the way you can look at it. But I also think for a non-governmental organisation to be supporting something that's supporting a political cause… there's something that feels not right about that to me. There's plenty of evidence that Oxfam does support and has funded a BDS [boycott, divest, sanctions] movement in the past. It's something that can't really be denied." When I contacted Oxfam, it denied this.
....LETTERS
legaff

16 March 2014 9:15am
Recommended 243
Americans are rather scary when it comes to Israel.
It's like they really couldn't give a f*ck about Palestinians.

EnglishroG

16 March 2014 9:26am
Recommended 272
A very interesting interview.
I too, made excuses for her when the whole SodaStream controversy arose. But it seems that far from being extremely poorly advised, she's actually an ardent Zionist.
Which, sadly, means I'll never see another film of hers again.
[I gotta agree with this person, but with my phallus- Cos67]