Trainwreck (#10):
Your parenthetical comment, “which makes them feel good”, is actually the entire point of Ms. Farrow’s exercise; it has absolutely nothing to do with trying to “change the hearts of dictators”.
If she has even three interconnected neurons — I know, I know, but just go with me here — she has to know that dropping a few pounds isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference (except maybe to herself; hell, maybe she feels she’s getting a bit broad in the beam, so to speak, and she’s trying to multi-task).
But making a difference is not her purpose. Her purpose is precisely what you stated: to feel good about herself, to indulge in some form of self-righteous, pious posturing that won’t wreck her manicure. (And maybe to get back into a size-two without being beholden to Jenny Craig, like that sellout Valerie Bertinelli.)
That’s all that these people are about. Remember that classic photograph of Sean Penn’s “Katrina rescue mission”? The Gilligan joke in that picture practically leaped off the screen and Gibbs-smacked you up-side the head. This kind of feel-good, self-aggrandizing, yet utterly pointless nonsense is what passes, in what I am charitably going to call their minds, as effective social activism. In reality, it’s just self-delusional narcissism.
Kind of sad, when you think about it.
