MASCOTS OF THE ANOINTED: The ongoing creation of Greta Thunberg.
The account of Greta’s plight is undeniably moving. As is the portrait of Malena and Svante’s worry and anxiety, as they battle to stop Greta from wasting away. And wasting away she is. After dropping 10 kilograms in weight, the doctors tell Malena and Svante that she will have to be hospitalised unless she starts eating. It takes a heart of stone not to feel for this family, torn apart by a daughter who seems to be willing death.
It takes a heart of stone not to laugh, too, as the other Greta emerges in her mother’s proud re-telling, diagnosis in hand, and a cause for which to fight. This Greta is straight from the character stable of the 21st-century sitcom, the super-intelligent nerd whose truth-telling defies social norms, the geek who pays no heed to the feelings of others. Like that of Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory or Moss from the IT Crowd, her comedy is that of the absolutely humourless.
So to her father, who has just returned from Sardinia having taken Beata away for a restorative break, Greta’s first words are: ‘You just released 2.7 tonnes of CO2 flying there and back. And that’s the equivalent of the annual emissions of five people in Senegal.’ And to her mother one morning over breakfast, apropos of nothing: ‘You celebrities are basically to the environment what anti-immigrant politicians are to multicultural society.’
You’re a thought criminal! And apparently, as socialists, her parents’ reactions were very much akin to Parsons after he was arrested in 1984:
‘It was my little daughter,’ said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. ‘She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don’t bear her any grudge for it. In fact I’m proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.’
Read the whole thing.
Related: Prince Harry Tells Russian Prankster Greta Thunberg Would Outsmart ‘Sick’ Trump.