Material Mom

This whole celebrity third world adoption thing has me feeling very uncomfortable. When Angelina did it, it at least seemed half-way genuine. But these pictures of Madonna in Malawi? I don't know, they seem just exploitative to me. It seems like every celebrity now is going on these junkets to Africa or Asia or wherever they can find starving people of color and coming home with their very own, home-grown souvenir! Look world! I care about poverty! I even got my own hungry child. If I give it food and water they say it will grow! Neat!

Don't get me wrong - I think it's great when famous people use their notoriety to spread the word on serious issues and good causes. However, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do it - and picking up a one-year-old orphan boy as if he's a new Louis Vuitton isn't the right way. Since I'm on the subject, it seems like babies in general are Hollywood's new trendy fashion item. No more Fidos in purses dressed in their garish costumes - now it's tiny dress-up dolls in carriages and Prada. They're so trendy, these baby-things, that Britney Spears has two! (It wouldn't be quite as upsetting if K-Fed weren't the sire.)

Does this rub anyone else the wrong way? The pictures of Madonna with the boy on her back almost make me want to cry. Yes, she's likely rescuing him from a life of misery, but what about the more fundamental problems at issue there? For instance, why not address those in the hopes that the kid's own father can one day make enough of a living to support his son. Ok, Ok, she's giving $3 million to the orphanage, but that still just helps perpetuate the problems that make the orphanage necessary. I feel like Angelina at least gets these ideas and her work with the UN reflects that. Madge and some of the others, though, they just want good publicity in my book.