Dear Ms. Jolie,
I am writing you because I respect your work as an artist and as activist. As successful actress you have been given much power and sway in our society. I have noticed that you have used that power and influence in ways that reflect love for humanity and social concern such as your work with Project Hope International and other non-profits.
Recently, as I was waiting for the bus on the corner of my street there was the ad for WANTED, larger than life: Ms. Jolie brandishing a silver gun. The provocative photo venerated the sexy gun in your hand. I live in South Central Los Angeles—a neighborhood famous for guns, for gangs, for fear. There are many, complicated factors that have caused this neighborhood to have fallen into the destructive hands of guns and fear. But as I stood with mothers and children, with teens, and neighborhood drunks waiting for the bus, I was deeply disturbed by the glorification of the gun in the advertisement for your movie. As gun violence is seeping into suburbs with the massacres at Columbine High, Virginia Tech and other schools and as gun violence continues to claim lives in my neighborhood both by killing and wounding the victims, but also by imprisoning the people who have chosen to use guns, there is no excuse for continuing the glorification, the promotion, and romanticizing of guns, in public places. Just like cigarettes can not be advertised to children, or in public places, our love affair with guns should not be encouraged in public places.
As a mother, you know children are sponges, soaking up the words and images around them. Please use your power as a celebrity to stop using guns in advertisements in public places. The glorification, the ample use of guns should be in movies theatres where people have a choice to view or not to view gun usage. I realize you probably had nothing to do with the scene that was chosen to advertise your movie, but I am asking you, as a concerned citizen to use your voice, and your position to make a change.
Yours truly,
Alessandra S
323-***-****
p.s. I have been a fan of your since Hackers. =)
3 comments:
Thank heaven somebody said this. I can't believe no one has said this before now or pointed out the utter incongruity in the "do-good" image Angelina and Brad Pitt try to market while this just undoes and undermines every bit of it and shows who she really is...mixed up!
Angelina Jolie dismissed the role with the justification that it's only really bad guys she kills in the movie, people that would kill hundreds if she didn't kill them.
The movie is a glorification of cold, senseless guns, violence and glamorized power by force.
Gunmanship is one thing. The hate she spews is...passe`. No "reason" justifies it.
Is Ms. Jolie just on a power trip? With the children she adopts. Like maybe she sees herself in them but they are helpless and she is in control. The controversy and still murky issue around misleading the press intentionally, with the cold way she pollutes our days.
I'm so disappointed. The image of her with that gun (and her arms are like drug users arms) is painful. Juts what the world (and inner cities) do not need!
Angelina Jolie is an example of the "star making" machine that can get millions of people to pay for substitute garbage instead of real stars.
Giving back a few of those millions that we all pay these people does not make up for the damage and rip off.
I'm disappointed, she is not a star. She doesn't shine.
How can she call herself a "Goodwill Ambassador" and put out that glorification of cold guns? That's old school super hero. Maybe something John Wayne dreamed about but this is a different time!
Giving her tax deductions to charity doesn't make it right.
Bless you for speaking out.
Thank you friend, for your comment. However, I feel you may have missed the trajectory of my letter. I am not trying to be angry, I am trying to have hope.
Hear hear!
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