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The Third World Is Not A Baby Farm For Celebrities

zuzu

While I wholeheartedly support the adoption of children rather than making your own, there’s just something unseemly and faintly colonial about celebrities adopting babies from Africa as if they were fashion accessories. Angelina did it, Britney considered it. Madonna is the latest.

I think AbFab covered this well with the Rumanian baby episode.

76 thoughts on The Third World Is Not A Baby Farm For Celebrities

  1. And while I wholeheartedly support and have been involved with international human rights and I think it is an extremeley important issue, I’m wondering when celebrities (hmmm…and our own politicians maybe?) will start supporting human rights and addressing issues of poverty, crime, etc. in our own country. All you have to do is walk down the street where I grew up in Oakland, California to find numerous examples of people in need of aid. We are at our 121st murder (well, that was Tuesday…it’s probably gone up since then) here in my beautiful city – there are shootings almost everyday and I hear sirens constantly outside my bedroom window (I live by the hospital where most shooting victims are brought). I’m not saying that people in other countries don’t need “help,” but I just wonder when people with power and prestige (and $$$) will begin to look at our own problems..

  2. It does have a bit of an air of “look at my child-prop to see how socially responsible and compassionate I am!”.

    On the other hand, I can’t say I know their motivations. And while I may think the whole thing has a weird feel, there are also an awful lot of kids out there in the world who need parents — I just also wish this stuff didn’t tend to have a paternalistic quality about it: oh, look, us very wealthy American celebrities will aid the poor, helpless people of African nations!

    Still, it’s hard to get too bitchy with them for trying to do something. The usual American reaction to Africa is… well, there isn’t one, because we pretty much ignore its existance.

  3. For me, the weirdness started when this glossy magazine I used to subscribe to (I think it may have been the now-defunct Talk, I am not sure) ran a fashion spread with a real live baby as an “accessory.” I was what, fourteen (?) at the time, but my mind screamed “WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!” I had a baby brother who was much younger, and I did it all, poopy diapers, learning to walk, puppet shows, terrible two’s… And even to teenage eyes, this notion of a little human being as a fashion statement alongside the model’s crocodile pumps was not ironic, not tongue-in-cheek, but weird and scary.

    It’s also interesting to note that it is much easier to commodify the “third-world” or “developing world” or “poor” babies. I think it’s very similar to the way that trafficking victims are commodified and sold, at least on the surface. The way the press treats these things is truly bizarre. I remember Jane magazine did a feature on adopting “exotic” kids. This reporter was sent into an expensive boutique with a rambunctious “Eastern-looking” kid. She told the salesperson that she “got him from Cambodia” because she “wanted a souvenir.” They didn’t bat an eyelash. Perhaps it’s part of their job to remain impassive, but still, the fact that these things are tolerated and even encouraged

    Now, I am all for taking in other people’s kids and giving them a loving home. I hope, I dream, I ache to adopt at least one baby from my native Ukraine eventually, because I have seen Ukrainian orphanages and orphans up close, and I know how horrible things can be for most of the kids in there.

    But when the entire process is turned into a cause celebre, by inner bullshit-meter goes off the scale.

  4. baby-as-accessory has made a general comeback IMO in the last couple of years — it goes through little phases. I like kids, don’t get me wrong, but they’re friggin’ everywhere right now as far as pop culture goes. It seriously reminds me of the New Fall Fashion! kind of crap.

    Baby-as-accessory-and-display-of-politics, yeah, it’s a weird thing.

  5. I think AbFab covered this well with the Rumanian baby episode.

    Oh, yeeeeessss. I loved that episode. “Whee! Watch me take the baby out for walkies….”

  6. how about a white celebrity, or any white upper to middle class couple, or even a black couple, adopting a black baby from this country? now that is making a statement. I used to toy with the idea of adopting a kid from China. then I heard an NPR segment chronicling a white woman’s adoption of a black baby. white babies in this country go at a premium b/c everyone wants them. black babies are adopted at a rate lower than foreign babies. makes me sick.

    here are some links, I don’t think any are the one I heard
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5696238
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4143753

  7. yeah, ugh. adopting is a fantastic, but Hollywood’s “designer baby” idea is aggravating (I remember that Jane article). I can’t help but wonder if these celebrities would be adopting a minority baby, one in need of care and love, if the baby had been born in our country. “New York City” just doesn’t have the same “lookit-I’m-such-a-good-person” ring as “impoverished nation X”

    and yeah, accessory babies are awful. I’ll be interested to check back in in 15 years or so, when all of these babies who have grown up in the tabloids will be getting the obligatory solo album/fashion line/whatever. I’m also interested to see how the tabloids treat these designer babies when they’re no longer little voiceless dolls on Mom’s hip, but awkward adolescents with braces or teenagers.

  8. Right on Frumious! My wife & I are currently in the process of deciding if we should adopt a child or two in addition to the 2 she hopes to birth. We’ve already decided it will be a US child that is harder to adopt by being little older and/or non-white. I can’t come down on people who are adopting girls from China though I think China should take good care of their own rather than sell their unwanted girl babies.

    BTW I really respect what Natalia wants to do because it is her birth country. It’s not about having a white baby like it is for some.

  9. Ron O. — older kids particularly seem to have a damned hard time finding permanent homes; I’ve known quite a few that have just been bounced from foster home to foster home, because everybody wants babies.

    Now, of course, I’ve lived with a foster kid before and I’m not going to pretend that it’s easy to handle, say, a six year old who already has some really unhappy life experience. But it was rewarding on a very different level, too, and the way our culture just kind of chucks these kids aside because they’re considered “damaged goods” is really disturbing to me.

  10. I could be completely wrong and brainwashed by the media, but I was under the impression that the “people in charge of adoptions” here in America consider it ethically WRONG to place a black child in a white household, because it cuts the children off from black culture. They try really hard to place black children in black adoptive homes, or in homes where at least one parent is black.

    I had gathered that the reason that people adopt from other countries is because they don’t care WHAT you are in other countries. (Except for gay; you have to pretend you are not gay. Or maybe that was just on the Simpsons. Or was it real?)

  11. On the positive side, celebrity adoptions call attention to kids who need homes. I’d be interested to hear from some agencies placing African kids as to whether it has in fact helped.

    My husband and I (not celebrities) adopted kids from Africa. For reasons having absolutely nothing to do with our fitness to be parents, we were unacceptable to all local and in fact, apparently all American adoption agencies, except for one, which placed African children. No, we could not adopt American black kids, because neither of us is black.

    We support adoption for everyone. Well, almost everyone. Even our friend who once said “I could never bond with an adopted child” has one. He’s in high school now, so I guess the bonding went okay. But some of those everyones will have to go out of the country to find kids, because for whatever reason, they have been found not acceptable by American agencies. Incidentally, our homestudies (and we are the only adoptive parents in the country, it seems, who have not seen their “confidential” homestudy) were described to us as “extremely favorable.” Why were we turned down? We have our suspicions, which I won’t air here.

  12. Older,

    I took a class which explored some of the issues you have raised. I actually kept breaking down in tears throughout the semester, because the subject matter was so hopeless and grim at times.

  13. It’s very possible we will be turned down by american agencies as well. We both have an arrest record for possesion of pot, for example. Even though it is far in the past, this could hurt us. So could our race or income. Probably other things I haven’t considered too.

    We also know that adopting an older child who has lived a crappy life so far will be extremely trying. But part of what motivates me to consider it is providing a stable, loving home for at least one screwed up kid to have a chance to grow up to be a well-adjusted adult. I truly think Spouse & I could help, despite our less-than-stellar pasts.

    We live in a racially integratrated neighborhood & I’ve seen some mixed race families around, so I asumed that was less of an issue now than it was earlier. It’s not going to happen for a few more years, so we’ll see. We already have 1 child, so if we are turned down here, we will probably just accept our fate.

  14. Two observations:

    On the baby factory thing: This muddles the supply and demand equation present here. There aren’t millions of parentless black babies because white celebrites wan’t black babies for adoption, but instead because of lack of access to family planning and poverty, warfare, etc.

    Second: Isn’t adopting a black baby from Africa, hereby showing that you care about black people, pretty much the logical conclusion of liberal multiculturalist value system? For a liberal multiculturalist to complain that celebrities are actually living up to liberal multicultularist ideas is, well, special.

  18. Second: Isn’t adopting a black baby from Africa, hereby showing that you care about black people, pretty much the logical conclusion of liberal multiculturalist value system? For a liberal multiculturalist to complain that celebrities are actually living up to liberal multicultularist ideas is, well, special.

    No, not any more than marrying someone from Africa to prove that you hold no prejudice towards people from Africa. A child is not a political statement, and does not deserve parents who see it as a symbol of their anti-racist redemption rather than as a human being. It is good that people are no longer racist such that they would refuse to adopt a non-white baby, but it’s not good if they exchange disgust for objectification. Given that these people are narcissistic even for celebrities, their altruism is highly suspect. None of this, incidentally, is meant to argue that it’s better that children should be destitute than white people feel good about themselves; still, it’s proper to question the motives of Brangelina et al.

  19. Second: Isn’t adopting a black baby from Africa, hereby showing that you care about black people, pretty much the logical conclusion of liberal multiculturalist value system? For a liberal multiculturalist to complain that celebrities are actually living up to liberal multicultularist ideas is, well, special.

    Adopting a baby may make someone feel important for Doing Something, especially Something Visible, but given the fact that these are celebrities, with power and access, why aren’t they, say, doing something about the conditions that create orphans?

  20. IIRC Angelina Jolie is doing something via UN or something.

    And I was BBC one other day and Madonna was having a Kum Ba Yah moment in Africa, apparently she’s doing something too. False dichotomy, perhaps?

  23. This is maybe a little off-topic, but in one of the articles I read about this Madonna-adoption thing they had some quotes from this child’s father. So…this child, “who has lived in a dilapidated orphanage since the death of his mother shortly after he was born” has a father who was all ‘oh yes, they seem like they’d be great parents for my son!’ (clearly, that’s a paraphrase because I can’t find the article I read that in).

    I would assume that either his father is too poor to take care of him, or its (perhaps more likely) some sort of cultural issue regarding fathers taking care of children (not to sound flip about it, I tried to rephrase that a couple times and it kept sounding worse). Either way, :-(.

  24. I think it’s great that celebrities are adopting kids. Madonna got a generation of girls to wear bras outside of their shirts, maybe now she will get us to all become aware of the world around us.

    You have to wonder, though…if a male celebrity adopted a kid, would the media care? I doubt it.

  26. Ah crap.

    From the United Nations Works website:

    As a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina (Jolie) uses her status as a superstar to generate media coverage about the plight of refugees and the conditions under which they live. She has traveled widely to remote refugee camps and receiving centers in countries including Tanzania, Namibia, Cambodia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Ecuador. To further raise awareness, she has released her personal journals for select field visits that can be accessed at USA for UNHCR. For her efforts, Angelina has been honored with the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program Humanitarian Award.

  27. St. Angelina’s luster dimmed somewhat when she had her baby in Namibia, and the military was engaged in an unreimbursed anti-paparazzi campaign.

    I don’t deny that she’s done good work in the past, but when she drains the coffers of a poor country so she can be left alone by the press…

    And I was BBC one other day and Madonna was having a Kum Ba Yah moment in Africa, apparently she’s doing something too. False dichotomy, perhaps?

    Well, what is she doing, other than “something?” And she’s bringing home a kid as a souvenir? A kid who has a father?

    I mean, Bono’s an insufferable gasbag, but he’s really put a lot of work into debt relief and other, practical causes. He’s gone beyond “raising awareness.”

    You have to wonder, though…if a male celebrity adopted a kid, would the media care? I doubt it.

    Let’s see one do it.

  28. Well, what is she doing, other than “something?” And she’s bringing home a kid as a souvenir? A kid who has a father?

    A father who is fine with her adopting the kid.

    I don’t know what she is doing (maybe some fundraising). And I don’t care. But my previous points stand. Maybe you are acknowledging the unnaturality of your ideology when you go after the people who put in practice?

  30. A father who is fine with her adopting the kid.

    And it’s unclear why he’s okay with it. He may be ill, or he may be too poor to take care of the child. If it’s simply a question of poverty, why not fund programs that will enable him to take his child home from the orphanage?

  31. Maybe you are acknowledging the unnaturality of your ideology when you go after the people who put in practice?

    WTF?

  32. OMG patriarchal imperialism!!

    You just argued–apparently with a straight face–that the logical endpoint of multiculturalism is obtaining a baby of another culture for one’s very own. Now you’re arguing that transracial adoption is less hot among male celebrities not because, oh, the cult of maternity is kinda woman-focused, but because feminists might complain. You’ve jumped the shark, dude. And you’re not even being particularly funny.

  33. And it’s unclear why he’s okay with it. He may be ill, or he may be too poor to take care of the child. If it’s simply a question of poverty, why not fund programs that will enable him to take his child home from the orphanage?

    Because she wants something from the deal, too. Enlightened self-interest vs. altruistic martyrdom. Big deal.

  34. I don’t know what she is doing (maybe some fundraising). And I don’t care. But my previous points stand. Maybe you are acknowledging the unnaturality of your ideology when you go after the people who put in practice?

    This is not our ideology, is the thing.

  35. Now you’re arguing that transracial adoption is less hot among male celebrities not because, oh, the cult of maternity is kinda woman-focused, but because feminists might complain. You’ve jumped the shark, dude. And you’re not even being particularly funny.

    Again, false dilemma.

  36. Because she wants something from the deal, too. Enlightened self-interest vs. altruistic martyrdom. Big deal.

    Okay, so she is in fact being extremely selfish. Let’s not pretend that this is about proving one’s love for anyone but oneself then, hm?

  37. Because she wants something from the deal, too. Enlightened self-interest vs. altruistic martyrdom. Big deal.

    So why can’t she find a kid with no parents at all? No shortage of those in Africa.

  39. So why can’t she find a kid with no parents at all? No shortage of those in Africa.

    Just a wee oversight. I’m sure she means well.

  40. Exteremely selfish =/= enlightened self-interst.

    So why can’t she find a kid with no parents at all? No shortage of those in Africa.

    Because the father consented?

  42. Beth and zuzu – Ewan McGregor adopted a child from either Mongolia or Kazakhstan, one whom he had met in an orphanage during his round-the-world motorcycle trip. He also does work for Unicef and has volunteered time, money, and items for auction for various children’s organizations, e.g. hospices in England and Scotland.

    However, I think this wasn’t widely spread because he’s been fiercely protective of his family in the past, at one point suing a tabloid for publishing paparazzi photos of him and his daughter. But it was noted in a few places at the time.

    (God, I’m such a pathetic fangirl. Why do I know all this off the top of my head? Why can’t I remember my Greek vocabulary instead?)

  43. False dilemma, that I wouldn’t acknowledge the existence of cult of motherhood.

    You didn’t, come to that; you chose instead to bash your favorite man-hating strawfeminist, and you did so to ridicule an argument about the cult of motherhood such that adoption by male celebrities isn’t so trendy.

    Why is this so difficult to grasp, that fetishization is not a satisfactory outcome simply because racist scapegoating is a horrendous thing? Why do you insist that people are being hypocritical because they reject both clannishness and commodification?

  44. However, I think this wasn’t widely spread because he’s been fiercely protective of his family in the past, at one point suing a tabloid for publishing paparazzi photos of him and his daughter. But it was noted in a few places at the time.

    Which is something that gives me reason to look more favorably on his family dynamic.

  45. Why is this so difficult to grasp, that fetishization is not a satisfactory outcome simply because racist scapegoating is a horrendous thing? Why do you insist that people are being hypocritical because they reject both clannishness and commodification?

    First you would have to prove that commodification is what this is about.

  46. there’s just something unseemly and faintly colonial about celebrities adopting babies from Africa as if they were fashion accessories.

    Is it unseemly only for celebrities, or for ordinary mortals too?

  48. First you would have to prove that commodification is what this is about.

    Why, in order to criticize apparent commodification from people who have treated their lives as marketable commodities, and whose behavior towards the people they’re supposedly helping has been deeply insensitive in the past?

  49. Why, in order to criticize apparent commodification from people who have treated their lives as marketable commodities, and whose behavior towards the people they’re supposedly helping has been deeply insensitive in the past?

    Ah, I see. So they don’t have sufficient leftist credentials to do this in non-racist fashion.

  54. Ah, I see. So they don’t have sufficient leftist credentials to do this in non-racist fashion.

    No, they’ve done things that display a great deal of insensitivity and selfishness in the very recent past, which makes me think it likely that the insensitivity and selfishness still informs their actions.

    Katrina obviously isn’t fashionable, certainly not to these people.

    Fuck you.

    That, too. If zuzu had, say, gone down to post-Katrina New Orleans to give birth, just to raise awareness about how crappy the conditions were, I’d be the first one to complain.

  55. Oh, you’re not saying I did, but you’re insinuating I did.

    Again, fuck you.

    I think he’s insinuating that us liberals can’t cast aspersions on any charitable work without rendering all of it an exercise in self-aggrandizement. Which is just as stupid, albeit slightly less insulting to yourself.

  58. Well, that was fun. Where were we?

    We were talking about me travelling to Iran to get bottom surgery.

    There were some interesting articles on NYT and alternet about transracial adoption by non-celebrities, and way back when there was an essay from a woman who’d been transracially adopted by people who were unambiguously fetishistic towards her. Maybe I could write one of those posts that’s actually an extended comment on one of your posts.

  59. Pingback: Well, I suppose It Was Inevitable « Creative Destruction

  60. See? That was totally his argument: You hypocrite! It’s possible for someone to make that argument against other situations with the same basic components!

    Which reminds me: There were craigslist posts in this city offering shelter to Katrina refugees in exchange for sex. Obviously, since Tuomas has no problem with some self-interest reasons for charity, this arrangement won’t strike him as exploitative at all. QED.

  62. still, it’s proper to question the motives of Brangelina et al.

    Sure, but

    The Third World Is Not A Baby Farm For Celebrities

    and

    there’s just something unseemly and faintly colonial about celebrities adopting babies from Africa as if they were fashion accessories.

    seems more like a conclusion about their motives rather than a question about them.

    Kinda similar to how the people who questioned Sean Penn’s motives for going to New Orleans seemed to already have decided what they were; to make himself look good, or make Bush look bad. It couldn’t have been because he wanted to help.

  63. I think much of the time this can cross the line into selfishness, but I do think we may want to be a bit less critical. One thing to keep in mind is that, while celebrities are rich, they are a lot MORE famous than they are rich. Given how much corporations are willing to pay celebrities to be in their advertisements–which people automatically discount, knowing how insincere such things are–shouldn’t we acknowledge that “publicity stunts” like giving birth in Africa might very well, as a matter of fact, make a real difference in charitable giving towards Africa? This is, of course, an empirical question for which I don’t have data. (It actually sounds like it could becom one of those ‘isn’t this cute’ articles Journal of Political Economy loves to publish, if any econometricians are looking for ideas!) But if it -were- the case that the advertising effect were substantial, would that make it more noble?

    By contrast, the Ewan MacGregor thing seems very noble, because it’s in line with our views about how charity should be done for its own sake rather than for the approval of others… but if there -is- a significant element of “do what others do” to charitable giving, perhaps this attitude is a mistake. Status competitions are often wasteful, but would it be so bad if people tried to one-up each other by how much they gave?

    Finally, on whether it’s generally appropriate to adopt foreign children … it seems that once one has decided to adopt, why -not- take the view that one ought to look for those for whom being adopted by you is most likely to raise their life prospects? Obviously there are plenty of people badly off in America, but as Natalia said about Ukrainian orphanages … is there really a comparison? Another thing that might come out of, say, adopting a baby from sub-saharan Africa is that doing so might help one psychologically commit to giving more to development aid in the future. It might be harder to ignore the far-away sufferings of others when your son or daughter is a constant reminder of how we’re all human and just as worthy of a good life no matter how far away we are.

  64. seems more like a conclusion about their motives rather than a question about them.

    I admit that I have come to a conclusion about the people described here, honestly, given everything Madonna has ever done. I don’t agree that it would be fair to come to that conclusion about everyone who opted into transracial adoption.

    By contrast, the Ewan MacGregor thing seems very noble, because it’s in line with our views about how charity should be done for its own sake rather than for the approval of others… but if there -is- a significant element of “do what others do” to charitable giving, perhaps this attitude is a mistake. Status competitions are often wasteful, but would it be so bad if people tried to one-up each other by how much they gave?

    This gets very sticky when the charitable act in question is the act of parenting a child. She deserves not to be treated like a charity case all her life, nor yet an example to others of MacGregor’s generosity. I think, too, that his decision to treat his relationship with her as a private family matter underlines its own exemplary message: the idea that they are a family, and that she is his daughter.

  65. There were some interesting articles on NYT and alternet about transracial adoption by non-celebrities, and way back when there was an essay from a woman who’d been transracially adopted by people who were unambiguously fetishistic towards her. Maybe I could write one of those posts that’s actually an extended comment on one of your posts

    That definitely sounds interesting. I’d like to see that.

    By contrast, the Ewan MacGregor thing seems very noble, because it’s in line with our views about how charity should be done for its own sake rather than for the approval of others… but if there -is- a significant element of “do what others do” to charitable giving, perhaps this attitude is a mistake. Status competitions are often wasteful, but would it be so bad if people tried to one-up each other by how much they gave?

    Here’s my take on that: Ewan MacGregor’s action resembled more closely that of non-celebrity adopters. He wanted to do something for a particular child/add to his family, and so he took in a child from a poor country, who now lives a relatively anonymous private life and has not been turned into a symbol of his charitable acts. The thing with Madonna is, have we ever heard of her doing anything with Africa before this very non-specific trip which is resulting in the adoption of a child? Angelina Jolie had at least established herself as being interested in the problems of Africa prior to adopting a child from there, and she had given pretty clear reasons that she wanted to adopt kids rather than have them (at least until Brad came along), and she wanted to adopt kids from poor countries.

  66. I also don’t think it’s fair to put Angelina Jolie in the same group as Madonna and Brittany Spears because she’s done alot of humanitarian work (with the UNHCR for example) and has given alot of money to the causes she works on as well. She’s also worked very hard to incorporate her children’s homelands into their upbringing so they have will continue to have a connection to the countries where they were born.

  67. I think you’re right, SH, and to some extent this is the problem I’ve been trying to get at: Angelina Jolie did do all the humanitarian work and adopted a baby; the others haven’t done the work, but Angelina’s getting more attention for the baby part.

  68. the others haven’t done the work, but Angelina’s getting more attention for the baby part.

    Well I think that’s a function of the celebrity obsession, and there’s always been an obsession with celebrity moms, especially because Jolie is a (gasp!) single mom. But she’s always struck me as shunning the spotlight except when she tries to use it to call attention to a cause. So it’s basically the media that sucks for giving Madonna’s pending adoption more coverage than, for example, the genocide in Sudan. Seems to me the genocide should be the screaming headline and Madonna merely a sidebar, but in our fucked up media it’s always the other way around. But I don’t know that you can knock the celebrities themselves for this absurdity, ya know what I mean?

  69. So it’s basically the media that sucks for giving Madonna’s pending adoption more coverage than, for example, the genocide in Sudan. Seems to me the genocide should be the screaming headline and Madonna merely a sidebar, but in our fucked up media it’s always the other way around. But I don’t know that you can knock the celebrities themselves for this absurdity, ya know what I mean?

    Well, yes and no. Madonna’s always been a relentless self-promoter, and if she (or Britney) sees that Angelina got attention and reflected glory for adopting an African kid, there’s always the potential of copycatting, you know? Try a formula for publicity that works without recognizing the really hard work and toil that preceded the thing that got attention.

  70. Another thing that might come out of, say, adopting a baby from sub-saharan Africa is that doing so might help one psychologically commit to giving more to development aid in the future. It might be harder to ignore the far-away sufferings of others when your son or daughter is a constant reminder of how we’re all human and just as worthy of a good life no matter how far away we are.

    Actually, it’s more of an ongoing course in reality therapy: no suffering is far away anymore, once the person it’s happening to is part of your family. And whether a particular adoptive family has specific birthfamily info or not, those of us who are at all reflective happily admit that our children’s first families are our kin now. Whether we know their names or not.

    I am delighted to be able to report that Angelina walks her talk when nobody’s watching. Everyone I met in upcountry Cambodia last spring knows where her farm is, but won’t tell Westerners because we might be stalkers, so they show off the schools she’s funded…which are not marked in any way, and that’s extraordinary because the school our friends fund sure as hell has their names on it. (To be fair to them, it’s a far more significant financial sacrifice for them than it is for Bradgelina, and the staff who run it absolutely insisted, but still.)

    Madonna is a whole nother can of worms…what brought her to Malawi? A baby? That’s not inherently wrong, a baby brought me to Cambodia, but I didn’t issue a press release to make it a topic of conversation.

  71. Well I just googled Madonna and Malawi and apparently she was in the country on behalf of a project for AIDS orphans ( it’s a bit vague) so I guess she does similar humanitarian work:

    Madonna, who has a son and daughter, has spent most of the past week visiting orphanages and meeting charity workers as part of a campaign to publicize the plight of some 900,000 orphans in the country of 13 million people, where AIDS has destroyed many families.

    The fact that it’s not widely known thats she’s doing this work would argue a little bit against the self-promotion angle. I didn’t see anything as to her issuing a press release (that same article said she’s been keeping a low profile). Plus she has two children and unlike Brittany (who couldn’t even find the continent of Africa on the map) seems a bit more genuine. I don’t really like how she fast tracked this like getting a pet from the store though, I think it might be a bit misguided to grab a kid and pull him out of his country in the interest of “a better life”. Even if the economic conditions are better doesn’t mean that child’s homeland shouldn’t be a source of pride to him/her and it has to be traumatic. That’s why I admired how Angeline Jolie handled it.

  72. Another thing that bothers me about madonna is that in several of the news reports I read, the officials in Malawi made it very clear that she wanted boys and only boys to choose from. Leaving aside the fact that there’s something disturbing about assembling a group of orphans for the wealthy American to “choose from” in the first place, and while it’s up to her who she wants to adopt, considering the fact that girls tend to be somewhat worse off in most countries than boys, I’ve got to think there was a more diplomatic way to handle it then to basically let it become public knowledge, under no circumstances will I even consider or pretend to consider adopting a girl, bring me boys and only boys. That sends a great message. She couldn’t have snuck a few girls in there and pretended to consider them?

  73. I confess it does seem a little dplucitous to attack madonna for this. She and other celebrities who adopt have done quite a bit for adoption acceptance.

    As for the race thing: Again, may well be positive. Having one of the more famous people on the planet involved in a transaracial adoption migh just possibly be an overall benefit to antiracism efforts, dontcha think?

    Mind you I’m no Madonna fan. I just think it’s odd to impose on her some uber-standard or to say “this is how you should act!”

    Hell, if she considered girls and it ever came out she wanted only a boy then she’d probably have been pilloried for raising their hopes. And if she admits to wanting a boy then she’s done wrong there, too.

    gotta be hard to be a celebrity…

  74. Ewan MacGregor’s action resembled more closely that of non-celebrity adopters. He wanted to do something for a particular child/add to his family, and so he took in a child from a poor country, who now lives a relatively anonymous private life and has not been turned into a symbol of his charitable acts.

    I think there might be a US/UK cultural difference there – in the UK, it’s not “done” to talk about your charitable donations or charity work, whereas I’m led to believe from the media that in the US it’s a source of pride and people are much more open about it.

    I agree that there’s something faintly unpleasant about celebrities adopting children from Third World countries, as though it’s like taking a pet home from the shelter. Although some of them (Angelina, Ewan) seem to be doing it for the right reasons, others seem to be jumping on the baby-as-fashion-accessory bandwagon. Has Madonna actually explained her motives for wanting to adopt the boy? If, for example, she desperately wants more children but can’t have them, then it seems like a very different situation to something more self-aggrandising (“Look at how caring and multicultural I am, as I adopt this orphan from Malawi!”). I can’t quite explain what’s so troubling about it, but I think it’s something to do with the difference in power between them, and a general trend for some extremely famous people to behave as though everyone in the world is somehow less human than they are, and only exists to gratify their wishes and desires.

    I’ve been reading Feministe for quite a while, but haven’t posted until now. Apparently it takes Madonna to push me to post. I’m not sure that says anything good about me!

  75. Madonnas project was an orphanage that will feed, clothe and educate up to 4,000 orphans in Malawi.

    And they also attempted to deflect the ideas that she would be adopting, but not every star is able to try and keep all their personal stuff private. And most ppl adopting a child decide beforehand what gender they would prefer, it’s a bit silly to use that against her. I was thinking she might have trouble adopting in the US or UK because she is living in the UK but I don’t think she has citizenship, and she couldn’t adopt from the U.S., because she doesn’t live there (homestudy and the like, ya know) and would probably have issues with adopting from the U.K.

    And as for angelina going to another country to have her baby, who can blame her. Talk about commodification of babies, thats the reason the ‘razzi was out there, money for baby photos.

  76. back to the American black babies thing:

    In the story I heard, the adoptive mother found the birth mother and baby via an adoption lawyer, not an agency. IIRC, she was single and wanted a baby, and decided adoption was the correct route for her. She would probably have been denied by an adoption agency even for a white baby.
    Have you seen those ads in the paper that say something like “pregnant? call me!”? Not all of those are anti-abortion trolls. Some of them are lawyers looking for babies to place. The market and the money is for white babies, but apparently a fair number of black (and probably other minority women) also call. The adoptive mother answered one of those ads, and the lawyer had the contact info of a black woman looking to place her baby. All ended happily.
    As for the black culture thing – culture is not genetic. I find the general attitude that a baby from a different culture than the adoptive parents, be it Ukrainian, Chinese, or African-American, must be raised with elements of that culture, to be somewhat colonial. I see no reason to deny the baby’s birth culture, but I see no reason to insist that, say, the kid be raised listening to rap and R&B just because it is black.
    Trans-racial families are not easy to build, that’s for sure. For one thing, a white parent may be ignorant about what the child will face as a black person in this society. I just don’t see these problems as deal-breakers.

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