comment #1

Mr. F. says ...

There's one thing she could do that would solve the problem: adopt Afghanistan.

And yet she does nothing. Hypocrite.

comment #2

Ponderer says ...

I'll say this much about Afghanistan and the Taliban - I'm pretty liberal as these things go, but I was all about slitting these fuckers' throats long before 9/11 (and frankly, so were a lot of other liberals). Going radically anti-Taliban for, particularly, what they were doing to women was quite the rage in the late 90s.

comment #3

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Waiting for whomever wants to go find Jeff's complaints about HURT LOCKER because he thought it didn't have a political statement.

comment #4

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Hurt Locker sorta had a political viewpoint...sorta kinda pacifist, and sorta kinda excited by the drug of war. How does my having acknowledged or complained about that have anything to do with observing that Jolie is some kind of closet rightie?

comment #5

Floyd Thursby says ...

Jolie's dream project is Rand's Atlas Shrugged: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/28/books.film

comment #6

Wrecktem says ...

Yes, but what does Skyler Shaye think about all of this?

comment #7

THE MovieBob says ...

"What Is She?"

Probably someone who would've preferred Hillary - also known as a politically-astute "liberal" over the age of 19 ;)

I kid, I kid, but seriously Wells... c'mon. It's wholly possible to not be 100% on the "side" of anyone, politicians in particular. All this crap about "oooh! Some celebrity MIGHT have one opinion out of thousands some Republican might agree with!" is doing is giving Breitbart's goon-squad something to blog about.

I'm more or less on the "side" of what's called the "left" in this politically-illiterate country, and I find Obama frustrating and improperly-prioritized - doesn't mean you'll find me at Beck's rally.

Most people aren't introspective enough to admit this, but 90% of personal-politics are totally self-serving. It's not a character flaw - we're wired for survival and inclined to support individual ideas that PERSONALLY help us or at least make us feel good. That's why most career-politicians are LIARS when they say they support their party's whole platform, and why most genuine whole-hog ideologues tend to be insufferable lunatics. The majority of us aren't left, right or liberal - we're interchangeably self-serving.

Case in point: Mrs. Jolie, by the definition of the current culture, would immediately "flag" as a creature of "the left" - openly flaunts traditional sexual/social mores, feminist, U.N. supporter, spend-on-the-poor, globalist, etc. - but she's also supposedly aching to film "Atlas Shrugged." Ideologically-incongruous? Sure, but not uncommon: You'll always find a shit-ton of otherwise "liberal" Type-A women who LOOOOVE "Atlas" because so much of it is about the "heroism," rejecting social/family "obligations" and living for your own achievement; and the main character is a quintessential ball-busting Career Girl.

comment #8

michael says ...

I know i'm going to get ripped to shreds, but i'm just curious, as someone who is a democrat and voted for Obama in '08, how exactly is being "into education and rehabilitation" a bad thing? I don't think that the right is completely in favor of these things anymore than the left is completely in favor of welfare and handouts. I, for one, am not in favor of welfare and handouts in every situation. I think Obama has been a bitter dissapointment in a lot of ways, although i'm not by any means suggesting that McCain could or would have done a better job. At this point, there is so much hate, mis-trust and animosity between...well...everybody...that If Obama cured Cancer, the right would find a reason to hate him, and if McCain cured Aids, the left would say he didn't do it soon enough. It's just such a toxic additude from all sides that if you voice even a hint of an idea that someone on the right has said, you're labeled a neo-con nazi and if you breath an idea that someone on the left has said, you're branded a dope smoking commie who wants the destruction of America. It's just gotten absurd. Angelina Jolie has the nerve to be on talking terms with her Father and she's now a neo con. Just read that statement again and tell me how many things are wrong with it. Anyone who says that Angelina Jolie is a rightie is wrong in my opinion. Just because you don't hate everyone who is a republican, including your Father, and you don't spit on the military doesn't make you a closet nazi anymore than not being in favor of dragging gays behind your car makes you a communist. It's just sad that we've come to this point.

comment #9

erniesouchak says ...

My theory: she's a moron.

comment #10

Kakihara says ...

She's also a home-wrecker.

"Jolie's reasoning seems to be that because these conflicts are in some ways politically and governmentally linked with humanitarian support for the downtrodden, anyone who talks about withdrawing from these areas (like President Obama) is somehow anti-humanitarian."

Laura Bush tried to co-opt feminists by arguing that these wars were about giving women rights, but when we end up putting back the same people we just took out of power, we're just heading into Animal Farm territory.

"She's into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts."

Well, sorry, honey, but education and rehabilitation require money.

comment #11

coxcable says ...

I love Jolie. She shows real courage in a time of safe, bland movie stars. But everything in the past ten years indicates that she's a bit of a kook. Her emotions are what drive her.

It's not surprising that she would be philosophically opposed to Mr Cool, Calm & Collected.

I don't think however that she's some kind of Rightie by any definition of the word. On the Equality (liberal)-Freedom (conservative) spectrum... she's way more to the secular humanist left.

comment #12

George Prager says ...

She and Michael Enright should share a cab together sometime:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/what_we_know_about_michael_enright.php

comment #13

dangovich says ...

"She's into education and rehabilitation.."

I have no idea what this means.

comment #14

Mark says ...

dangovich,
I believe it refers to the "teach a man how to fish" story. Dems are being painted as the "give a man or fledgling business a fish against a loan by the Chinese" party.

comment #15

MAGGA says ...

The American political conflict is the greatest circus on earth for those of us relatively unaffected by it. I don't think the stimulus bill was big enough, that Obama should have gone for universal health care, that the Wall Street reform was too weak etc, but the alternative is so insane, so far beyond any sense of reason and logic, that not fighting tooth and nail to keep him and his party in power is an act of suicide. But after hoping for his success (my country gave him the damn peace price for what we HOPED he would do, so we're not very clever ourselves), almost everyone I know watches American news the same way we watch The Daily Show, The O'Reilly Factor, The Colbert Report etc. It works extra well with pot.

Obama should announce that he wants to speak at Beck's rally, claiming to want to have a conversation with all Americans. If they reject him he should keep pushing. Either they'll look scared, which seems to be the worst thing a person can be in the current climate, or he'll stand there talking reason to a bunch of angy, white rednecks yelling racist slurs at him at the spot of Dr. King's dream, creating a historical events and making the various political positions clear. Or, more likely, some other celebrity would get the entire news cycle to themselves. Either way, modern America is great trash-TV.

comment #16

MAGGA says ...

Mark, good metaphor, but the republicans will be of the "borrow money from the chinese to buy the man's fishing business and give it to Donald Trump" varity if they don't allow those ridiculous Bush tax cuts to expire. I just saw a clip from Bush's first State Of The Union-adress where he complained about Clinton's surplus and demanded the money back. That seems to me a bad strategy to continue in the current climate.

comment #17

DiscoNap says ...

This continues the tradition of Conservative women being the hottest.

comment #18

mchlmichael79 says ...

You're quoting US Weekly? Really? What a disappointment.
Jolie has nothing to do with her father or her father views, she has stated that many times. And you should read that Jolie's op-ed piece again, It's not a piece in favor of the war.

You also should read a interview interview Rade Serbedzija, one of the actors in the movie that always refused to be in any movies about former Yugoslavia, but accepted this one, because it's love story not a movie about the war. It's based on a story told by a refugee
Take some time and read it
http://english.blic.rs/Culture-Showbiz/6813/Angelina-Jolies-film-not-antiSerbian

You should also take some time to check up Jolie's humanitarian work, that she's been doing for more than 10 years. It's Just not the UN work. Her humanitarian work deserves respect and admiration.

comment #19

ManhattanMadcap says ...

Say what one will of Jolie's headline whoredom, the woman has done much within her capacity to actually improve a few lives. How many children have been adopted by the beneficent troika of Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, and Danny Glover? Guess some are better off living in the lands of Chavez and Castro.

comment #20

sugardingles says ...

Angelina should be forced to stand before Wells with her hand on a Bible, and swear, "Senator, I am not, nor have I ever been, a conservative."

comment #21

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to mchlmichael: Yeah, you selectively focused, celebrity-kowtowing douche -- I'm quoting Us weekly with a qualification, to wit:

"I'm not one to take unsourced Us magazine quotes as anything to rely upon, but combine the Washington Post op-ed piece with this 11.09 non-attributable quote that Jolie considers Obama to be a 'closet socialist,' and I'm at least thinking 'hmmm.'"

In other words, hardly what anyone would call definitive proof but enough, combined with the Post op-ed piece, to make me at least wonder where she's at.

comment #22

ManhattanMadcap says ...

To clarify: Not that her adoptions give her greater moral authority to speak her mind than anyone else, but there's a strong whiff of double standard in excoriating the "closeted beliefs" of a person actually attempting to help one person at a time while left wing politics are freely spewed by those who neither put up nor shut up.

comment #23

Todd says ...

Jeff I'm also against Obama to the point I hope for his removal from office whatever it takes. He has been nothing but a supporter of military industrial complex. Prolonging these worthless wars that only has winners in those who do business with military contractors. The Clintons track record was not to support the military industrial complex. The first Clinton went out of his way to avoid war and did effective military strikes to end Serb-Bosnian conflict. This was done without sacrificing our young american soldiers. Hillary made it clear she wanted to pull out of this middle east conflict if she were elected. Her focus was on the America at home, health care and the economy. Just like Bill. I'm sure our economy would have been doing much better than it is now if she were in office. Just the savings alone that would not have been spent on these endless wars Obama keeps us involved in. Plus the lives lost of young american men and woman.

comment #24

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

"...a source close to Jolie told an Us reporter..."

Everyone does realize you might be arguing over complete and utter bullshit, right? A housekeeper who doesn't speak English all that well could very well have repeated a half-understood conversation.

Not to mention, unlike her pop, she's not spewing WHATEVER her opinion of Obama is on Larry King, so truly, who gives a fuck?

When a celeb starts using their status to get in front of a microphone and push a particular political agenda, then we can chatter away. Until then, it has as much relevance to our lives as the nutter down the street who thinks my next door neighbor's cat stole his dead wife's soul.

comment #25

DiscoNap says ...

Todd you're delusional. Hillary tried to beat down Barack by going as hawkish as she could. She wanted to be the American Iron Lady. And might I remind you she is the sometimes sabre-rattling Secretary of State for our current Obama "complex".

comment #26

phantasmata says ...

"This continues the tradition of Conservative women being the hottest."

dude, you're SO right. olivia wilde, scarlett johansson, halle berry, natalie portman, jessica alba, etc can't hold a fucking CANDLE to dr. laura and ann coulter.

i wonder if crabtree can give us his Top 3 RIghty Babes list.

comment #27

mchlmichael79 says ...

Wells, doesn't matter what you say, you're still using the "quote".

I'm not a Conservative and I agree with Jolie's Jolie's op-ed piece. What she's basically saying is although the war was wrong, it happen, and the least the US can do is try to emend some of the mess done. You destroy the country, mess up even more that region and then just leave? I agree with her.

comment #28

DiscoNap says ...

I'm thinking more in real life, but fair enough. But a lot of those are starlets who I guarantee don't have values of their down. I'm talking about the day to day equivalents of Monica Crowley vs. Allison Pill. I also wasn't being terribly serious.

comment #29

Travis Crabtree says ...

Mr. F with the win!
(helped that the post was deftly placed as the first response)

comment #30

Travis Crabtree says ...

Sugardingles has the right idea.

She needs to be kidnapped, taken to a secret government location, tied to a chair and waterboarded until she admits to being a conservative. Then, it's off to Gitmo! (oh wait, Obama closed Gitmo... Send her to the SuperMax in Marion)

Light your torches, boys!

comment #31

Travis Crabtree says ...

(going for the troika)

(and a LITTLE off-topic)

People need to knock off this homewrecker shit. For the last time, Jeniffer Aniston is NOT Rachel from Friends. (just as Schwimmer is the farthest thing from being Ross that you can imagine)

Jolie may be a bit odd, naive, what-have-you, but she has a big heart and is not some black widow stealing the man away from America's Sweetheart.

comment #32

Sams says ...

Jeff, You should know better than to rely on US Weekly or [i]any[/i] tabloid for reliable info about Angelina. All the quotes attributed to her in that article sound bogus. I recall during the campaign of '08 that she said Obama's support for some of the programs she was championing were reasons for her to vote for him.
She regularly lobbies Congress so she has been very careful to be nonpartisan and said she needs to work with both sides.
I also saw an interview of her on one of the Salt red carpets where she said she's been in contact with Greg Mortenson on how to help in the Pakistan - Afghanistan region. Mortenson, as most people know, was opposed to the military buildup in Afghanistan and believes building schools as he had demonstrated is a more effective means of countering the Taliban.
So I would say on the whole that your assumptions regarding her political beliefs are off.

comment #33

AH says ...

She is smart and well-traveled enough to know that solutions cross political boundaries (sometimes the conservatives are correct and sometimes the liberals). No one ideology has the monopoly on being right all the time.

comment #34

Hip Hop Homey says ...

Slow news day.

comment #35

heybub1 says ...

I don't really pay attention to her too much but I always thought she was pretty liberal.
Didn't she and Pitt put out a statement a while ago about how they won't get married until gay people could marry legally in the U.S.?
That didn't sound very conservative to me and I kind of admired them for bringing attention to something like to the US Weekly/Access Hollywood crowd.

comment #36

reverent and free says ...

Manhattanmadcap, your swipe at Sean Penn is disingenuous in light of his Haitian relief work.

I don't care about Jolie's politics so long as she isn't making embarrassing rants like her old man. His "open letters" to President Obama are getting increasingly delusional. He hasn't called him a secret Muslim or a Kenyan citizen yet, but I have little doubt that either of those are coming.

comment #37

Sams says ...

During her Salt tour Jolie was also asked about her support for the military and she said that regardless of how people feel about the war, they should support the troops because they are doing their job and risking their lives. So i expect if / when she visits the region because of the Pakistan floods that she'll probably swing by the military camps in nearby Afghanistan as she's done in other trips. She's there to entertain the troops and not to endorse the war. In her mind, there's a difference.

comment #38

Jeffrey Wells says ...

"Support the troops" always translates, sooner or later, into "support the war." That's the emotional linkage that the war machine counts upon. The war has to be perpetrated and brought to a conclusive victory otherwise we'll be dishonoring the memory of our fallen son/brother/best friend, etc.

comment #39

ManhattanMadcap says ...

reverent and free : My reference to Sean Penn was with regard to his support for Hugo Chavez. His Haitian relief efforts weren't accompanied by praise for the nation's leadership and infrastructure. But he excuses and rationalizes the Chavez regime because it presents a high profile vehicle for his far left politics, dismissing its oppression as "US propaganda".

comment #40

dayXexists says ...

What is this relevant to? The woman does more than pretty much anyone in the country to help humanitarian causes- she donates millions of dollars a year and puts herself in harms way at least once a month to shed light on various humanitarian causes around the world. If her politics may lean towards the right, that doesn't make her a "hypocrite" in my eyes. Is it a sin to be Republican in Hollywood? I'm I suppose what you could define as Liberal and her politics make no difference to me mostly due to all the good she does.

comment #41

Sams says ...

The "so their sacrifice will not be in vain" line probably works within the military in favor of "completing" the mission, but "honoring their memory" as far the public is concerned does not necessarily mean continuing the conflict. It often means just offering a moment of silence or prayer for the fallen.

comment #42

LFF says ...

I always sort of wondered if she was denied a nomination for A MIGHTY HEART because the film was interpretable as "pro Afghanistan war."

Regardless, she is great, and weirdly underrated, as an actress. Classic example of celebrity overshadowing the work.

comment #43

Kakihara says ...

Todd: "The Clintons track record was not to support the military industrial complex."

Are you fucking kidding me? Remember the debacle that was Somalia? Or when he brought back the nuclear weapons programs? Or when he was ok with continuing sanctions which murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? And don't forget that he continued the Drug War, even though he "didn't inhale".

"The first Clinton went out of his way to avoid war and did effective military strikes to end Serb-Bosnian conflict. This was done without sacrificing our young american soldiers."

Yeah, just civilians. And just so he could hide behind his affair with Lewinsky. He also sparked an international incident with China when we bombed one of their embassies. Some effectiveness.

"Hillary made it clear she wanted to pull out of this middle east conflict if she were elected."

Yeah, that's why she totally seemed to be getting off on bombing Iran.

"Her focus was on the America at home, health care and the economy.Just like Bill. "

Is that why she voted for Bush's law which would make it harder to declare bankruptcy? And her husband dismantled Glass-Steagall, which is considered one of the main causes for this economic crisis. Oh, and they both supported NAFTA.

Travis: "Jolie may be a bit odd, naive, what-have-you, but she has a big heart and is not some black widow stealing the man away from America's Sweetheart."

And making out with her brother and taking a blood oath with Billy Bob is totally normal, too.

comment #44

dayXexists says ...

@LFF I wonder that too. A Mighty Heart was one of her best performances, and after receiving nominations in all the precursors I assumed an Oscar nod was locked. I think some in Hollywood have something against her. Anyway I think it's nice to see her branching out in film to write and direct. Supposedly the budget is less than $15m. Maybe we can be pleasantly surprised at what she comes up with.

comment #45

dayXexists says ...

And to people bringing up things like "homewrecker" and making out with her brother etc.. I think that's just pathetic. People need to get over all that stuff. She's shown herself in the past 5 or 6 years to be someone who hardly gives a shit about Hollywood and is more focused on her family and humanitarian work. That's more than can be said for most actresses today, especially a certain box office poison actress who is the reason for all of the hate Jolie gets.

comment #46

Sams says ...

Angelina has spoken openly and at length about her past drug use etc.and calls herself "a bit odd" but kissing her brother in the mouth after getting her Oscar is not = to making out with him. That "homewrecking" nonsense has worked very well for Aniston's career when nothing else has, but it was simply Pitt wanting out of a big mistake. And by all accounts HE pursued someone he had a lot more in common with who also happens to be hotter, more talented, and more open and sincere.

comment #47

DiscoNap says ...

Good points Kakihara. (Welcome back Dee)

comment #48

derek says ...

Jolie, to take a term from Robin Wood, is an "incoherent text" politically, like most Americans. A jumble of nationalism/patriotism smooshed with notions of "personal freedom" (liberalism/libertarianism) mixed with an insatiable craving for upsized consumer decadence and a steadfast belief in authority and the "free" market economic system (conservatism). Sounds about right to me.

comment #49

Barnes78 says ...

Hollywood Republican. It's funny how some people still think that's an oxymoron.

comment #50

mybrainismelting says ...

Oh my God! A closet rightie! Quick, burn her at the stake!

Does anyone go on the witch hunt faster than a liberal?

Mind you, I'm the furthest thing from a neo-con and I have plenty of reasons for disagreeing with the right but why are all lefties so defensive, acting as if the "other side" has a dread disease or something? For a group that supposedly espouses acceptance and civil rights and personal freedoms, they're like the frightened townspeople in The Crucible, ready to brand and cast out the sinner.

Say what you want about Republicans but I feel far less animosity about my political ideals from them than the white-hot hatred that oozes from Dems if even a hint of any conservative viewpoint wafts into the ether. The annoying tendency they have is to condescend. But my more liberal-leaning compatriots seem ready to grab the lynching rope.

comment #51

reverent and free says ...

Manhattanmadcap, Ok, but that's not really what you implied. In your first post you wrote: "the woman has done much within her capacity to actually improve a few lives", and in your follow up post you wrote "left wing politics are freely spewed by those who neither put up nor shut up". Say what you will about Penn's politics, but the man has gotten off his ass and done some real work on behalf of others.

comment #52

mybrainismelting says ...

And what does it matter 'What She Is." She's just an actress. An entertainer. I could give a hoot about her political beliefs as long as she keeps cranking out films like Salt.

comment #53

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

Cranking out films like Salt, huh?

comment #54

mybrainismelting says ...

You didn't like, Citizen? It wasn't a masterpiece but compared to all the other genre bullshit, it was a breath of fresh (if not implausible) air. An expertly-crafted confection.

comment #55

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

I actually liked it more than most, I think (Jolie fetish -- guilty as charged), but one thing I can confidently say I didn't feel it was was a "breath of fresh air."

It was a surprising amount of fun -- although, sorry, not quite on the Piranha 3D level -- but derivative as all get-out, IMHO.

comment #56

LexG says ...

Look at her.

comment #57

crazynine says ...

The basic conservative impulse is to bow down and show total allegiance to authority.

How cute, says the Obama voter about the libertarian.

Funny how I'm probably among your most conservative readers, and I don't recall doing any bowing in my life.

Except to you, Jeff. I bow to you.

comment #58

THE MovieBob says ...

@crazynine,

To be fair, the way the word "conservative" is typically applied in contemporary American politics DOES tend to have a love-of-authority strain to it.

Yes, fine, "liberals" are supposed to be the ones who're all about state-authority-as-father-knows-best idealism; but what are the go-to symbols of absolute-goodness for the American "right?" Cops, Generals, CEOs, God (but only the judeo-christian one) and Religion in general. Authority, authority, authority.

That's probably part of our problem: We've got a Mommy Party and a Daddy Party, but no I'm-Grown-Up-And-Make-My-Own-Decisions Party...

comment #59

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

The title of this post still makes me laugh. I mean, this kind of misanthropy kind of works in text, and obviously I have a taste for it (otherwise I wouldn't be reading JW for over 10 years). But can you imagine if Jeff asked this question to Jolie in person?

I think she'd give him a reason or two to believe at least a few of the action scenes in Salt. ;)