Vanity Fair published their September cover story with Angelina Jolie more than a week ago. The early coverage of her interview mostly focused on the personal aspects, her discussion of the divorce, the kids, her simmering rage towards Brad Pitt. The point of the VF story was for Jolie to promote her Netflix film, First They Killed My Father, and Vanity Fair did include a lot of details about filming in Cambodia and how they cast the child actors. The description detailed by Vanity Fair of the audition process came across as exploitative. Jolie-defenders pointed out that VF didn’t use quotes from Angelina and the magazine had perhaps gotten some of the details wrong. People on the other side insisted that the auditioning process was absolutely exploitative and emotionally abusive to impoverished children. There was no middle ground.
Jolie ended up issuing a statement about the part of the article that made her seem exploitative. She argued that “every measure was taken to ensure the safety, comfort and well-being of the children on the film starting from the auditions through production to the present,” and that the audition set-up they used for the kids was a “pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film.” Well, Vanity Fair has now issued a statement, and they’ve published the actual transcript from Evgenia Peretz’s recorded interview with Jolie. There are parts of Angelina’s interview that make the auditioning process seem worse than Vanity Fair presented it.
On August 1, Jolie’s lawyer contacted V.F., saying Peretz had “mistakenly” reported the incident, and asked us to run a statement, excerpts of which follow: “The casting crew showed the children the camera and sound recording material, explaining to them that they were going to be asked to act out a part. . . . The children were not tricked as some have suggested. . . . All of the children auditioning were made aware of the fictional aspect of the exercise and were tended to at all times by relatives or guardians from NGOs. . . . We apologize for any misunderstanding.”
Jolie’s lawyer also asked us to remove the original paragraph from the online version of Peretz’s story and to publish the above statement prominently, with the title “Angelina Jolie Correction” in the October edition of V.F. and also on VF.com. In response to these requests, V.F. reviewed the transcript and audiotape of Peretz’s interview with Jolie for the story. Peretz had recorded it on two devices. A transcript of the relevant section is reproduced below.
AJ: But it was very hard to find a little Loung. And so it was what they call a slum school. I don’t think that’s a very nice word for it, but a school for kids in very poor areas.
And I think, I mean they didn’t know. We just went in and—you just go in and do some auditions with the kids. And it’s not really an audition with children. We had this game where it would be—and I wasn’t there and they didn’t know what they were really doing. They kind of said, “Oh, a camera’s coming up and we want to play a game with you.” And the game for that character was “We’re going to put some money on the table. Think of something that you need that money for.” Sometimes it was money, sometimes it was a cookie. [Laughter] “And then take it.” And then we would catch them. “We’re going to catch you, and we’d like you to try to lie that you didn’t have it.”
So it was very interesting seeing the kids and how they would—some were very conscious of the camera. They were actually—there are so many talented kids in this country. But Srey Moch was the only child that stared at that money for a very, very long time before she picked it up, and then bravely, brazenly lying, like was trying to hide, but then she also kind of—
EP: Wait. This is the girl, Loung.
AJ: This is the girl. And then when she was forced to give it back became very kind of like strong, emotional, she became overwhelmed with emotion that she was—and she just—all of these different things flooded out. And I don’t think she or her family would mind me saying when she was later asked what that money was for, she said her grandfather died and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral.
After reviewing the audiotape, V.F. stands by Peretz’s story as published.
From a media/celebrity-relations perspective, this is interesting because Vanity Fair is standing up to Angelina Jolie. They’re not afraid of her, even if it means she will never agree to another Vanity Fair interview again. As for the actual Jolie quotes…there are absolutely exploitative aspects with this story, but what I keep coming back to is that I truly believe that the auditions were set up as “games” for these kids, that the kids were asked to use their imaginations and play pretend. Whether they could tell the difference between a game and reality is up to question. It’s also worth noting that a lot of abusive situations are set up as a “game.” Then again, this is telling: “We had this game where it would be—and I wasn’t there and they didn’t know what they were really doing.” Then Jolie shouldn’t insist on a retraction, if she wasn’t there and doesn’t really know what happened. Also: where were Peretz’s follow-up questions about this stuff? After that story, can I get a “let’s go back to the audition process, please explain that further because your description is begging for more context”?
Photos courtesy of Getty, Vanity Fair.
She went to Vanity Fair for gravitas, but the smarter move would’ve been Vogue to ease back in. I mean, Brad chose a fashion magazine and it worked out way better for him.
Is GQ magazine a male fashion magazine? I’ve always thought of it as the male version of Cosmopolitan magazine, like more of a lifestyle thing.
Men’s Health is the male version of Cosmo, I think.
@Mazzie
Men’s Health is the male version of Women’s Health lol.
She LAUGHED when she talked about them using cookies as bait! Taking cookies from a poor, traumatized child made her laugh. Am I the only one who is shocked and appalled by that???
No you are not
Nope. That’s as outrageous as the rest of it.
No you’re not. Maybe it wasn’t a real cookie? /s
Sigh Unfortunately no.
Yeah, I was surprised she laughed. That surprised me more than the casting process.
I didn’t read that part as her using cookies as bait.
I thought she was saying that’s what they wanted with the money
No. Child abuse and its horrific triggers and onslaughts of memory are terrible. Making children–or anyone–relive past trauma for their own sake is ghastly. I will never care for Jolie again.
Also, when you are familar with trauma victims, you don’t “play games” with victims like this. You try to not retraumatize them.
Jolie is the one who should apologize to these children.
I thought that was awful too.
Did you read the full context? They all knew it was a scene in the movie. They all knew it was pretend. Are you saying KIDS don’t understand play and pretend? And also you and they say she laughed at them inferring some sort of sadism. That fits…. the caricature Angie has been painted as these last fifteen years. Meanwhile what I read was something completely different. I read about a woman enjoying the process of being with and working with children laughing with joy and NOT sadistic glee. THAT fits what I know of her work and dedication these last fifteen years.
Anyone outraged did not fully read or understand what Angelina Jolie said. As for the “journalist”, well let’s just say she’d be more qualified as a NE or STAR “journalist”.
I find this behavior reprehensible. I have always viewed her as an egotistical, manipulative, self centered and a vicious person. Who doesn’t speak to their father for decades because he cheated on her mother? It seems that she has her own set of rules and if you don’t play by them, you are out. I have also found her treatment of Pitt inexcusable.
She knows how reality works in those countries, and it is very different from what we know or accept. She is between worlds with her charity game and she forgot how to present the game for the USA audience. In the meantime, USA has appalling statistics concerning domestic abuse of children, but people here are politically correct and don’t laugh about abuse, they don t even think it is happening. I am sorry for AJ, but all this strolling around between worlds has backfired for her. She no more monster then any of us, she has just traveled more.
I have the strangest feeling if Angie had not kicked Brad Pitt to the curb, there would be NO story, or at the very least just a blip of a story.
This is many people’s way of “getting back” at Angie for kicking the alcoholic father of their children out because his behavior was not conducive to raising happy, healthy children.
But Angelina isn’t a fashion person. Vanity fair IS THE magazine for in depth profiles. The reasoning was good even though it clearly backfired. As I see it she has no one to blame but herself.
There were issues in the past with similar situations (Slumdog Millionaire is one of them) when using poor kids to add realism to a film was controversial. She should’ve known better. Considering her humanitarian work this is really off brand.
It’s a lot more than ‘off-brand’: she, along with her producers and for her own ends, did something wrong and unethical to CHILDREN. And admitted it. And then double down.
I’m surprised there isn’t more backlash against Netflix: what were they thinking in allowing this? This is the sort of thing that should start a boycott, they’re lucky Jolie’s star power has shielded them for the moment, but they should be made to answer some questions, as producers.
Good on Vanity Fair for not backing down and providing the receipts.
She likely went to Vanity Fair because she knew Brad was still beefing with them re: the unauthorized Art cover and the WWZ hit piece and then the gravitas.
Mind you, VF is also known for hit pieces whenever there’s celebrity blood in the water. She better mind her back.
She misplayed again. Vanity Fair is not People. She went to them as a humanitarian, as a director, not as a celebrity and they treated her as such.
Which leads to,Angie, hire someone to handle your PR. You are distracted and flubbing it and this is more serious than tabloids.
And honestly, I can explain away the game. I dont think it’s in good taste, and it’s playing with fire, but I somewhat get it . I have a harder time with the villagers falling to their knees in horror and the recruitment methods for the child actors.
I just can’t get over the obliviousness of it all.
IT DOESN’T MATTER IF THEY TOLD THE KIDS IT WAS A GAME. IT WAS STILL A GAME THAT DELIBERATELY SET OUT TO TRIGGER TRAUMA.
If, after all the backlash, Jolie STILL can’t see this, then she probably should hand in her humanitarian card. It really is that simple. It’s sad really. I don’t want to write her off, but she’s really not giving me much in the way of choice.
We did say how she handled this would matter, didn’t we? And how she’s handling it is either disappointing (if we’re being kind) or unpleasantly revealing (if we’re being honest).
So where are the psychologists, ngo, parents and people who are supposed to protect the children during the audition process that she said in her explanation? Did they bring all those people with then when they went to the school?
This completely, Sixer. She’s making it even worse by pushing back. She’s coming across as arrogant, self-important and frankly, ignorant.
Where is her famous humility? This is sad because I have always thought she genuinely cared so much about the plight of those less fortunate, but to call this a “misstep” is an understatement. She’s coming across as clueless and self-absorbed. Just not good at all…not the person I’ve always thought she was.
She’s coming across as an entitled celebrity who has no understanding of the ethical issues, sees no reason to get such an understanding and would rather use her celebrity status to threaten and bully any outlet with the temerity to use her own words to reveal this…
… which is what her critics have always said.
I find it very sad because I had thought better of her.
Understanding power imbalance and the ability to reflect on the impact of your actions and possible harm you may do (even when trying to help) are prerequisites for humanitarian work. She clearly has neither and I’m afraid this disqualifies her going forward, so far as I am concerned.
In the end of the day, Jolie is a rich white lady who never been through any of it. She may be woke, but she’ll always be the person trying to help from an upper position.
It is unfortunate and this response confirms my initial reaction was the correct reaction. There were many ways she could have addressed this with humility and awareness but this has not happened instead she wanted them to cover for her. This speaks volumes about her lack of understanding and self serving attitude. She is the one who should apologize.
The fact that she only talks about the game is even more troubling. There were other issues that were problematic but either she is ignoring them or is still unaware that she did anything wrong.
So is all of this about image and has always been or is she just not equipped to be a sincere humanitarian.
The way this was handled, it hurts my heart honestly. i wanted to believe in the wild child with the heart of gold turned humanitarian using her platform for good. Her knee jerk response to the VF article just cemented that she is a celebrity first, and a humanitarian very distant second.
She needs to do better. Pull on her big girl sack and address how she messed up. Discuss how this issue is important to her and how she will do better moving forward. This deny, obsfucate and threaten is Trumpian, except now everyone is now aware of these methods. With the push back against these methods, print publishing being under attack as ‘fake news’, and Vanity Fairs own agenda – this tactic was never going to work.
revealing is sadly right.
I’m sorry, detritus. I know you were hoping it would turn out differently.
I agree with Sixter complitely. I mean, she has kids, she DOES know that whatever games small children play they are invested fully. Emotionally as well as phisically. So this explanation that they were explained that was a game especially when dealing with kids with real trauma is just plain wrong. So I stand by my oroginal possition: she puts herself above the cause she is fighting for and that should not be the case. I also understand the urge and the need to tell this important story and give voice to the victims, but that need can not be put above all else because in a way that is exploiting not only the people who lived though that trauma but also the victims who are gone. It would probably make more sense to invest time and resources into making of documentuary about this tradegy but then again – it wouldn’t get as much attention and prestige to hollywood types.
100%, sixer.
I have to agree with the people here. The game is explotative. Children have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality which is why they are so scared by movies. They have a hard time remembering that it is just a movie. This game isn’t taking into account a child’s development stage and perspective. It is like taking a child to a super scary, sad movie and expecting them to sleep that night because you reminded them it is a movie.
And no matter how many times they told the children it was a game, the reason they cast the child they chose was because of her very real, crying reaction because of the very real, tragic reason she needed the money. It was not a game to at least one of these children.
Sixer, I generally enjoy and often agree with your comments. But NO—it was NOT “a game that set out to deliberately trigger trauma,” as Team Take Down keeps insisting. It was an acting exercise for a movie audition!!!! Everything was explained. The director didn’t just walk up to poor orphans out of the blue, offer them cookies or money, and then snatch it away!
These kids were not infants who couldn’t speak or comprehend what was going on. They may have been youngsters from tough backgrounds, but they were old enough to know they were auditioning for a film. I am a mom, as well as a former first grade teacher. Believe me, five and six year olds are very sharp, verbal and astute. So this indignant attitude that the children in question were somehow tricked is just wrong. Similarly the implication that they were clueless about what a movie is, simply because they come from a third world country, is also wrong. Cambodia is not Mars. They have movies there. TV, too. (No, not like here. But they have them.)
The fact that Srey Moch has experienced hardship in her life is what enabled her to get into the role and draw on her experience to emote for the camera, hence she got the part and may have a great future as an actress in her country— where, by the way, a film industry (albeit struggling) of its own actually exists. Not to mention Bollywood, which is practically next door. Or even here.
And I would venture to guess that the kids who didn’t get the part are very proud and thrilled to have tried out. I also imagine that the few people who did not know a movie was being filmed and got shocked by the unexpected appearance of soldiers —the ones who fell to their knees, horrible and terrifying in the moment as that was—have moved on and are not holding a grudge. These villagers are actual people with real intelligent minds and real senses of humor. They are not idiots, and we shouldn’t define them only as trauma victims. My guess is that now, and in retrospect, these individuals are very pleased this film was made to tell their story. Please stop putting them in a box and patronizing them with 1st world indignation.
I’m sorry for everyone on here who has experienced trauma in their life. Bless you all.
Cambodia is practically next door to Bollywood? Oh dear.
You have this entirely inverted. The First World attitude here is that Cambodian children (and adults) are somehow immune from trauma effects or abusive practices in ways Western children (and adults) are not.
There are well-established principles for aid/development/humanitarian work in post-conflict areas. Presumably, as an ultra-humanitarian, Jolie is aware of DNH protocols and reflective practice, for example.
Insofar as I can see, there are two options: either Jolie IS aware of good practice protocols and ignored them so that she could exploit Cambodian adults and children for her film, or she IS NOT aware of them, in which case she is not the skilled humanitarian she has pretended to be.
With you on this 100% Sixer.
The villagers falling to their knees in horror is what bothered me most as well. I can’t even comprehend the level of trauma those people carry with them. Awful. Just awful.
I have a feeling Angie may be a little overly confident/clueless. That is, she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. Her heart is in the right place and she isn’t malicious at all. But she should have had more experts involved in this process to ensure the well being of the people (especially the children) involved in the film.
I also agree Angie should finally hire a PR person. It feels like the media has sort of turned on her after she broke up with Brad. She always dealt with some level of negativity due to the triangle (especially in the early days when she was the “other woman”). But for the last few years I’ve generally seen her painted as this eccentric but loving humanitarian mother. But ever since the Brangelina break up I’ve seen an uptick in hate toward her. Obviously this is anecdotal but still..
Did the media turn on her or has she said and done things that turned the media off? What is her responsibility in all this?
Someone correct me if i’m wrong, but Angie has done most of her own PR, and while they were together Brads as well.
Once they separated you could see the major difference in how it was handled. Jolies PR got messier, and Pitts got tighter. She was dealing with an emotional crisis while managing her image, he smartly hired someone.
There isn’t an uptick in hate towards her. She has handled the breakup as if she is tone deaf and unaware of how the public views her. I know some of her fans don’t want to admit it but a good deal of goodwill for Brad was given to her too. She could threaten magazines when it meant they wouldn’t have access to him either or any of the stars from his production company or his agent’s roster. Her image benefited from the vagabond movie stars with their family angle and the air of romance about them. Another point is that she wasn’t alone in her PR planning, he was with her to point out the weak areas and add some of his own ideas. They were a team. Now it is back to her only and that hadn’t been nearly as successful for her in the past.
Angelina has always had to explain her life and her actions, this was the case before she even met Brad Pitt. From her tattoos, to her bi-sexual relationship, to her blood symbolism, to her brother kissing at the Oscars, to Billy Bob, to her Dad’s criticisms after her divorce.
The only people that truly embraced Angelina were people who didn’t judge her, and admired her honesty and ability to be authentic (and also thought her hotter than hot, can’t forget that, lol) – she was other women’s number one girl crush whether they were gay or straight.
That all ended with *some* straight women when instead of being the eccentric badass hot actress they could crush on and not be threatened by she did the normal thing and started up with someone who was her mirror in the looks department – the hottest sex icon actor in Hollywood.
All of a sudden she was a homewrecker, someone they felt could do more than just be eccentric – but they viewed her as a threat, and let’s face it envy played a major role. They identified with and were all the relatable average woman Brad had left, and not Angelina.
They thought they had gotten her back when news of the divorce broke. Yaaaay. Angelina will now feel Jen’s pain!!! Yaaay snicker chortle, guffaw!! Who’s the other woman that Brad cheated with, oh please make her younger and more beautiful… Please please please!
When word broke they would still not get their vengeance because SHE left him for being a purported drunk raging ahole on a plane, and he’s in therapy and doesn’t have his kids…
Well it was like they were denied a vendetta! Lol
They are actively looking for ways to end Angelina for good. That might sound like hyperbole. But i really believe they want her good deeds undone. Of course that can’t happen. But they’ll take the next best thing: smearing her character and implying she’s a bad person. For them that’s even better than had they gotten a Marion Cotilliard or a nanny boinking. It’s better because they think that’s what truly matters to Angelina- what they and other people think.
She cares about her film and the hard work they’ve done and she feels she owes it to the subject matter to not have it tainted and distracted. Which is why she asked for a retraction.
But she’ll never be you. She’ll never care about what dishonest trifling people with bad motivations think. That’s what a lot of women will always resent.
Wow, that’s some kitchen psychology right there. LOL!
Mariel: and she’ll never care that she exploited traumatised children sourced from slums and orphanages who therefore had no authority figure to protect them from her ‘game’ AND re-traumatised villagers who thought the KR were once again unleashed upon them because she employed 500 of them and unleashed them upon a village for filming her art.
…but she’s a bada$$ sex symbol charting her own fabulous course so what does it matter. We are all simply jelli h8ers.
People seem to give more leeway to the story that people were falling to their knees terrified because they were “people” as opposed to specifically “children”. I agree that it shouldn’t diminish the terror just because the majority of those people may have been adults. Maybe more attention would have been placed on this if it had not been for her comments about the psychological game they played with children. All of it sounds messed up. Jolie should not get a pass on this. Instead of apologizing (which might be the best thing for her to do at the moment), she is backtracking and demanding an apology from Vanity Fair for accurately reporting what she told the writer of the article. This will only make her look worse. She thinks she can handle her own PR, but she can’t. She really can’t. Like Brad, she may overestimate her own “wokeness” and overall intelligence and media savvy. She needs to hire a pro because at the end of the day she is a famous Hollywood celebrity. That’s her job since she was a child, not a person who was formally educated to become a PR expert or professional humanitarian.
@MPK kitchen psychology. LMBO.
Angelina will recover from this debacle(As she always does)..So I find it funny how some of you are basically having a party over this…..
@Mpk – Kitchen psychology – you nailed it. This “essay” by Mariel reads like a piece of fanfic written by a teen.
What astounds me is that her fans are stuck in the past. They think the entire world actually cared when they didn’t. We have to be haters or jelly or Aniston fans to find fault with AJ. Delusional to the extreme.
I would have the same response regardless of who it was. I am focused on the exploitation and her actions. I don’t internalize her life.
They should be ashamed defending this just because it is their idol.
Mpk-Kitchen psych 101 for sure
@Mariel: It’d be a bit sad if people were that heaviily invested in her life.
@ Mariel: You hit the nail on the head. Great post!
@ detritus: BINGO, well said and I also had a harder time with her bragging about the villagers falling to their knees, wailing in horror and traumatized because Authenticity. I would love to hear her explain that away…
that current runs through her entire production it seems – the urge for authenticity. From the way the game was set up, to the casting methods, to her Khmer Rouge soldiers. She reveled in the authenticity. which makes me believe her urge is to be seen as a Director Of Note who Deals With Very Important And Serious Issues, and the humanitarian stuff is the side piece.
You could take this to the limit and hypothesize that this is the latest in a pattern of seeking “authenticity” about suffering, violence, and cruelty. For what purpose? What is served by fictionalizing events in a way that shows your own obsessions rather than a genuine desire to document the past in a new and more insightful way? This is suffering as ENTERTAINMENT. For whom? What does that say about someone who compulsively seeks out this kind of subject matter in a self-righteous attempt to “raise awareness” as though the rest of the world is oblivious to this terrible history? This is someone who has no meaningful formal education and who has consistently diverted attention from the trained humanitarian and aid professionals who fight for the oppressed and victimized on a daily basis, sometimes at great risk to themselves.
Elsewhere I’ve seen comments that Jolie fetishizes violence, especially sexual violence. She does seem to zero in on that as a subject for entertainment (again, whose?), doesn’t she? Roles featuring it have earned her a fortune, and clearly she is preoccupied by it. Please save the flames; the evidence is there in her choice of roles and directing projects. If she were genuinely interested in “raising awareness” she would be making documentaries with people who actually know what they are doing and with people who actually understand historical and current realities.
@Detritus – in my opinion she is just as shallow as they often come in Hollywood, only masquerading as someone who is “above it all”. But in reality she’s always been obsessed with awards and being taken seriously as a Director and an Artist (which, frankly, she isn’t, if one were to go by “By the sea” and “Unbroken”).
She definitely fetishized violence in previous films.
If Brad Pitt strangled a basketful of kittens the same posters who are vilifying Angie would be making excuses for Brad. SMH
@K&B, that statement has no basis in fact. It’s your own opinion.
Sara: I think you’re spot on with your comment.
@cara Why do fans like you always assume that other people are as invested in perpetuating the idea of taking sides in this failed relationship? I personally couldn’t care less about Brad Pitt. Still hope he doesn’t kill basketful of kittens or any other animals for breakfast, but other than that… This article is about Jolie’s antics and has nothing to do with her soon-to-be-ex-husband.
The game part really gets to me because I was sexually abused as a child and you can get a child to do literally anything if you tell them it’s a game. But everything about it is horrifying.
Evgenia Peretz isn’t a hack and this isn’t the National Enquirer. Angelina badly misplayed this whole interview and aftermath.
You are very right Pedro. I try to excuse her because I believe she was truly ignorant of the impact, but you are very right. You can have a child do anything for the sake of a game and that power differential was not being addressed at all, which for an aid worker is very bad.
And as a mother she should know better. My daughter has wanted a pig for years. One day, after years of saying no, I sarcastically said “yes, sure. I’ve changed my mind and a pig is a great idea.” When she found out I was joking, she cried for an hour and she is still kind of pissed about it.
My point here is that children will always hope and dream, and they will believe what you say, even if you have explained otherwise. This is a tiny, stupid example, not even close to the trauma that others mention (and huge support to those who have endured and survived), but as a mother, I learned how vulnerable my child is to misplaced hope and she should know better.
So sorry to hear about what happened to you Pedro
Pedro sharing your experience articulates the problem with using a game as an excuse. Thank you for sharing this and I sincerely hope you have found some peace and healing.
t.fanty It may be small but it is another example how easily from little things even children internalize things.
Hi Pedro, that was my first thought as well…when kids are groomed for sexual abuse, it often starts of as a kind of ‘game’, where the abuser is testing the child’s pliability and boundaries.
I have heard of a casting game with kids that sounds quite acceptable….children were asked to run into the room and convince the director that there was a fire in the room next door. It tests acting ability without traumatizing kids by offering them something then taking it away.
I remember the director saying that the girl who got the role was so amazing that he almost felt there WAS a fire in the next room!
I think Angie is sort of confusing depth of trauma with acting ability. They aren’t really two things that go together!
Jolie isn’t an aid worker. She is a celebrity who visits sites where aid workers are working. She has oversold this aspect of her life to her detriment.
So let me get this straight, you’re just dismissing the part where she tells you the children were made aware that this was a character in a movie they were casting and that they were playing a game where they would pretend and make up a story like the character?
You’re basing your disbelief on what? Her being a lying demon?
“So let me get this straight, you’re just dismissing the part where she tells you the children were made aware that this was a character in a movie they were casting and that they were playing a game where they would pretend and make up a story like the character?”
so let me get this straight, you’re completely disregarding Pedro’s own experience (and that of many other victims) about telling children it’s a game and how that can be used to manipulate a child into doing things that they don’t want to and will later traumatize them? ok, then.
Actually @Megan Jolie does more than ‘visit places as a celebrity,’ a quick Google search would tell you that, from de-mining, to conservation, to building schools for children (esp girls in countries that forbid girls education) to building AIDS and Malaria clinics in Africa and SE Asia that have saved lives, to creating, funding and lobbying for policies that protect and provide legal defense for unacommpanied minor refugees(KIND), to bringing awareness to and changing policy re war crimes, sexual violence and rape during conflict, to her Jolie Pitt foundation funding orphanages, villages, rebuilding post Katrina, to the many donations she’s made in times of man made and natural disasters- the list literally goes on and on.
But good luck on your smear campaign over the child actor casting game that only applies to women other women don’t like.
It’s hysterical to now see women stretching themselves into pretzels willing to disavow all child acting if it means they can attack Hollie and make it stick (it never does).
So effing bizarre and pathological.
Mariel, that response is out of line.
Pedro was expressing concern and empathy based personal experience. Your response is not ok and shows both a lack of empathy and reading comprehension. Perhaps you need a time out to regain control of your emotions.
If you would like to argue with someone, I’m here for it, but choose the comments your respond to more carefully next time.
Ugh I’m so sorry, Pedro45. Just awful that you went through that. Disgusting.
Mariel-your true colors are showing…very callous and unwarrented response to OP SMDH.
To Megan’s point of Jolie not being an aid worker- quote from original VF article attributed to Jolie regarding upcoming work in Africa, “Now I need to get my boots on and go hang, take a trip.”
I think we keep ignoring the fact that these children knew this was an audition for a movie with a very famous celebrity. Do I think it had the potential to be trigger inducing. Yes. Do I think there was a better way to audition than coming up with a potentially traumatizing game. Yes.
But I do know that if I knew I was auditioning for a movie and the context was explained to me,which in this case it’s been stated it was, if I felt uncomfortable I wouldn’t do it. If I felt I could handle it I would.
The part of the interview that is a bit overboard is the “falling to their knees” which other posters have written. That was out of line.
She really needs to get herself a publicist.
@Scotchy
In the transcript she says she wasn’t there and implies this was to provide a more immersive situation for the childrens improv games. She also says they played these games with children who “didn’t know what they were really doing”. They didnt know they were auditioning for a Hollywood film, they were merely told there was a camera and told to play. Angie seems proud of all of this but it makes it even more problematic.
Heres how Angie brags about Sreys reaction;
“She became overwhelmed with emotion that she was -and she just- all these different things flooded out”
Please! That’s to borrow your word “a triggered” child and Angie seems both conscious and proud of it.
First of all Pedro *massive hugs*
As someone pointed out down below children can’t understand the difference between “Fake/ game playing/make believe” and what’s real until after the age of 8 or so. That girl looks very very young.
I’ve interacted with plenty of deeply impoverished kids in developing nations. The idea that they would understand the concept of an American celebrity, much less care, is beyond ridiculous.
@Muriel – you know who else has done all those things and more? Bill Gates. Yet I never read interviews with him projecting himself as the world’s greatest white saviour. Jolie carefully crafted a brand where she assumes herself to be above reproach and is flabbergast to find out that isn’t true.
Blind worship of celebrities has always puzzeled me.
@mariel, I was on mobile and missed this. I didn’t call Angelina a lying demon. Wtf? I took issue with her casting process. I shared a very personal story that is also extremely common. In my opinion, more care should have been taken with these children, who are not actors.
Thanks to all for your very kind messages of support. They help more than you know.
Pedro 45: can I add my message of support too? Thanks for an insightful comment and I hope you’re doing well after such a shitty experience.
I think she’s distracted as well and definitely needs a publicist. She thinks she can handle things herself but it seems looking just from the outside she has too much going on at this time in her life.
I’m not sure she knows how to delegate stuff like this to professionals. Remember the reports that she wasnt even listening to her own lawyer last year during the split. Plus the reason she navigates her own PR is because she believes she can do a better job than PR professionals. To be fair, she did stumble on a smart PR recipe – limit interviews, stick to serious news outlets and always be pushing your most relatable aspects. In her case that was her health, her kids and her charity work. The only problem is that this is great for happy times but useless in crisis.
For example, a professional would have told her to correct HERSELF not Vanity Fair. Her statement should have read, “I apologize for speaking unclearly, there were many things happening in the house that day (message: I’m a flustered mummy just like you). “I would be appalled if what came across had actually happened” (message : I’m a good person just like you). “Heres what I meant to say….and I apologize to Vanity Fair and the talented journalist for not being clearer (message : arent I humble just like you)
Personally, I’m glad she does her own PR. I’m glad we know this abuse happened and that she put others at risk of mental anguish because she was so eager to be taken seriously as a director. I’m glad we know she thinks this is no big deal because it was a ‘game’ and fake money because it tells me everything I need to know about her priorities. I have never thought much of her as an actor or filmmaker but I did give her a lot of credit as a humanitarian. Now, I know that was totally misplaced. She is a dilettante.
Thank you all for the kind words of support. There was a time when I didn’t think I could get better and I didn’t think I even deserved to but I think I am past that.
This was so cruel on her part, I simply can’t get over it. Not only do children love games, they love to please adults, especially girls, especially already vulnerable girls. God, how does she not know that?!
Ok, breathe. Maybe, I’ll go read about something less enraging, like last night’s Nuremberg Rally in W. Va.
Hugs if you want them Pedro, and thank you for being brave enough to share. I think your point clearly identifies why this is so troubling.
Pedro, It makes me very angry too. It is hard to get over. It was so cold and to seek out the most unprotected of all is mind boggling. I am glad you are in a better place. I admire your strength and willingness to share your pain to make others understand this problem.
Pedro- I hope you can feel all the support and sincere well wishes from the posters today and that it in some small way helps.
Her handling of this whole thing has been terrible. I tried to be cynical and give her the benefit of the doubt, but no more…
And the girl was FORCED to give the “fake money” back. Hummm, Ok…
Now it is the journalist’s fault for not having a follow-up question?! Please…
AJ stans will give any excuse for her mistakes.
Angie was wrong asking for a retraction and there was definitely exploitation involved in the making of this movie.
BUT
Kaiser is totally right, Angie’s statement in the transcript is crying out for follow up questions. How could she listen to that explanation and not want to dig further into what she was saying.
I think the interviewer did not understand what she was sitting on.
This explains why VF reacted the way they did, and why they posted the initial article with the chosen formatting (not even highlighting those pieces) and why the journalist didn’t investigate further.
I doubt many lay people would have any issue with ‘a game for children’, if they didn’t read between the lines to understand what the implications are.
I also think the interviewer was as oblivious of the implications in what Jolie said as Jolie herself was. I don’t think VF printed it to be negative: I think they took what Jolie said at face value.
Western privilege from end to end, I’m afraid.
Yeah, I noticed a lot of outlets that reported on the interview didnt catch that either. I’m talking traditionally with-it outlets. They seemed to be playing catchup with their own comments sections. It really was the public who picked this out first.
@Pedro45- i’m not sure how you managed it, but in the midst of sharing your harrowing experience and taking down the trolls on this thread who deliberately ignored/ misconstrued your valid point, you also made me LOL for real: I’ll go watch “something less enraging, like last night’s Nuremberg Rally in W. Va” …
There is zero chance Angelina Jolie does not have a PR. There is zero chance Angelina Jolie has a competent and powerful PR though, because Vanity Fair saw fit to burn her and the PR and potentially live without all the PR’s clients now and forever. Usually you see this happen when the PR is a personal friend or a relative. Only when Tom Cruise hired his sister as his PR did VF start taking swipes at him.
Are Vanity Fair really this stupid? These transcripts clearly shows that:
1. Angelina was not present during these auditions
2. She CLEARLY mentions it was a game and that the children knew it was a game and these are the rules and knew the cameras where there
3. Angelina only said slums/children from poor areas and never mentioned that orphans or traumatised children were involved in these games
Angelina and her lawyers had the right to request Vanity Fair to extract that paragraph as it WAS misleading and add a correction to the online interview.
Vanity Fair is the one who is doubling down with this and they may have picked the wrong woman this time. Apparently the writer is known to sensationalise and has gotten into trouble several times like this.
Now I am waiting to see if those people who attacked her left right and centre to admit they were wrong or are they going to do a Trump and double down on their attacks?
My bet is that will ignore the explanation which makes perfect sense as most auditions are having candidates for parts participate in auditions to recreate an actual scene from the script.
PS: this is a respectable site so please refrain from the usual personal attacks on me or my mental health etc.
Everyone is allowed their opinion and I think we are all mature enough not to name call or claim others are mentally ill just because they don’t agree with us.
What on earth, how does this do anything but reinforce what people were criticizing in the first place. They did not approve of the casting process.
I’m glad VF is standing by their writer; the transcript speaks for itself.
It takes a very special type of fan to see things the way Maya does.
“Angelina only said slums/children from poor areas and never mentioned that orphans or traumatised children were involved in these games”
I’m just going to let that defense stand for itself.
Jessica, I wouldn’t even bother trying to argue logic with the Angeloonies, just get the popcorn out and enjoy the comments 🙂
Jolie’s hardcore fans (like Maya here on celebitchy) prefer to spin their own story – they’ve never cared much about facts. However it’s important for the wider audience to know what really happen on the set of this film so people can make a conscious decision NOT to watch this movie. Bravo, VF, well done, you didn’t let Jolie bully your writer.
Jessica, don’t even try to get an Angie worshiper to focus on anything that makes Angie look not so angelic. They go overboard with being protective and twisting facts to defend her. Trump supporters do the same thing these days.
No we were not wrong. She still knew it happened, she pretty much bragged about how they auditioned impoverished children. She never said they shouldn’t have auditioned the children in such a cruel manner. She approved of that audition process and chose a little girl, a non actor by the way, from that audition process. VF has nothing to apologize for and no one was wrong. And what of the poor people who freaked out when they saw what was the Khmer Rogue coming over the hill? Nope, no apologies here. Good for VF, for not bowing down to a celeb just because it’s AJ.
And as you see it seemed real to the little girl that they chose, game my ass.
Her fans are absolutely psychotic lol.
Go check out the complete psychotic meltdown one of them had when myself and another poster dared to defend Aniston.
It was next level scary.
They make the beyhive look take in comparison lol
Fan or fake fan/PR intern posting in comment section to defend her high and mighty?
No she is no shill, she is a famed super fan. You know how Trump said he could shoot someone on Times Square and get away with it because his fans were so rabid to defend him? She is Angelinas version of that and proud of it from what I have seen. These are her sincerely held views.
haha, such a rational explanation would be really nice, but alas, no, she is just a fan.
Impoverished/slum children ARE often traumatized and/or orphans. This “game” sucked. Point. Blank. Period.
Exactly. Especially in Cambodia! FFS. They knew what they were doing and she approved it.
This kind of direction style – traumatizing the actress (it’s usually an actress) to get “genuine” emotion – is mostly out of style now. Kubrick, Hitchcock, Bertolucci (among others) have done this sort of thing to adult professional actresses but it is now rightly considered abusive and wrong.
And the thing with terrorizing the village… UGH. This is not how to go about being a White Savior, Angie! 0/10
Did we read the same article?
Seriously. This type of delusion explains the rise of Trump. No amount of facts can fix it. Alternative facts rule.
Again, children will do anything if an adult tells them it’s just a “game”. Ask me how I know.
((hugs))
So sorry for your ordeal Pedro.
I’m guessing a monster used a “game” to abuse you? I’m so sorry if thats what happened.
I am sorry 😔
All love to you, Pedro.
*hugs*
To add to Pedro’s point, does anyone really think elementary school-aged kids in a slum school who were told to play the “game” really felt they could refuse? How anyone sees this as anything but an abusive situation is beyond me. This wasn’t an open casting call where parents showed up with their kids. This was an intrusion into the kids lives.
@Pedro, {{{HUGS}}}.
I’m so sorry Pedro. 🙁
I agree with you.
Sure, her people had the “right” to ask for a retraction because we still have a First Amendment in this country but VF also has the “right” to refuse to issue a correction because they have her on tape saying the things that they reported she said.
I know it’s difficult for you to admit but she misplayed this one big time. VF didn’t misreport on her; she’s just having a hard time accepting valid criticism.
Thanks to all. The support is greatly appreciated.
Maya as victim? I don’t buy that any more than I buy that this was an okay thing to do to children.
Ok…so you’re basically saying, as long as you tell a kid they’re only playing a game, that negates abuse? Please, seek help.
We get it Maya, you are a die hard fan that would defend her no matter what she does. No need for another dissertation from you.
Vanity Fair is not stupid. I’ve worked with them; they’re some of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered. They showed her exact words. Your saint dug her own grave, and she dug it with her tongue.
Since they were acting out an emotional scene from the movie- would it have been right to not test them for this particular kind of thing? If they were going to have a problem with it for any reason, wouldn’t it be better to find out before they were hired? What is the purpose of an audition? How specifically should they have tested the children?
I have problems with child actors in general, though. They have to make commitments that they really are not in a position to make entirely freely. But I’m not sure how I feel about the acting and auditioning process itself. Kids are routinely asked to remember some really sad event to help them cry on cue, for example. Adult actors do the same.
The comments will be a dumpster fire of course. I think the transcript is damning for Angelina and that entire production. It looks like they staged it for “method acting”. This girls response seems to be heavily mined from her own pain and I just can’t with that.
The improv “game” with poor children was unnecessary in the first place. They should have had a standard ACTING screen test and then had random unrelated conversations to test how comfortable they are on camera. That by the way is literally how most auteer directors like David Lynch cast their films.
Also, very telling that VF is fighting back. Angelina has lost a tonne of clout in recent years. This reminds me of that Hollywood Reporter piece listing projects that were stalling because producers thought she was too big pain during pre production. Outlets like these two prefer to cultivate A list relationships not lose them. Angie is in trouble. I wonder if she will dare bite back at VF. What do you think?
The Sony leaks were pretty indicative of her standing in Hollywood; she’s a spoiled nuisance with a minimal talent.
I do have a tough time believing that Angelina would sign off on something that was overtly cruel and/or damaging to children. That said, she — and everyone else involved — should have been able to foresee that some of these children would have a very, very difficult time staying in the “game”. These are not professional young actors, but hugely underprivileged children who were emotionally shaken at the sight of the money and all it represented. Poorly done, AJ.
She signed off on working with the Cambodian armed forces who are appalling human rights abusers. There was no requirement to do that. She signed off on having people who lived through Year Zero and it’s aftermath utterly traumatised because they had the misfortune to be living/working in an area where a rich white western actress was making her movie and it didn’t occur to her that seeing troops made up as their former torturers might be a problem. Seriously do you think anyone would be OK with filming marauding SS troops through formerly occupied Europe sometime in the 80s?
Even if you think her explanation of the audition process made it better (it didn’t and her cluelessness re that is bizarre) the transcript contradicts that explanation and proves she about it and was so ignorant she didn’t realise it was appalling so was fine chatting about in an interview in such a blasé way.
I think the point is that she was unaware that what her film did was wrong, cruel and against all humanitarian and social work principles, not that she set out to be cruel. The shocker is that she didn’t know.
@LaBlah: She’s clearly a lot more clueless than I thought.
Seems to me there were some tactical decisions made in terms of what to know and what to not know.
If she wanted to tell their story and bring Maddox with her because it was important to him too… I wonder why she didn’t make a documentary instead? Or producing a documentary directed by someone with experience and status. She could use her influence to promote the project, but at a distance letting the story speak for itself.
I am not sure there is much left to say – not after VF showed the receipts. The fact that they are fighting back also shows (in my opinion) that the writer wasn’t biased, but merely accurate. They had no intention of “taking her down”. This whole mess is on Jolie.
Exactly. The article merely stated what she told them; it wasn’t biased in any way. But once Jolie saw the backlash, she wanted to backtrack and bully them into saying they were “mistaken” in their reporting. Glad they didn’t capitulate and published the receipts instead.
Yeah, I think they’d do this with anyone. No journalist wants to be accused of lying or misrepresenting someone, especially in the current news climate. They had proof, they showed it.
@Nyawira:
Agree x10
– This transcript is a clusterfuck. EP didn’t push AJ for an explanation and AJ is terrible at explaining everything. AJ still focusing on the game and ignoring the other ethics involved (they still sought out poor children) is a clear testament of her seeking to ensure her celebrity status not her humanitarian status. That said, EP did the best she could with the word salad she was given and this doesn’t seem too far off from what was originally printed.
– AJ, if you want to share that casting story, at least make sure you know what you’re talking about. There was no need to share it but she choose to do so anyway so at least get the facts straight from the people who worked with you on the project. Also very concerning that they ‘didn’t know what they were doing’. Really? All that time in pre-production and you haven’t figured out and prepared the methods how to cast people, especially children, for such a sensitive subject? OK. They basically winged it which is not a good look again.
– The casting crew clearly went in and expected children to understand that drawing from your experiences can give a good acting performance like ADULT Method actors do. They thought this was a good thing? Method acting for children can be seen as exploitative when you seek out children who already have a difficult life and you don’t know if these children are being very good at acting or seriously affected. Srey Moch is such a young child, they took a risk with these ‘games’ for the purposes of entertainment, this just doesn’t sit right with me.
– Piss off AJ? VF don’t care lol. I wondered what the backlash would be for VF and surprisingly they don’t GAF about Jolie which if I was AJ, I would be concerned. This is shocking. The lawyers she sent on VF, demanding them to do damage control….this will now make the rounds to other magazines who might be wary to interview her in the future. And considering her movies, she needs all the publicity she can get to ensure they’re hits. Not smart. At least if she had a point, you could argue she was in her right as this could damage her career but this is not the case. There’s only so much AJ can afford now that she’s not acting in big projects anymore and she’s aging (not unimportant in that business!). She needs to establish a good relationship with another magazine with gravitas because VF ain’t it.
– The fact that she did this interview in a setting where her personal life was exposed (the new house, the kids, the disdain for her ex) all for this huge backlash must hurt on more levels than just professional. If I were her, I would also stop getting the children in public like when she did that news bit with eating spiders and allowing a journalist to see her children. She’s not a unit with Pitt anymore, it’s time to stop selling a family image as people are getting over it now. The children are growing up too, it’s not a novelty anymore and her unconscious uncoupling puts a dent in the the ‘happy kooky family’ narrative. She needs a new angle QUICK. Now’s the time maybe for that PR specialist to take over please.
ETA: @tanguerita
The new Summer of Receipts!
Tldr from Artemis
Was a novel really necessary?
I had only to read your name to recall you’ve hated Angelina in almost every thread pre this Netflix film. Lol
Let’s put it this way whatever her choices about casting this movie and the way she did it, it was nothing new and unique to the process in casting actors (see Beasts of No Nation) and it certainly doesn’t warrant these 500 post threads or the burning stake you’ve tied her to.
It’s like Hillary all over again.
@Mariel That’s simply not true. For Beasts of no nation they cast kids from the relatively peaceful Ghana for a movie that takes place in Sierra Leone. They made sure that the kids involved weren’t traumatized. Abraham Attah who played Agu comes from a stable family with five siblings. He was discovered while playing soccer outside his school. All the people involved in the casting process, including Fukunaga (because there is no way a director wouldn’t be involved in the process of casting one of the LEADS for his movie) were very aware of their responsibility as grown-ups.
@Mariel:
True, I could be more succinct, I have an issue lol.
I actually don’t hate her, I like her less and less since 2008. Big fan of pre-Pitt, some would even stan. I watched most of her movies (including her directed ones) and I think she could do better as a director.
See @Tanguerita for BNN reference.
I would add that yes exploiting children on set is not uncommon but when it’s public it should be addressed.
The Hillary reference is reaching.
Artemis I agree with your points. I made the point too about not being with BP anymore and that can’t be understated how much that added to her image.
Write a trilogy next time.
The stans have to deflect from their pain so instead of arguing the unarguable they choose arbitrary things to pick on.
Mariel wrote her own “novel” in #2 above.
@Tanguinita
You’re wrong on BOTH counts, 1) the director of Beasts, Cary Fukunaga said they wanted to go to slums because the wealthier more well to do kids did not have the life experience, and 2) Cary was NOT THERE for the casting and callbacks, Harrison Nesbitt, the casting director did the casting and discovered Abraham and others.
Please don’t dispute actual quotes, it’s hypocritical:
“Fukunaga told the LA Times: that the casting announcements they sent out on Tv and radio in Guyana attracted mainly wealthy families whose kids didn’t have the skills needed to play Agu or the other members of the films’s army of child soldiers. So Harrison Nesbitt visited schools and soccer games in Accra”
Nesbitt said, “every slum has a broken down school that’s just way overpacked with kids. And in one of these, where we found Abraham, each classroom would let a certain amount of kids go to speak with me, and I wasn’t really finding anyone that i felt was very interesting (by the way Angelina would have been killed for this statement alone)
He goes on to say he found a young kid skipping class with older ones, who didn’t really want to audition but started rapping that had a charm about him- so he asked him to the call backs(he eventually won the role). This was another pretty interesting excerpt:
“He has such a soulful presence about him and he has incredible empathy, I think, with how he was acting. That he wasn’t pretending, that it seemed like he was going back to things he had seen or just using his crazy imagination to put himself in these roles or in that position that we were asking.
*We were asking these kids to go to some pretty dark places pretty quickly*, and Abraham had the emotional capacity to do that, it was evident.”
“he improvised a scene in which his sister was taken away and he cried, ” Fukunaga said” it just showed that he had access to his emotions in a way we were looking for when we’re casting a movie. We need people, especially kids, who can access that part of their imagination very easily in front of a camera.”
Nothing on whether or not Beasts had therapists, professionals, teachers and guardians involved in the process as Angelina says she did.
But feel free to believe she’s a liar on top of everything else. Smdh
Mariel, I had never seen that Fukunaga interview and that IS indeed as troubling as Angelinas story! Angie gets no pass just because someone else skipped the radar afew years ago.
There are some differences though. As someone has pointed out, the little boy in Beasts of No Nation was from Ghana, a politically and economically stable democracy that has not seen war in his lifetime. Plus going by the interview I watched, Fukunaga went to great lengths to hide the emotional substance of the scenes. His instructions to the child actors went like “pretend you are on school vacation and have just spotted your least favorite teacher”. Another example he gave was instead of telling the children their characters emotional motivations in the scenes after Idris character abuses them, he told them to look like they have just noticed a fart and that they think its idris who dealt it but are trying to hide that they know.
I maintain that you dont need to exploit a childs hardship to make a great film about children in hardship. And those filmmakers that are caught doing it should be thoroughly and publicly shamed until the practice stops.
Dem,
I thought you knew that my purpose in posting the Beasts quotes/excerpts, was not to excuse whatever infractions you and others need to believe Angelina may have made.
But to obviously refute the insistence by several here in several posts, that Fukunaga’s “Beasts,” is the standard Jolie should have strived for or used when casting children in other countries.
As for your differences, pi gave you a direct quote of Nesbitt saying they went to over packed slum schools. I gave you a child where the director said himself that he did not know whether or not his emotion was from a traumatic experience that he had seen (so how can you state definitively that it wasn’t?). Your examples of what Fukunaga did onset to set a scene in a few instances have nothing to do with what the casting director or director said that they “needed to have kids access dark places quickly.”
Why try to clean it up? You’re the one (along with others) who assumes poor kids can’t emote or think of sad things in a make believe context without slipping into a traumatic catatonic state, so it’s odd you’re willing to give Beasts a break, but not Jolie.
A child remembering a sad event to emote for a character in a movie is not “a hardship” a grandparents funeral is not “a hardship,” it’s life and it happens and poor kids more than most can relate and have had those experiences, and they shouldn’t be denied opportunities because of what you wrongly perceive about their lives.
Gee we’d love to make you a movie actress but we’ll give that opportunity to the well to do child of a sunlord down the street!
I thought it was well written Artemis, good points.
complains about people writing a novel, goes on to write several novels herself.
Mariel, I was with you in your first three paragraphs. You are right, for the context of this discussion, we should stick to how the kids on Beasts were recruited and if your excerpt is correct, it was absolutely disgusting.
Where you lost me is with this utter nonsense about children being made to call back an emotional event to emote not being a hardship. Even grown men who actually trained to do this say it is a hardship to have to relive your nightmares take after take. And for what? So that a studio can turn a profit?
And as for this bs you typed “they shouldn’t be denied opportunities because of what you wrongly perceive about their lives”. You sound like one of those people who get angry when we deny children “opportunities” to work in sweatshops.
Angelina herself thinks her childrens psycological and emotional wellbeing should be protected going as far as denying ther dad custody but thinks that other peoples children should relive traumas so they can emote for her movie? Why? Because poor kids are not as precious as her own?? Can you seriously see her casting Pax and telling him to tap into his memories from the orphanage? Or casting Maddox in a movie about parental alcoholism and divorce and asking him to tap into those emotions he felt while on that plane??
Valois, exactly! Just came to say that.
“She’s not a unit with Pitt anymore, it’s time to stop selling a family image ”
One can’t have a family image because there is no father in the picture? I beg to differ.
Uhhh after Maleficent opened to a 170 million opening weekend, Scott rudin emailed Jolie telling her how excited he was to be moving forward on cleopatra…this a few months after telling Amy pascal she had minimal talent and would make cleopatra a bomb
Paramount also offered her directing gig for bride of Frankenstein and are currently awaiting Her decision whether to star in it or not
I think Jolie needs 2 big bombs before she loses any star power in Hollywood
The Monster universe belongs to Universal studios not Paramount. Its highly doubtful they will proceed with their roll out after the failure of The Mummy. The Mummy was supposed to be their tentpole for that universe. It starred Cruise who is still the worlds biggest box office draw in a property that audiences were already familiar with and it still failed tracking. It cost 125 million to make, atleast 10 million to market and came back with only 400 million. To make matters worse, only 20% of that was domestic. It was a healthy profit but not enough to justify proceeding with the monster universe. If Tom Cruise couldnt deliver with The Mummy, what are the odds that Jolie, Depp or Crowe will deliver in their lesser known vehicles.
Also even if they proceed, its highly doubtful they will give her the directorial reigns. The studio went on an all out attack on Tom Cruise for wielding too much power on set and ruining the film, I dont see them yielding any more power to Jolie. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if they proceed with a much a smaller film without her. She has a rep for over involvement before shooting and I can see the studio getting jittery about that after The Mummy. Plus I’m sure Universal is also learning from the WBs mess with Affleck. Not that Jolie is a drunk but that the actor director combo may not be worth it in the end.
Maleficient was very successful and her camp performance worked. ( And similarly, the Bride of Frankenstein might offer a similar context.) It’s been a long long time since she delivered a meaningful film performance. Her direction of Unbroken, after a VF “Woman of the Year” cover and many, many humble brag interviews about her direction was just ok. (The film did huge box office on release because of the interest of Christians who were interested in Zamperini’s conversion, which she omitted from the film and when word of that came out, attendance dropped precipitously).
By the Sea, has to have been one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and I love atmospheric, high concept European films. Her performance, in particular, was excruciatingly bad. I’m sure she didn’t enjoy hearing that her instincts on that were dead wrong perhaps even from those closest to her – but they were.
Let’s face it, Netflix is no Paramount or Universal.
Bill Condon is the director of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. It has been announced in all the trade papers. It is, as Dem and Original G, have pointed out, a very risky project as is this entire “Dark Universe.” I know zero about AJ, only show business news.
I sincerely hope that neither of those 2 movies happen. Cleopatra especially in addition to being done to death, but anyone can see that minefield ahead.
Lynch is so light that he can get to the deep stuff without the method.
And the truth comes out…..
I’m curious though what a game of “let’s pretend” might mean to children from other countries who are not saturated with American culture. A country still dealing with the effects of colonialism and war? It seems to be taken for granted that “all” children everywhere play the same way, but is that really the case?
In any event, VF has the receipts and AJ’s best move now is to let the story die down
I don’t think it’s a cultural thing, it’s a developmental/psychological thing. I think kids playing pretend is universal. My dad spent years in his childhood in refugee camps in Europe during WWII and pretend play and games with his brother and other kids they met were a staple of their lives. It was their way of escaping the horror of their plight.
It’s also semantics. As much as Jolie or her team insist on calling it a “game,” it was a ploy to elicit emotions. It sounds more like a trick than a game. It does seem odd to me that she thinks doubling down on the “game” aspect of it somehow makes it ok.
Esmom, to me it sounded actually less like a game to elicit strong emotions and more like an adlib game to see how a child approached the whole scenario — if a child could react to being ‘caught,’ and then tell a convincing story about why they needed something. They didn’t give them a scenario to pretend they wanted them to create or draw on a reason why the character needed it.
Children everywhere seem to play pretend based on what they have seen or heard about. They don’t usually make things up entirely out of whole cloth, although after it’s gone through their internal filters it may seem that way to adults. Many American kids saturated with tv and movies use those as a basis. In earlier times and still today, they may use books as well. Adults during Nazi occupation were horrified to see the kids playing pretend firing squads, based on things they had actually seen or heard about from adults, , but that was what kids do.
If that’s the transcript of the conversation, it seems pretty much just like what they reported earlier. I’m not sure how she could say it was out of context or misconstrued.
I worry about reading comprehension these days.
To me, it’s obvious the writer intended to give an impression that the kids weren’t aware it was a game. She wrote her published piece from the filmmaker’s perspective that it was a game (like Angelina was only telling the writer it was a game and not the kids- which is how many wrongly perceived it at first).
What the writer left out (deliberately or not) were actual quotes (revealed in the transcript) of Angelina telling the kids it was a game.
So yes that means the original was out of context and we know many misconstrued it. Some came back later after Angelina released her first statement clarifying this and said, ‘oh ok, so the kids knew then huh… well, it’s still bad because the kids were poor.’ lol
You’re misreading the transcript as well. Jolie hersel never told the children it was a game; someone else did. Jolie says “I wasn’t there” when she’s describing the audition process.
I didn’t misread a thing- i read where Jolie says she wasn’t there for the casting, but that’s not the point and you know it.
Jolie, spoke in the language of we, meaning her camp, casting director and how they approached it and spoke to the kids. She told the writer what the process was: that they told the children it was a game, that they should pretend and make up a story.
The paragraph from the piece mentions none of that, and uses none of the Jolie quotes. It’s clear the writer wants to give the impression the kids were in the dark and being manipulated.
Angelina has just found out she’s not as powerful as she thought she is. I think for a while now, as one half of a supernova couple she’s been surrounded by so many acolytes to pander up to her, she has forgotten that even if the bootlickers tell her she’s all powerful, she’s really not. And without Pitt, she is even less likely to “bury” anybody.
On a less depressing note, here’s a pallette cleanser and truly empowering: https://youtu.be/i-JCucgsYI4
Well she misplayed that hand. Because they didn’t misrepresent her. The game was still there and frankly still sounds horrible. Not defending her. It doesn’t sound like it was clear from the reactions. The lighter hearted ones (cookies) had fun but they hit an emotional mindfield with others. Did a psychologist come later to talk with the kids? Sounds like a no. And that’s where I’ll always have an issue. Experiments like this always need a debrief to bring people back to baseline. I do it for any experiment I run no matter how innocuous. To not have psychologist there that day is mishandling the process. I’m sorry I still find this awful
Good move vanity fair.
That’s what I’m wondering too, where are the psychologists, ngo, parents and others that she claimed in her explanation was present through the entire process. Did they bring them to the school?
Asking very poor children from a “slum school” to pretend to steal something that they and their family genuinely need (food; money) seems incredibly cruel.
But it unearthed lots of kid talent!!! Reading that actually turned my stomach, tbh.
Wow VF are not backing down, that is very interesting.
I would imagine Peretz has taken a lot of flack from Angie supporters over the past week, I am glad they stood up for their journalist instead of throwing her under the bus for an A-list celeb. She absolutely should not have had to print a retraction based on that transcript. I do agree with Kaiser though, that explanation was begging for follow up questions.
“the auditions were set up as “games” for these kids, that the kids were asked to use their imaginations and play pretend.”
And Angelina said “this And it’s not really an audition with children” because they said It was a game and casting director told them to act out in front of the camera as the kids were very conscious they were recorded during the game. Angelina said in her statement it was pretense the writer didn’t say that on the print she reported as reality and made believe the kids were abused.
Undoubtedly she had final approval on the article. Good for Vanity Fair not taking her lying crap.
Oh please🙄…This is Angelina jolie we’re talking about ,as if she’d do anything to hurt/exploit children…even more so in Cambodia(which she loves) & besides there were parents/guardians around as well as therapists etc…no harm was done & the little girl is ofcourse friends with the jolie-pitt kids,ofcourse since this is Jolie most are salivating at this🙄🙄…NEXT!…
Well, I see the rumors about this place are true.
Except she did.
I hope you’re being sarcastic, Adorable
Uh..Actually I’m not “Honey”!
Wow, that transcript is even worse than what was published. Angelina has now made two huge PR missteps. Has she ever even had one before?
No it shows the kids were happy to play a game of pretense and they were awared it was filmed and the NGO and parents were there to oversee their well being, all this the writer did not put on the print, she reported like the kids were abused they were not abused. She put her own comment on the print and left the most important thing.
The kids were not “happy” to play a game. By her admission, they were impoverished children being asked to “steal” food or money (that they desperately needed in real life) and then being made to give it back. Imagine the let-down afterwards. And, even worse, it seems she lied about there being psychiatrists, etc. during the entire process, since this took place at their school, in the slum, not during filming.
in AJ’s words the kids “didn’t know what they were really doing”
Open mouth kissing her brother in public and wearing a vial of blood?
There is something about demanding the title “Angelina Jolie Correction” that particularly irks me. It sounds rather sanctimonious, especially when consider the transcript.
Yes it seems incredibly egotistical. She really needs a reality check, I think, or some people around her that will tell her the truth.
A mistake was made, she should apologize and move on.
I think the ‘Angelina Jolie Correction’ and pre-written statement supplied by her team was straight up arrogant. She goofed up, bought her own hype, and tried to bully Vanity Fair into running a totally unnecessary correction (because what they actually reported seems a bit kinder than AJ’s actual words) and got a taste of her own medicine. I hope these psychos who’ve been threatening the writer since the article was published take a long hard look at themselves.
She tried that before and that didn’t work (A Mighty Heart) – a story notably about journalism and censorship – but she blamed her lawyers then. Wonder if she’s going to continue this bad PR streak and go for strike 3: blame the lawyers again. And then people say she doesn’t try to control the narrative? …hmm.
Artemis
There was a story during the initial separation (which I thought and still think was a leak from Brad) about how Angie presented Brad a pre-written press release and divorce terms and said as long as he signed, none of the nasty stuff had to come out. Additionally, she had her lawyer release the same statement about healing and therapeutic visitation two times about a week apart for no real reason other than to keep her side of things in the press. Angelina definitely has a pattern, only this time she is being called out directly.
Well if anything the VF article subtly showed disdain, anger and maybe even bitterness towards Pitt. It’s clear she wants to spill but has the kids and public backlash stopping her. She was always somebody who was open, too much sometimes and that will never change. The incident should not be a bargaining chip to control PR, from neither sides.
I think the wording by VF/interviewer and Angie are just unclear. I thought Angie was there. But it seems she wasn’t. So it is hard to be that definite about what happened if you weren’t there. I don’t think that Angie would intentionally inflict harm on kid..
But to the argument that the children “clearly understood this was a game”. these are children. They don’t always “clearly understand anything”. Talk to parents and teachers about dealing with children and telling them the same things over and over. And think about Adults. We have adults in litigation everyday about contracts. And each person says the other clearly understood. Disputes with adults happen everyday. Who are supposedly more with it; Here we are talking about young children. This needs to be handled. I agree that VF seems willing to break ties with Angelina over this.
She made a mistake. Fans have to face the fact that their idols make mistakes like regular people do. Just because they’re famous shouldn’t be a reason to dismiss their wrongdoings. Fans will make any excuse for their idol that they’ll never meet, but would their idol do the same for their worshiping fans?
It really is Trumpanzee-esque, isn’t it?
Very. No matter what, you can’t get them to let go of blind adoration
Ok trumpanzee-esque? Just because fans happen to disagree with you and several others here. Come on gtfoh with that bs. I admitted AJ messed up huuuugely ( pun intended) but to compare with DT followers is reaching,, I detest DT and what he stands for, I a minority woman was HC supporter not a deplorable so No it’s not “Trumpanzee-esque” as you are calling it.
Yes I’m an AJ fan & I’m disappointed in her but I don’t think she truly harmed any children & I still believe she’s a good human being who has done & still does good things for others & I will continue to see her movies as well. I wish her the best with FTKMF.
Ps- I don’t thin AJ is a saint nor do I worship her as you say, I’m sure other fans feel the same , it’s the non fans that call her that …its tiresome.
Yes it is. The same willful excuse making and inability to see what is right in front of them. Also the need to fill in blanks with their own spin and beliefs to try to make everything sound better.
When someone gets very defensive it usually means you have hit a nerve.
“Ok trumpanzee-esque? Just because fans happen to disagree with you and several others here. Come on gtfoh with that bs. I admitted AJ messed up huuuugely ( pun intended) but to compare with DT followers is reaching,, I detest DT and what he stands for, I a minority woman was HC supporter not a deplorable so No it’s not “Trumpanzee-esque” as you are calling it.”
This has nothing to do with being an HRC supporter and it has nothing to do with race either so it wasn’t necessary for you to go there to make your point.
And yes I was drawing a parallel between the fandom of Jolie fans and Trump supporters and I stand by that. I was NOT, however, drawing a parallel between Trump and Jolie.
This is the scariest component of fandom: that unadulterated, blind obsession to the point where they are unable to see the person for who they really are. Downplaying her actions because one claims to somehow know her motivations on a personal level as a way to justify their opinion of what she did.
You don’t know her.
I don’t know her.
She’s a celebrity who does good work but at the end of the day, she’s still a stranger to all of us. Sorry but despite your protests to the contrary, that approach IS similar to Trump-supporters claiming that he “was only joking” when he mocked a disabled reporter or when he called the White House a dump or any of his numerous lies and fabrications. It’s seeing the best in someone and giving them the benefit of the doubt when you don’t know that person on an intimate level. True, I’m a cynic at heart but I find the excuses and deflections for someone you don’t know very odd.
There are actually people here blaming VF instead of Angelina Jolie. How is that any different than the claims of “fake news!” every time a negative article about Trump comes out?
There are people here saying that VF has an axe to grind against AJ. Sounds similar to the ridiculous and paranoid assertions from Trumpsters that the “Fake News media” is out to get Trump.
*shrugs* Just calling it like I see it.
“The same willful excuse making and inability to see what is right in front of them.”
This exactly, magnoliarose.
Look, when you compare blind AJ fans to Trump fans, they get very offended. Good comparison. The blind are the blind, regardless of who their idol is.
kitten was spot on
Way to go, Kitten. Many reality checks needed. Canonising celebrities is extremely unhealthy – it certainly stops people seeing the wood for the trees.
You spelled it out perfectly.
This mindset can be dangerous if the object of worship is evil. In this case, it is a fan of a celebrity. Our country is suffering because of this mindset.
A Kitten & MagnoliaRose. I guess my response got deleted. But to make it short, I can flip this around & say it is very “trumpanzeeque” with non fans as well. I mean one big misstep & its like a lock her up scenario at a DT rally with some of you..I’m mean really! Anyway, I am simply standing up to this ridiculous comparison to trump supporters of DT & thinking how hypocritical. I see I hit a nerve with some of you as well down below with the “but Hilary comments and but her emails, etc comments. The hypocrisy..Lol typical Again I believe she did an incredibly dumb choice of how the casting came about but I don’t see it as her being a fake humanitarian..child abuser or whatever else.
Well anyway, Agree to disagree & have a nice evening.
I hope VF won’t bother giving her a cover story again.
And I do wonder to if the film crew asked the poor children’s parents for permission to record them. Probably not.
This is a self-inflicted wound and it was exacerbated by her trying to claim that VF painted her in a negative light.
It would have been a better move to just explain the context of what was happening and not demand a retraction from VF just acknowledged that it came off poorly and tried to explain. By claiming that she was misrepresented by VF she forced them to protect themselves and they did it by releasing the transcripts to show that they did not misrepresent her words and it keeps the story in the news longer and you get headlines like “VF pushes back to AJ” or “VF doesn’t back down” and it leads to more negative reaction for AJ.
This is not what she wanted her first big post-Brangelina breakup story-line to be.
Agreed. She should not have insisted that VF issue some huge correction, knowing that they had audio of her discussing the project. Her stans are going to defend her to the death, but I think she lost a lot of standing with those who are otherwise willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Had her approach to the backlash been in the lines of: “oh “I” expressed myself wrong, this is what really happened: the kids knew what they were playing a game” without blaming the writer or the magazine or the editor, then yes, the story would have been zeroed, buried. But no, she wanted to force the magazine to say they maliciously twisted her words. But there’s the receipts. And not only: she did say that the kids had no idea of what they were doing. So is even worse than we though it was, she wasn’t even present but she’s responsible for these poor kids reviving their trauma for the sake of her film.
There was a monumental lack of self-awareness in the original VF article, the clarification in HF was no better and then she doubles down and sends in lawyers to defend her in the third news item. That’s three strikes of no personal responsiblity or self-reflection. This specific character flaw has been firmly established.
This is a good point. I think she could have tried to smooth it over and say she misspoke, and most people would forget about it and move on, but demanding a retraction and apology when the magazine did nothing wrong is incredibly tone deaf and self serving.
Mannori and LadyT, exactly.
If Angie stood in a line and gave kids a million dollars a piece and committed herself to a convent people would criticize her. Her biggest sin to date is getting with Pitt. People have been nailing her to the cross for that for 12 years. No apologist here just facts.
These VF people have lost their biggest client not because they don’t care, they did it because they know what this Intel with their brand. The writer who is known to stir led the reader to a scenario by her own conclusions.
Other bloggers and writers defend her because they do the same thing.
you know, funny enough, mainly Angelina apologists bring up Brad Pitt. seriously no one is mentioning him, only factually criticising and debating her casting choice and there a wild Angeloonie pops up “YoU’Re ONly haTinG On HeR BecAUSe oF BRaD!!!,!!.!”
There are so many issues here and one of them (that some people have already mentioned) is the very idea Jolie seems to have of cinema. To me, it is from where the whole array of problems stems.
She seems to confuse documentary and fiction. For fiction, there is no need to gather people’s experiences and film where the events she wishes to depict happened. Doing it, here, entails a very messy management of the emotional turmoil acting can therefore provoke in actors who were chosen without the possibility of consent because they did not know what they were chosen for.
Many child actors such as Scarlett J., Kirsten Dunst and more begged their parents to become actors, that’s fine. I really object to these techniques of finding children for things they weren’t ready for. I am sure there is an Asian child actor somewhere who would have loved to have this opportunity. Again, because Jolie is not fully trained to do the jobs she is doing, there is no full thinking on her part about ethics, political representation, trauma etc.
Besides mentioning a psychologist, she never mentions political experts, war reporters – people who should have been consulted for advice. I am doing my PhD and I have to quote my sources, interview people and gather information to back me up. In this particular and very tricky situation, I would have loved to see her do the same. It’s not enough to have adopted from the country and do charity work to suddenly become an expert.
She tried doing this was her other film, in the land of blood and honey. She’s aiming for AUTHENTICITY by tapping into real people’s painful experiences, and yes that’s voyeuristic and gross. One review said ITLBOH was basically torture p0rn. Or did they say that about unbroken? I cant remember, but she def has an obsession with human pain and suffering and portraying that on screen. We see that in her depiction of a dysfunctional relationship in by the sea too, what a pile of overwrought melodrama.
Fine, she wants to explore a painful topic, but she can do that with actors, not vulnerable people. Capturing a real person’s pain on film is not art.
All of this reminds me of what her critics say about her oscar for girl interrupted – she was simply playing herself.
Well said.
@Bexington – they said it about both – ITLBOH and Unbroken. I just think Jolie is much less talented than she was lead to believe by…whoever. When it comes to conveying deeper, stronger emotions on screen, she lacks subtlety and imagination. That’s why she seeks refuge in torture p0rn – she just doesn’t know it any better. That’s her idea of serious ART.
Agreed. Her obsession with suffering would be fine if she weren’t exploiting the real pain of traumatised communities for the sake of her ‘art’. It puts her own ambition above the wellbeing of others, which is unacceptable. If she really wanted to be responsible and ‘spread awareness’ about what people have gone through, as she claims, then she would make or fund a documentary etc.
She used to be the wild child/queen of darkness (Hollywood-style), and I don’t think that has ever gone away. In the last decade or so she has just publicly channeled the same energy in a new direction–but that doesn’t mean that she’s a completely different person. She’s not the devil, but she does seem to be a woman of extremes and I think she’s just an older version of who she has always been.
@G you are spot on here.
I’m surprised how little I see mentions of this which is glaring: if you have to require the method from your actors, who are inexperienced, then you’re not exactly a good director or decision maker, nor is there understanding of the craft. I’m glad you pointed out the difference between documentaries and fiction.
@jammypants, exactly. Traumatizing actors is not what makes a good director, anybody with little morals can do that.
This is like when Alejandro Jodorowsky bragged about getting an actress raped on-screen, when he got criticized, he showed his megalomania with the typical “It was for art, you don’t understand!!!”.
I agree slowsnow. The Method acting and authenticity stuff is a trend underlying all this.
Yeah I saw Sarah (might’ve been Sara?) way upthread say similar. I,kept scrolling and reading and this a nightmare now it seems.
((Hug)) sincerely to Pedro.
I don’t know. I’ve thought for a long time that Angelina is ‘off’ a bit but I never realized depth of … everything. This entire thing is disturbing.
She told this story, clearly thinking that their approach would be seen as a mark of authenticity and how the had aligned themselves with this country’s pain. What it’s seen like is how privileged westerners were voyeurs in the pain of a real, present little girl to make a movie.
The story was meant to elicit admiration but instead pointed out how out of touch she and her production were.
I think there’s plenty of other red flags in this article as well. She doesn’t really come off well at all in the way she’s represented herself. I’ve always be a fan and Ill wait to see what she does next. Her past couple of efforts have been tone deaf.
🙌
Sorry, AND she doesn’t make this PR exercise better by portraying herself a person who after 40 years of life and 15 years of parenthood can’t crack an egg for the kids of wipe up mud from the dog. She’s lost in their 25 million dollar compound……can find the rooms of her moving boxes. Giving Maddox an Executive Producer credit? I’m struggling.
MTE exactly, the Original G. She comes off completely tone deaf, unaware, out of touch, obvious, and privileged.
She said it her self: “they (the kids) didn’t know what they were really doing”. No excuses for what was registered and printed. They have receipts. And the fact that she wanted to force their apologies and they refused is the confirmation that she, not only is wrong and doesn’t have the right to demand anything, but also that she’s not as relevant and powerful as she thinks she is.
I do not have a dog in this fight at all. You never know what goes on behind closed doors. I do not think Angelina is a Saint and can do not wrong and Brad is the same. But I do think that the divorce will hit her star power more than his – for whatever reason.
Her narrative, I think, will change to a bit of an eccentric dragging loads of kids around. The Hollywood types seem to be sympathetic to Brad – again not judging that at all – but it will prove to be significant. .I do not think she will remain a huge star like she has been.
Screw Vanity Fair.
The transcripts show how the audition process went down, they chose to paraphrase it to make it sound worse than it was. That is piss poor journalism.
All this hate for Angelina is pathetic. There have been countless movies where kids have been in horrible situations on film, but no outcry for those directors. How many times have kids been beaten, killed, abandoned, homeless, murderers, or starved on screen? People never question those “traumatic experiences.”
How many movies have purposely seeked out slum/orphan/circus kids while claiming to be a humanitarian with adopted ‘orphans’. The casting process was unnecessary; she should have just done an open call and picked the best actress.
Vanity Fair didn’t paraphrase Jolie they directly quoted her. They didn’t make her look bad she accomplished that on her own.
That anyone could read this transcript and continue to blame EP or Vanity Fair boggles the mind. Angelina was way out of line and there really is no defense for that.
How many people used appalling human rights abusers as extras?
Those movies weren’t directed by a humanitarian who advocates for women and children’s rights tho…
THAT is the fundamental difference here.
Considering her ties to Cambodia and proclaimed love of the land, she should have known better, then again she purchased her land from a war criminal.
She’s done great things for human rights, no one is refuting that, however there’s some seriously shady bs in her kitchen that is no longer being ignored.
Angelina has been off her game since her filing for divorce. Instead of a quiet “we’ve grown apart,” she implied that Brad had abused the children (didn’t say it, but that was clearly implied). He predictably fought back, rather skillfully I would say; and she has now called into question her main advantage, her humanitarian care for children. All these problems are self-inflicted.
This kind of “game,” particularly with impoverished and vulnerable children, would not pass muster by any human subjects science review board, at least not as described here.
I’m starting to think she never really did her own PR and was only riding Pitt’s clout, because let’s be honest, this is not the first time she messes up. Far from it. This is just the first time it sticks.
Brad Pitt must be cackling at this but it’s likely that during all these years he helped covering up controversy “charity work”-related and was as exploitative as his then-wife so f*ck him too.
We know that children do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality until at least age 8, more likely later.
It’s why, when asked what they want to be, you get replies like “princess” because to them, it’s a real thing. It’s also why, around ages 4-5, nightmares and night terrors start. because they do not have the brain development to know the difference. It’s not fiction, or made up, it’s developmental fact. They start into the “age of reason” around 8-10, and not before.
So, you can explain until you are blue in the face that it’s just a game, but it makes no difference. It’s developmental. It’s not intelligence, privilege, it’s developmental.
These kids never stood a chance. And they didn’t have people, parents, families, advocating for them either. Shame on her, shame on the casting people, and the movie.
It brings to mind the times I’ve needed to leave the theatre with young children 5-8 because the G-rated movie was just too scary. They “knew’ they were in a theatre watching a movie on a screen but their feelings of fear and discomfort were real nonetheless.
Lady T -When I was 5 or so there was a showing of Bambi at a theatre and I went to see it with my mother. When Bambi’s mother died I cried and cried. I vaguely remember it but my mother told me I was devastated. That isnt’t even live action. My 4 year old son is sensitive and he worries about characters sometimes after a story so I add to the story to explain in a way he can find satisfying.
Children connect to things that adults can rationalize. Children don’t have the response they had unless they felt it was real. They aren’t trained actors and they aren’t from a Western privileged background.
OMG I know. When my daughter was 4, she was watching Winnie the Pooh. Safe choice, we thought, yet out she cam crying devastated because Rabbit yelled at Roo. I mean, she was devastated for little Roo.
G rated kids movie, my child from a stable home, and she cried and cried. Now take a child from such an unstable unpredictable life and see what happens when you deliberately trigger horrific events from their lives. For the sake of a MOVIE.
Lady T I’ll always remember the story my friend told me of going to see the Lion King and getting to Mufasa’s death scene, and crying so hard that her aunt had to threaten her with leaving if she didn’t stop crying. Kids internalise these things and if they are very young ( and yes I realise this may not be the case in the case of the Lion King) they may not be able to separate between make believe and fantasy.
What’s this movie going to be rated anyway? The trailer was certainly not suitable for children.
when I was 6 I asked my older sister to teach me chess. in the middle of our first game she killed my favourite piece, the queen. I cried for a whole day straight and for the first hours no one could convince me to come out from under my bed. I was so devastated that my queen was dead…
See the haters will attack. I think Angie did the right thing and VF has a track record with this writer and themselves matter of factly. Remember they did the same thing to JA in 2005. That’s it for them with Angie.
Plus they just want to create news by releasing a transcript that prove Jolie. What a bunch of idiots and the people falling in to hang her because of pretty boy Pitt knocking on his son and she left him. And I don’t agree with Kaiser, that is not explotive. This is click bait I guess. Vanity Fair might not back down but it could hurt them worse than Jolie. Because the public is ready to eat her alive (Some bloggers) the movie will only draw interest. Watch it or nit mostbeill
I know right? Damn us for “hating” on an adults, just for exploiting children! Terrible for any of us to think defending the children is in any way important, even from such a distance and after the fact.
@Truth Hurts: ITAWY!!
VF doesn’t need to do anything except tell the truth. They have. Her power is on the decline and instead of letting it happen slowly this advertises this fact loud and clear. I thought she didn’t care because she wanted to be a humanitarian. This will stick and I don’t think she will be welcomed in those circles the way she used to be. The fault is her own.
This is exactly who I’ve always thought her to be. I never wanted to believe the humanitarian thing was a PR shtick (her fans are so scary….like Beyonce ‘s), but a celibrity is a celibrity is a celibrity. Manufactured lives, manufactured families and manufactured honesty. The real pearl here is knowing this is the norm. It’s odd to find truth in famous, I do believe it’s there, albeit rarely.
Interesting comment. If “being a celebrity” is an unparalleled opportunity to indulge yourself in constructing your own grand myth, who is it that Angelina wants us to think she is, vs who she really is?
But I’m a movie fan more than anything, and I like Jolie’s earlier action films, mostly. Empowering kick-ass woman sort of thing.
For me, the Jolie head-scratcher that changed it for me is By The Sea. She had alot of control over the film. I sat down to watch as a fan, with an open heart and mind. The movie is not necessarily my thing, but it was Jolie’s baby, start to finish. I wanted to be supportive. She talked in interviews about the emotional turmoil she endured writing directing starring in it. I was intrigued. I watched it. And the movie is just really really bad. And she’s absolutely the worst part of it. It’s just shockingly bad. Embarrassingly bad. It’s like, “how in the F could she not see how bad this is? WTF?!”
I remain confounded by why By The Sea ever happened. The Tomb Raider spell was broken. This was her artistic expression, and it was unwatchable. She was awful. The story was shite.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that none of these celebrities are who we think they are, and this VF interview affirms that.
I think she’s probably always overthought herself in terms of depth, mystery, relevance and importance on a globally civic playing field. But like you, because they’re actors, that’s how I prefer to swallow them lol. Her action movies were entertaining, albeit in a posing sort. I prefer my female action heroes to not care ‘which side is their best.’
Angie isn’t a good script writer. By the Sea is an example. She wants to write and direct movies. She should try to find a good scriptwriter and direct the movie she wants to make.
The author of the book co-wrote this script with Angie, so this movie might have a chance. Plus, she didn’t act in it. So she could really focus on directing the movie.
@Jayna. Unfortunately, neither of them are accomplished *screenwriters,* an entirely different medium from the novel.
So the part about the cambodian army is probably true as well, right? What a mess all this thing was.
She didn’t deny this part
She spoke of the villagers falling to their knees and wailing in fear in her first VF interview. This story caused every bit as much public uproar as the “auditions.” Yet she did not address it in her HP clarification nor did her lawyer address it in their VF demands. Why? Not because they didn’t need to but because there was no way to truthfully deny it. Not saying anything says it all.
Indeed, that’s horrifying. And what a coterie of yes men did she have on her production team for letting this proceed unchallenged? And the sheer blindness in not seeing the horror of what they had done… it’s almost criminal carelessness.
They handled the audition process in the worst way possible. Take your lumps Angelina and move forward.
Thanks so much. With hard work and therapy, I get marginally less crazy every day! Seriously, I appreciate the support. Just saying or writing the words helps reclaim pieces that I lost.
Anyway, on topic. Angelina was wrong on just every level on this one.
The transcript speaks for itself. Everyone can dissect it which ever way they please but the transcript clearly shows that VF was not trying to bring down Angie and also shows that no, they don’t need to apologize for anything. They reported what she told the interviewer. End of story.
If you want to give Angie a pass then that’s on you but to try and justify it or to claim that VF was wrong…well then you’re very delusional.
I’m confused- is the lie that the girl needed the money for the grandfathers funeral or was the lie that the little girl would say she didn’t take it???
If I’m confused I’m sure the kids were too. SMH
The fact that Jolie mentioned this disgusting casting method while being absent during the audition is literally the saddest part. And not an excuse.
As a director, you are the boss, you are responsible for everything. If you still can’t see why the people are outraged over this odd way how your crew picked this kid for the lead role, you lack the basics of empathy, compassion and failed as a director.
I’m indifferent to Jolie. And even with this story I don’t think she is a fake humanitarian. It sounds like her and her people made a big mistake but she’s not going to apologize for it, which I don’t like.
Just like I think the side that hates Angelina Jolie are Over the Top with trying to prove that she’s evil, I think her fans are just as over the top trying to prove that she’s perfect. She’s not evil nor perfect. Her fans have to accept that even people who don’t have a huge problem with her don’t bow down to her feet and accept that she’s a perfect person.
Entitled spoiled brat indeed. There’s absolutely no excuse for This.
And you know it’s that bad when this site let all the negative comments come through. Never seen that on any AJ thread before that VF interview.
Yep.
She is vile.
The plot thickens.
I can only wonder: Why did Vanity Fair release this new “development” as a story? They already issued a statement defending the article. VF didn’t have to announce that Angelina Jolie had asked for a retraction/correction. They simply could have declined her request. Let the movie come out and speak for itself. Instead, they chose to fan the flames.
I did not realize Angelina wasn’t present at the auditions. To me, that makes a difference. Still, it seems she was confident in her team at the time, continues to believe everything was handled well, and feels that no wrongful hurt was done to the children. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say. I can imagine some of the kids may have gotten scared or triggered, and others not. Some may have understood the pretend aspect of the exercise better than others. However, let’s remember that it WAS pretend. It wasn’t a situation of actual child abuse, which some of us here with a history of PTSD are projecting onto this story. It was an audition. Regardless of whether the improvisation game was a bad idea or not, we can be sure that kindness, comfort and support were given to any child who responded with confusion, fear or sadness. To me, this makes a difference, too.
From watching the trailer, it appears that a very talented little girl was discovered to play the leading role. From pictures we’ve seen, she seems bright, delighted and very fond of Angie. As for the villagers falling to their knees, did that really even happen? Even if it did, remember War of the Worlds? Not that either scenario was desirable, just something to think about.
My question at this point is this: What will Angelina do now? Will she continue to defend herself, or will she let it go, “agree to disagree”, step away from this story line and try to redirect the conversation? Any chance Brad Pitt, who said “You should see Angie’s movie!” might issue a support statement? Guess we’ll just have to stay tuned…
You must be joking about Brad Pitt issuing a support statement. After that article where AJ showed so clearly her disdain for him – no way.
Yep, joking.
“Angelina Jolie had asked for a retraction/correction. They simply could have declined her request.”
She asked for a retraction and apology, saying they didn’t do their job properly, which hurts their professional reputation. They had evidence proving they did do it properly. If someone publicly accused you of not doing your job, but you had proof showing you did, wouldn’t you present that?
“As for the villagers falling to their knees, did that really even happen? ”
This is a direct quote from her, in the original VF article: “In one scene, recalls Jolie, “when the Khmer Rouge came over the bridge, we had a few people who really dropped to their knees and wailed. They were horrified to see them come back.””
I also would think in the current climate of everyone shouting “fake news” at anything they don’t like that a journalist would be even more interested in defending their work and proving they are honest.
My understanding is that she did not ask publicly for the retraction; VF received a private letter from her lawyer.
Yes, she stated that people fell to their knees, which sounds awful, but it’s not clear if they were actors who were caught up fully in the experience, or what. I think this fragment may have been exaggerated or misconstrued. We need to understand, this movie depicts horrifying traumatic events that took place during a traumatic time period in the past. Seeing it was horrifying, no doubt, even if you knew it was not really happening in the present.
Let me add that in the not so distant past, I discovered my boyfriend hanging in a tree, a few hours after he committed suicide. To this day, when I see anything hanging or dangling from the ceiling, a roof, a tree, my trauma gets reactivated. I am neither ignorant nor callous about the PTSD phenomenon. And my understanding is that the people of Cambodia are very supportive of this film. I can not help but factor this in while forming my opinion.
Crazydaisy: this is what Jolie said about the distraught villagers…..straight from her lips so to speak
” And then there were the odd bystanders who hadn’t been aware that a movie was being made, and were traumatized. In one scene, recalls Jolie, “when the Khmer Rouge came over the bridge, we had a few people who really dropped to their knees and wailed. They were horrified to see them come back.”
Yes, LAK, this happens. My mother was sitting shaking and crying 20 years and more after the WWII ended, in the hallway, when the fire sirens went. It took her back to the sirens when the British- and US-Bombers came.
Crazydaisy, that must have been an awful thing to see and cope with. Since your trauma is reactivated seeing something with anything that reminds you of the tragedy, I’d think you would understand why these kids could be upset.
It’s cold to brush it off because you’re an Angie fan who thinks she’s the biggest humanitarian who could do not wrong. I’m sure not everyone in Cambodia is supportive of this movie
@Honey, Thank you for your kind sympathy. Yes, even before that happened to me, I would have understood why these kids could be upset. I’m not coldly brushing anything off. This should be clear from a careful reading of my comments! And no, there isn’t a person in the world who can ‘do no wrong’. But yes, I admire and think highly of Angelina Jolie. I believe she has noble intentions and I give her the benefit of the doubt.
“It was an audition.”
Did these children’s parents sign them up for an audition? Or were they randomly subjected to an audition?
What parents? The kids were sourced from orphanages, slums or circuses.
Randomly subjected to an audition?!
Please.
I doubt these children understood the entire concept. They are from 3rd world orphanages, not Western children who are exposed to media.
Actually, media exists in Cambodia, and children are exposed to it there. Not like here, but yes, they understand what movies are!
Which brings me to the next point: Our general lack of awareness of what life is like in Camobida is one reason this film is so important. I hope many of us will watch it when it is released on Netflix. I’m looking forward to that discussion on Celebitchy!
No crazydaisy they do not know the media as American children do. I have been to underdeveloped countries before and it is nothing like some people in this thread try to assert. Slum schools and orphanages do not have cable TV and laptops. Many of the orphanages are run poorly and sexual abuse is a prevalent problem in some of them. These kids attach themselves to volunteers who leave and then repeat and repeat which is psychologically damaging for them. Some of them have parents who simply can’t care for them and are traumatized by the separation. Some places are filthy and some are corrupt.
Some organizations are limiting donations and Western access because they tend to make the problem worse. They believe people help to feel good about themselves but it does nothing to change the situation.
No way Brad issues a statment, he’s probably laughing. Lol
He let her take a ton of hits early on in the divorce proceeding, in fact for months prior to his GQ mea culpa. I don’t see him standing up for her now.
She has been coy and allowed the man to be labeled a child abuser. That is just… I mean how do you do that? Has she ever corrected that. NOPE. In fact I think that is what she thought the focus would be on. Not this. Her PR game has been messy. They are not together anymore. It isn’t Brad’s Job to issue any statement. She never has regarding any blow back he has gotten.
Doubt he will be making any iced coffee runs for the time being.
I doubt he’s laughing. She has their joint children under her primary care. If I were Brad, I’d be concerned about this enough to move on having her mental health assessed.
@Carrie, it wouldn’t surprise me is the crux of his therapy is for narcissism abuse, which could explain why there’s no movement in the custody arrangement thus far.
Brad’s not going to issue a ‘supporting statement’. After all, as many have pointed out, he wasn’t there when Angelina was crafting this epic. Also, he would be compelled to clarify what exactly happened during post-production that made the marriage ‘difficult’, a facet Angelina herself offered up during the VF interview.
Brad was with his family when this movie was filmed around two years ago. The entire family was together for at least four months. They always did when they were together. Pics are online of Brad, Angelina, and the kids out in Cambodia. I saw a picture of them cuddling on set. I doubt he had any input in the film but he was in Cambodia.
No… I’m pretty sure he was away filming War Machine. James was on hand the majority of the shoot.
She is beautiful and much admired for her humanitarian work. But it is problematic that she is apparently unwilling to hold herself accountable for the disturbing mistake made on her watch.
I think she has gotten away with a lot because she is perceived as being beautiful (which is subjective as I think her inner unpleasantness has written itself on her face over time). But that’s all she has. She never was the great humanitarian she was touted to me – it was always about HER.
so much this. it has never ceased to amaze me that people didn’t notice.
Lord, how not to promote a movie.
Why oh why did she demand that retraction from VF? And the language suggests it was a demand, rather than a request. Her follow-on statement (and her producer’s) post the VF article had more or less put this controversy (albeit uneasily) to bed and would, had she kept quiet and reined in her ego, allowed in time the focus to return to the actual movie. Instead, it will likely hang over it like a bad smell and all because AJ seems incapable of saying mea culpa.
All this says to me is that they knew they would be traumatizing impoverished foreign children by the measures taken (therapists on set?). She approved this mess, she’s responsible for allowing it to happen. Hope Vanity Fair doesn’t apologize. Angie is just upset she got caught.
I really don’t understand when people say the audition process and the filming triggered old trauma in these kids. The kids were not yet born when the events happened in real life, No? Really confused here..
Violence and trauma do not need to be exact reproductions of the past to create fresh wounds.
Honestly, to be retraumatised you need to be traumatised in the first place. Understand?
they specifically spoke about looking for children who have experience trauma. Understand?
@Detritus No they did not. AJ only said they went to slum schools.
“To cast the children in the film, Jolie looked at orphanages, circuses, and slum schools, specifically seeking children who had experienced hardship”
Try again.
Unless you want to argue that hardship and trauma are completely different?
There you said it yourself ^_^
Said what?
That you would like to argue there is a massive difference? Between the two? I do not agree with that.
Trauma and hardship are not mutually exclusive, they are similar words used in different types of communication. Trauma is the technical word, while hardship is the word most lay people use. There is a significant amount of overlap, but they are not exclusive of each other.
Jolie never uses trauma, it’s an emotionally packed word. She uses hardship as the short hand. She’s very aware of her word choice.
Offering money to very young, very deprived children, asking them to lie and then ‘catching them’ and taking it off them if they fail to lie ‘successfully’, as a game is unforgivably callous and uncaring. It’s not hard to see why that might have been quite traumatic and upsetting for some of them, particularly since having to steal to stay alive – and risking getting caught and beaten – may well be their very sad day-to-day reality.
God, they were beaten as well? How many died, while this film was made? Please add some more lies. Thank you!
Claudia, she did not say they were beaten or killed. She said it was traumatic and upsetting, as evinced by the reactions of the actress they chose for the role.
Shame Claudia, maybe in future read correctly before accusing someone of lying. I’ve never understood blind adoration. I suppose that’s how most cults are started.
@Lilian I’ve given up on the idea of having a meaningful conversation with Jolie’s fans long time ago. There is a degree of rabidness there that, frankly, scares and repels me.
Hi @Faust. Can I kindly suggest you go back to the previous posts about this matter? Some commenters shared a lot of knowledge about the dire situation the country of Cambodja is in. I personally didn’t know a lot of what was said. In a nutshell: the country is still suffering from the consequences of the genocide and is still a dictatorship where a lot of past and present violence is off the charts. There is a lot of fear instilled in the population who are very poor. Moreover, these kids were from a poor background, specificaly chosen for their impoverished lifestyle so that they could convey “real” emotional turmoil, which, per se, is incredibly manipulative and a very erronous notion of what cinema, fiction and acting is. Furthermore, there is no real knowledge in such contexts, I believe, of what a casting process is, or even of acting. It reeks of rich priviledge and superiority complex to just go to a poor school and have the children play sordid “games” where they are faced with more money that their families will earn in a year probably without a real knowledge of what is going on.
Poor doesn’t always equal trauma. I’m an African and i very well know what poor background, impoverished lifestyle, civil war fear, terrorism fear, dictatorship government and other forms of fear means.
Bottom line is they were acting a “game”, and they were told so. It is called ACTING. Tell my 4 year old nephew to act a sick poor orphan and he goes straight into action “without experiencing any trauma”.
Btw I’m amazed you know that they were faced with more money than their families will earn in a year. Was that revealed in any interview, blog site, or you were part of the auditioning team ?_?
Poor doesn’t equal trauma, but your experiences are also not universal.
I’m glad you are untraumatized by your circumstance, that pretending to be an orphan doesn’t upset your nephew, but do not assume others have fared so well or are exactly the same as you.
In fact your nephews reaction, in comparison to the child hired to act in Jolie’s movie, was very different. Does this not cause you to consider there may be a major difference in their mental state as well?
Cambodia, unfortunately, has a problem with child sex trafficking and is a destination for pedophiles and known for child sex tourism. Children are sold by their parents or taken under false pretenses. Children as young as 5 are held as sex slaves.
The corruption and organized crime is unchecked there and no one is held accountable.
Who knows what these children have actually experienced. But it shouldn’t matter.
Wow she’s a liar.
No real money was used… except when they used real money and cookies.
“WE just went in” Where were the parents?
“WE had this game”
but suddendly she tries the “I wasn’t there”-card. So you didn’t see these “slum schools”? Sure Jan.
“The kids didn’t know what they were really doing”. Same goes for her.
This is a terrible black eye for her. Just horrible decision making all the way around.
The people I feel most sorry for are those for whom this film was a really meaningful and important experience – Ung Loung herself, all the actors, all the crew, all the Cambodians who wanted their story told, all those who were very proud of the end product and its very positive reception ‘at home’ and very likely thrilled that their story was going to reach an equally sympathetic and engaged international audience.
That it’s now mired in controversy through no fault of theirs is more than a little bit heart-breaking.
Yes.
Wouldn’t it be great if we held all people to the same standards and high bar as Angelina Jolie?
This woman has done so much for so many, and is attempting to do same for a country that means so much to her and her son, but one misstep and people want to delete her existence.
No, I’m not talking about screwing a teenager, or allegedly drunk attacking a kid on a plane or grabbing a woman’s genitals unasked…or housing discriminating based on race..
But casting child actors by playing a game in front of a camera and telling them it was a game.
O
@Skylark – agreed. 🙁 Sorry for the people of Cambodia who want and deserve to have their story told.
Oh yes, Jolie is like Trump, she is even worse, come to think of it. She also sexually abused those kids at the audition and nobody interfered. Good grief!
I think we should all travel to her house and scream: “Kill her!” “Kill her!”
It’s insane isn’t it. Lol like they all smell Angelina’s blood in the water and they are committed to tearing her to shreds. The eagerness and barely contained glee at her perceived imagined downfall astounds.
I wish people put this much energy into the real bad guys.
But by all means cancel the dedicated humanitarian Oscar winning movie star that upset Rachel Green in 2005 because she was next for Brad Pitt.
It’s one thing to criticise somebody but another to take somebody apart. Many people cannot stick to the subject. Here we discuss the discussion between VF and Jolie and we do not discuss Jolies UN-Work. We do not discuss her divorce from B. Pitt. We stick to the VF article and we do not add personal experiences and mix them with what happend during the audition in question.
I am very disappointed by posters like Sixer and LAK, I must say. Unbelievable!
Ever see the little kids all dressed up like adults who are audited for movies in the US or those kids which are dragged to beauty contests in the US? Where is the outcry for those children?
Claudia: What are you talking about?
“But Hillary!!”
sorry but it was too hard to resist 😉
No, no kitten it’s the EMAILS!
Brad Pitt Brad Pitt Brad Pitt Brad Pitt Brad Pitt
(Since I hadn’t mentioned him so far, I thought I might as well commit the sin to lend the accusation some accuracy.)
ladies, please listen to Claudia.
In the future, do not let any outside knowledge of the issues impact your take. You should be a tabula rasa to completely understand Jolie’s plight. Forget your education, forget your world knowledge, disengage the issue from where it sits in social context, only then will you truly understand.
Also, maybe only care about issues in your home country, k? Otherwise, who will think of the (beauty pageant) children!
Won’t anybody think of the Sixlets, whose mother is so useless that they had to make their own (and her) dinner?
Yeah, I don’t agree with Jolie here, but even I find the Mango Mussolini comparison completely ridiculous.
Kitten was comparing her supporters to Trumpsters. Die hards who bury their head in the sand with cognitive dissonance. NOT comparing Jolie to Trump. Please don’t fall into the trap of these stans.
Your fave is problematic.
Nice straw man you got there, Claudia Remm. When you find yourself building for yourself an extreme argument that nobody on the other side even made so that you can argue with its absurdity by yourself, its time to pack up. Its a desperate tactic by people who realise they have lost the debate but dont know how to honorably leave it.
I don’t, for one minute, think AJ ever consciously or actively set out to exploit vulnerable children. Her fault, if anything, is that she’s too close to the story to understand how her raw take on the process may not travel well. And it hasn’t and I’m making no excuses for her for that. But equally. I don’t see that as a reason to shit all over her and discount everything she’s done for the past 16 years.
Also, she’s been through a hell of a lot over the last few years and, despite her coming across as if it’s all in a day’s work for her, I’m sure it’s not, once the door is closed.
Ugh thank you, Sami.
I didn’t see anyone here comparing Jolie to Trump, only comparing a portion of her extremely obsessive and blind fan base to Trump-supporters. I guess you can also add “lack of reading comprehension” to the traits that both Trumpets and Joliestans share.
” I wasn’t there and they didn’t know what they were really doing”
They didn’t know what THEY were doing. She was referring to the production team that engaged in this obscene exercise with those kids. By that statement she seems perfectly aware of what they did at the time they did it.
So, to summarize:
-Took a bunch of kids from an impoverished area
-Improvised a game without considering the emotional trauma it might bring
-Reveled in the emotional response it evoked from the child they eventually selected
-Angelina Jolie finds all this defensible
Yeah, no, sorry not sorry, no pass whatsoever on this. And I was never a hater.
Was she talking about the production team or the kids. Because it’s one thing to tell a child you’re playing a game it’s another for them to understand it
+1
This casting method is exploitative ,cruel
They brought therapists though. That means the production team must have known there was the potential for trauma even within a 5 minute time frame.
EXACTLY.
I said this on the other thread. They wanted to trigger children, they devised audition protocols to do that, and took therapists along to deal with the aftermath.
They knew what they were doing and did it anyway.
And Jolie didn’t – and apparently still doesn’t – understand that this is an unethical way to behave. It would be bad enough if it were your “normal” oblivious celebrity director but it’s not. It’s someone who has literally made a brand of understanding humanitarian work to the extent her fans have virtually canonised her for it.
ETA – this was a reply to @perplexed comment #53. Sorry, I misplaced.
Precisely.
What i am surprised about is that Jolie doesn’t apply professional standards for child actors – e.g. without putting them into psycho games. She is a professional actress. She put one of her children (Vivienne?) into her movie Maleficient. I bet Vivienne got all professional help that there is to master that situation as Jolie’s Maleficient looked somewhat scary to a toddler.
So why not professional child acting setup for the Cambodian children?
You are making up stuff.
Angelina specifically said that Vivienne was the only child not afraid of her in costume because she knew it was her mother. Those children and parents gave consent to audition for a role with a scary witch as well.
Again, where is the LOCAL OUTRAGE of young black teens being killed by cops? If that is not trauma or child abuse, (see cops getting caught planting evidence before they make arrests) then what is???
+1 mil
Josephina, if this was an article about people being killed by cops, we’d be commenting on the tragedy. However, this is an article about Jolie, a movie star
Oh my god, you said nothing about the murder of Palestinian children in this thread or the continuing harm Agent Orange has caused in Vietnam that the US refuses to pay for, what a horribly myopic uncaring person you must be. 🙄 Or you know maybe people on this thread are talking about the topic of this thread and not every awful thing that happens in the world.
#73 Lol Amanda it is appalling her hater-stans are still attacking her even now that we know the truth that there was no ‘torture’ or ‘abuse’. I guess if it is what you need to believe.
#1 Exactly Anna. But some will twist it to defend the narrative that they have against her. It is exhausting, and like banging your head against a brick wall. These people do NOT want to know the truth if it means one less reason to hate her. smh
#2 Mariel, you nailed it and have her detractors pegged. I’ve never really been a big fan of hers. Yeah, she’s an ok actress. But I noticed her humanitarian work first, then I noticed the way fans of JA were so overly-invested in her destruction that I started sticking up for her out of human decency, if for no other reason. The fact is, nothing Angelina has done with this movie has been wrong. Nothing. She more than adequately explain it a few days ago. Her explanation fit, and many said ‘see, I knew she wouldn’t be abusive to kids’. This should be the end of it. She was vindicated/exhonerated, whatever you want to call it, so why are people still going on as if she did anything wrong? The only thing I can think of is that they so wanted the narrative that she ‘traumatised’ children to be true, so despite the real facts coming out, they refuse to budge from their position an just keep ignoring that Angelina clarified, and it is all a non-issue. So many people are so filled with intense hatred for her and want DESPERATELY to bring her down. It is beyond sad and beyond all human cognitive reasoning. And watch them try to turn it back on you, as if you are the delusional one and not them. Transparent. sigh I think they should be ashamed, but of course they are not. They honestly believe they are in the right in their assessment of this movie. They actually think they are right. Delusional.
#2b Mariel, you nailed it and have her detractors pegged. I’ve never really been a big fan of hers. Yeah, she’s an ok actress. But I noticed her humanitarian work first, then I noticed the way fans of JA were so overly-invested in her destruction that I started sticking up for her out of human decency, if for no other reason. The fact is, nothing Angelina has done with this movie has been wrong. Nothing. She more than adequately explain it a few days ago. Her explanation fit, and many said ‘see, I knew she wouldn’t be abusive to kids’. This should be the end of it. She was vindicated/exhonerated, whatever you want to call it, so why are people still going on as if she did anything wrong? The only thing I can think of is that they so wanted the narrative that she ‘traumatised’ children to be true, so despite the real facts coming out, they refuse to budge from their position an just keep ignoring that Angelina clarified, and it is all a non-issue. So many people are so filled with intense hatred for her and want DESPERATELY to bring her down. It is beyond sad and beyond all human cognitive reasoning. And watch them try to turn it back on you, as if you are the delusional one and not them. Transparent. sigh I think they should be ashamed, but of course they are not. They honestly believe they are in the right in their assessment of this movie. They actually think they are right. Delusional.
#4 Thank you Jilly. Unfortunately the haters always ONLY refer to ONE of the comments Rudin made, and not to the rest that don’t suit the narrative. When all of the leaks and emails were examined; not *JUST* Rudin’s ONE comment, industry insiders actually said Angelina came out looking the best. Yet funny how they miss all of that. They glom onto ONE comment in ONE email. And dismiss all the rest.
#? Yeah look Angelina is often not the most clear communicator and uses abstract phrases or words to describe something which people who don’t have the ability to delve deeper and really read and understand, misinterpret. Exhibit A: calling Shiloh a ‘blob’. Now many of us parents realise that a newborn baby is a cute little blob of opportunity. Someone we can raise, help shape them and their lives. We created a life, with all the hope and potential that holds. But, people saw the word BLOB and took it as face value. Exhibit B: her saying she ‘feels more’ for her adopted children. Now, to surface thinkers, that would mean she prefers her adopted children over her biological ones. But what she was saying is that these adopted children were born and existed and then adopted out of their traumatic circumstances, so of course their NEEDS would be more complex, than someone born in a family where there was no trauma.
Or, to put it another way, like if you have 3 children, and one has serious medical issues and disabilities. Of course, they will take up more of your attention.
So, either Angelina Jolie is a terrible communicator, or people are too lazy to actually understand what she is trying to convey. Or a bit of both. But, it is easy, in light of these examples, to see how she can be misunderstood and misinterpreted.
#58 NYCgal, Wait a minute. Pedro projected his own experience with abuse, into the topic, and people couldn’t embrace him quick enough. If it is ok for one person to project their own experience as a child of abuse, as if that is universal, then WHY isn’t it for Josephina? See, that is the thing, there is such double standards and hypocrisy on here. Why does Pedro get all the fawning and Josephina who has clearly experienced the clear trauma of war, is waved away and dismissed as if HER experience is not important?!?? I noticed that no one asked Pedro if he also grew up in an orphanage. Or is that line of questioning only for supporters of Jolie? Hmmmm You can’t have it both ways, depending on what poster’s side you support. Either both experiences are valid, or NEITHER is valid.
Excellent post, K.I.T.T.
The venom on this thread is palpable and disturbing.
If anyone here would direct their outrage toward the true atrocities in this world, we just might just live in a better place.
Callousness and selfishness are the polar opposite of humanitarian.
Well, she could have spent the last sixteen years doing nothing to help people. Many wealthy people do. Instead she chose to help people. She’s dedicated too much time and money into her work as an UN Ambassador for people to write her off so quickly. I’m sorry but I don’t think its fair to assume she doesn’t care, not passionate, or she should be stripped of her title because of this f*ck up. Before someone says, well no one was saying she should be punished, they didn’t read the comments.
This whole supposed ‘fuck-up’ is much ado about nothing. The children were informed of the ‘scene re-creation’ and weren’t held captive to do this movie.
People can spin whatever they’d like and being they were waiting to crucify St. Angie with bated breath, can’t be taken seriously. Pathetic.
Yes, jessia and Sixer, THIS.
@perplexed
This is a great point. They knew there was a chance this would go south.
It makes me think they provided a significant amount of support for the actors in an international film, enough that they felt well above the industry standard. It’s obvious they felt they were doing a good job because of the way they shared the information.
Except Jolie is being held to humanitarian standards, not Hollywood director standards because she positioned this as a humanitarian effort.
Erm, and my comment is weirdly not in place.
That is the same thing I noted too. I have been on sets before and no therapists. It doesn’t seem responsible to put people through trauma to make a film. She isn’t in a position to do that. Trauma therapy is a long process it doesn’t work in a half hour session. I am inclined not to fully believe there was extensive psychological support there.
I meant it for perplexed. ?
I’ve read this site for years…first time commenting.
What bothers me is that for many impoverished children education is precious, a luxury. To take time away from their schooling to hold “auditions,” and very callous ones at that, is completely out of touch.
Everything about the “casting” is exploitative. The power imbalance is absolutely terrifying.
Dear AJ does nothing wrong fans: she is human. It’s ok to admit even saint Angelina screws up sometimes. It’s called being a flawed human being like we all are. She was involved in some questionable behaviour and treatment of vulnerable kids. Did she or anyone mean harm, probably not. Harm was still done. She tried to use her star status to have it disappear and it backfired. She will be fine.
@ ClaudiaRemm
How do you know that a child won’t suffer emotional trauma, no matter the circumstances they live in, over an experience that lasted only 5 minutes?
Some people just love to hate on Angie it’s clear from thier comments they want her to go dawn badly .they don’t care about child abuse. I repeat “SOME” comments
She didn’t handle this well: she shouldn’t have asked for a retraction after her “clarification”. Just let it die a quiet death. Bury it under other news.
Tiger Woods, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. I’ve always been suspicious of people who were too good to be true.
None of these people were too good to be true. Maybe except Tiger but in the black community he was always seen as a flawed individual. Brad had a poor dating history before marrying Jennifer, and Johnny and Angelina were ‘reformed’ wild children.
I disagree. All have spent a considerable amount of time on some very high pedastals. Hence the shock when they were knocked off them. Depp and Pitt abusers. Woods a cheater. Saint Ange….you can see for yourself on this thread.
I hope they leave her alone. I mean with all she try to do for social causes including to women and children etc It is hard to buy she does a purposeful thing of a kind…
What is this movie going to be rated? Or does Netflix just put warnings? The trailer was harrowing.
To Celebitchy–
It is rare that I get upset at reading an article.
I am deeply disgusted at how the women here – mainly privileged and irrational women from Western culture- paint this exaggerated, hopeless and pathetic picture of life in a developing country. There are a few women, like me, who either come from or were raised by children of war or impoverished countries. who find the comments here beyond insulting.
Being poor does not mean you cannot be happy. Being poor does not mean being stupid, or not able to reason from right and wrong. It means your life and liefstyle is not dependent upon a capitialistic society such as the United States of America. And given the current mess of the political climate and the nasty greed of its benefactors, I laugh when Americans think they have it so good. Not everyone in the world wants to be American or live in America.
Having said that, where do the women here get off calling the children traumatized??? It was definitely traumatizing reading these exaggerated comments of concern for children who clearly are not in any danger in playing the game as they had a choice in whether to play. The game was played because there are scenes similar to what is needed for expression for the role. Because the children are not overly pampered and soft like children in the U.S. , it allows them to be grounded firm in reality (which is not a bad thing) and not fall apart if told no they cannot have something that they want or if it is taken away. The fact that it is money, the value of a dollar means more to children raised in capitalism than in any other culture.
You could play that game that the casting staff played with my family — ALL of them– and they would not flinch if the money was taken away because, the value of a dollar is not yet ingrained as you Westerners think. Westerners EXPECT to have money and things. AND they cannot fathom a world without it. And this is why you think this is some form abuse— so twisted and knee deep set in your Western ways you simply cannot fathom a simpler, less stressful way of life. And yes, there is a dictatorship running in most of these countries, and I am here to tell you that happiness and respect still exists in these cultures amid all of the unfairness.
And you do not have to poke your head to the South East parts of the world to see extreme prejudice or acts of trauma/child abuse, as some women have foolishly reported. The U.S. has a few similar major epidemics going on in their back yard and throughout the U.S. right now — the killing of young black male teens and men, an unending shortage of clean water in Flint, MI,. The U.S. is firmly guilty in the active participation of grand scale child abuse and trauma for 200 years of slavery of the African people. Add to boot, the current erosion of democracy to be replaced by a dictatorship soon enough if you choose not to speak up and stand up while you can.
The particular girl chosen stood out because the value of the dollar would have done something particular for a loved one in her family. The story of how children survive trauma needs to be told because it is a lesson from which we all can learn.
I am here to say that you can have next to nothing of the materialstic crap and still find amazing love and joy, Children are able to live simple lives and don’t need much — unless you live in the Western hemisphere–then the pressure turns into a race. I still have relatives who REFUSE to live in the U.S. because they want no part of the capitalstic merry go round in the U.S. And yes, their countries have been ravaged and bombed as well. And they are happy with their lives.
The kids were told about the game and they consented, The perception of the children depicted by the women blogging is not only inaccurate but condescending. Western gentrification attitudes of right and wrong does not necessarily fit and sometimes is often found not acceptable in other developing countries.
@Josephina- 👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼. I think your is one of the few intelligent posts here. No insults, piling on, or tearing down of anyone from either side of the discussion. I just had to defend the comparison of fans/stand to DT blind supporters…just because we dare disagree with non fans .I never insult & , scroll part comments I disagree with , think are hypocritical or think are pure garbage for the most part, AND I hardly post but that was just ridiculous I just had to. Anyway you just see it like it is. Again, great post.
Not everyone on here are Americans. Please don’t generalize.
@Josephina..
Angie used those words (traumatized) regarding her own children. She has been throwing that word around a lot. And some of her fans have taken that word to paint Brad Pitt as an abuser. YET there was never any pause or waiting to hear any details. They took that and ran with it. So I take it that your concern for these children are less than the concern than those of the Jolie-Pitt children. Why is there a difference. And the fans that are spending time defending her ( and let me say I don’t agree with the attacks on her humanitarian work) seem to be putting the responsibility on the children. That “they understood and consented.” these are children. And no one has asked any of them how they felt. I wonder if Angie will bring the child out for Promotion and let her take questions about this. I hope not.
Excuse me, I grew up during the reign of Idi Amin. I clearly remember the sound of our neighbours father, a former soldier that Amin suspected of plotting against him, being dragged out of his house screaming by a hoarde of soldiers. He was found tortured and mutilated next to the hospital my father worked at. I was seven. And I remember the heavy smell of diesel and gunpowder smoke that filled air for days after Milton Obotes troops tried to take the city. My father wouldnt let anybody leave the compound, not just because of the violence outside but because you never knew where you might trip over an uncollected corpse. When we left Uganda, that was when my father was able to finally process everything and he had a breakdown.
Dont ever make assumptions about the people here or on the internet in general.
It has been obvious to me for awhile that Angelina suffers from a disease common among white christian missionaries. The White Savior disease. Some good is done but the motives are always screwed. When the motives are screwed this is what you end up with. Supposed humanitarians doing unhumanitarian things and unable to take correction.
@ Josephina Thank you. TRUTH.
no, it’s not. It’s just an opinion and a hysterical one at that.
@Josephina, Yes! This!! I grew up very poor, and even here in the US you value different things without financial means. I’ve worked very hard to build a different life for myself (and now, my son). I find myself more depressed now that I have the means to live a comfortable life. I struggle to find meaning, although my career is in a very helping profession.
The women here, who gleefully pick apart another person, who is a flawed human being…yet, works to do a lot of good in the developing world, are shameful.
These people tout their own work within marginalized groups, and believe themselves infallible. The hypocrisy is almost shocking. Yes, keep patting yourselves on the back. Clearly, no one does more for humanity than the Celebitchy commenters. You’re at the apex of humanity!!. Lol!!
I agree with the comment earlier that said she may have been too close to the project to see the potential issues. I don’t think there are any of us who haven’t overstepped bounds, said something inappropriate, or complicated a situation in an effort to make it better.
This is likely an unpopular opinion, but from my perspective, the whole premise of all of this high-handed “humanitarian” nonsense is exploitative from the get go. Every thing about it, every little bit of it, from the advertisements to “sponsor” poor African children, to the poverty-porn that people continuously replay from “third world countries”–the way that people in the West frame conversations around global poverty is, the vast majority of the time, incredibly unnerving if not outright disgusting in a lot of respects. In addition to that, it’s also deeply humiliating. Even a person from a third world country who is living in the depths of poverty has a dignity that is theirs as a human being. To exploit that for cheap emotional value on TV, to use their lives as a means of guilting people world-wide and inducing them to feel a misplaced and unhelpful sense of pity–all of it makes me angry.
I would hope that this sort of thing would start some kind of conversation about why Hollywood continues to fetishize these sorts of experiences, especially those of children. Angelina Jolie is not the first nor is she the last director to exploit poor children from other countries for the sake of their film. Slumdog Millionare did the same thing. So did Lion (and the way media treated Sunny Prawar was unnerving to me especially). This doesn’t absolve her of criticism, but I feel like people are not seeing the forest for the tree and making it about one individual when this sort of thing is likely endemic throughout Hollywood.
Also, perhaps another unpopular opinion, but all of the outrage about it from this forum especially also seems to be very misplaced to me. People are focusing on specifics (“She was triggering them!!” “She says she had therapists on hand but where were they!!” “She was exploiting their trauma for the film!!”) of this situation without considering the idea that perhaps the casting process, even if it had been the most innocent, well-thought out, least-triggering process in the world, would still have been exploitative. She shouldn’t have gone into a slum school to begin with. She shouldn’t have tried to direct and film a movie about an experience that wasn’t hers for the consumption of others to begin with.
If she is this committed to bringing these stories to light, what she could have done is commissioned the author of the book to write the script, and offered to use her substantial clout to produce the film. She could have asked for a Cambodian director to direct. She could have invested in the local film industry and provided them with the means to put on a film of this magnitude. She could have empowered the people who lived through the tragedy and provided them the platform and the means to tell their own stories. But the fact that people, especially directors and producers in Hollywood, continue to use the lives and tragedies of PoC for the sake of their own careers? That whole idea in and of itself is exploitative as a whole. The fact that this conversation is almost never had, and that people are committed to assassinating Angelina Jolie’s character as opposed to having a conversation about a deeply problematic system and business–that’s useless and unhelpful to everyone, but especially the children that you think you’re “defending.”
Agreed.
We had that discussion in an earlier thread. It was focused on the role of charity in traumatized countries with serious poverty and the role of the white savior. A person who actually volunteered in a Cambodian orphanage wrote about her experiences.
This conversation is had all of the time on different forums but this is an article about Angelina Jolie so that is what we are discussing. This is about her interview with Vanity Fair, her attempt to threaten them, an appalling set of circumstances with this film and disappointment that as a humanitarian she failed to see the problems with the casting methods as well as other issues that cross the ethical line.
Again we are discussing Angelina Jolie, therefore, the comments are about her.
Agreed.
Josephina- please see what Sami said above and take your misplaced anger somewhere else. Just because we don’t agree with how Angelina conducted herself here during the filming of her movie, as told through her own words, all of a sudden we ( Westerners, Americans) all of a sudden don’t care about what’s going on in our own backyard? How do you make that leap? Do you even hear yourself? In your blind desire to defend Angelina, you stans lose all reason. Kitten is right. You are no different than Trump supporters in your blind devotion.
Also, way to project your own experience as a child of war on these children as if that is universal! Did you also grow up in an orphanage by any chance?
Hmmm. I left a pretty balanced comment saying it’s hard to be a humanitarian and an artist sometimes. Can you make a movie about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia with Cambodian actors and not cross some ethical boundaries? It’s a fine line and I think she needs to step out of her privilege and learn from this and acknowledge why people were upset.
It doesn’t negate her previous work but it may make her want to draw a line in the sand. Not sure why my comment didn’t make it through, it was pretty fair to her and to those with criticism. I guess only extreme comments make it through. And again it’s fine to criticize her over this and still be a fan.
Angelina seems really out of touch with the people she is trying to help
Finally the truth about Angelina. She will do anything to raise her “star” as a director. Even exploit children.
I usually just lurk on certain threads. Especially when it involves AJ, BT, or JA. I’m glad that VF didn’t back down and showed up with receipts. What she did was gross and I highly doubt there weren’t other methods to get the reaction she wanted. Dangling money in front of poor kids to get a reaction? That’s OK to do? Haven’t those kids been through enough?
Thanks Josephine for your connent. Ever bit is true. We live in a terrible society. These faux concerned people are the sad ones in this case. I would love to see what they r doing to help these orphans and circus kids that didn’t exist. I thought she said slum schools.
This suuuucks.
First, cuz I’m a total ‘Angeloonie’ and would prefer to see her as perfect and infallible, and some of this does seem kinda murky, though I agree with someone above who said she doesn’t seem malicious. More, like, overconfident and undercareful, or something.
Second, cuz this surely means there won’t be more VF profiles of her in the future, and frankly, the VF photoshoots of her are always the most outstanding. Lawd there are some gorgeous pics over the years
I’ve never really had any strong feeling about Angelina Jolie – good or bad. Aniston gives me a pain in the ass, so I certainly wasn’t on “Team Aniston” or whatever in the hell that term was. Actors (and most people, really) are flawed and human and do any number of ridiculous things. They’re not supposed to be adored to the exclusion of common sense. Some of her fans on this thread and others display truly illogical reasoning trying to justify her actions. I can assure you with absolute certainty that she would never do the same thing for you (I say this as someone who worked in the film business in my 20’s before making a career change to medicine). And the irony is that the more these people “defend” her, the worse it gets. It’s actually astounding how dysfunctional some of these posters come across.
Children can’t consent. Not to audition for a movie, or sign a contract, or engage in sexual relationships with older individuals. They can’t be diagnosed with many psychological conditions (such as bipolar disorder) because their brains are not fully developed yet (that doesn’t happen until their early 20’s). I can’t even see a patient under the age of 18 without their parents for something as simple as a school physical – and that gets frustrating sometimes for lots of different reasons. There is absolutely no way an eight year old could give any type of consent for this film’s unusual casting process. I’ve sat in on many casting sessions for both adults and children and I can tell you that I’ve never been a part of anything close to this. I’m not sure what’s more problematic – Jolie’s cluelessness as it pertains to this movie or the comments from her fans trying to defend her.
As a director, Angelina should understand that a good actor / actress, even a child one doesn’t have to experience trauma in order to give a great performance. Her thought process was flawed from the start. She could have found an amazing child actor through a regular audition process, but she chose not to do so.
Jodie Foster within a seven year period gave two amazing performances as both a rape victim and an FBI agent, but to my knowledge she was not actually a rape victim nor an FBI agent. It’s called acting. A good casting director and a good director don’t need to do what Jolie did to get a fantastic performance out of someone. It was a lazy choice; one that was also unnecessary and a bit cruel, and it’s coming back to bite her in the butt.
Also can we stop with the either or arguments. One can be outraged by police shootings in America, treatment of refugees in Europe, what’s happening in Venezuela, and still be upset about what Jolie did. Commenting on this thread about this particular story does not mean that people only care about this issue.
I agree with the poster who said, Angelina should have taken a step back and used her clout and deep pockets to allow an actual Cambodian to make the film. That would have been different. But she chose to move full steam ahead because at the end of the day, it’s about her. The woman is not a saint, she’s a narcissist.
Patti I don’t know what films you’ve directed but let me assure you if you have,you would be entitled to do your homework before posting.
The movie does have a co-director Rithy Pahn, probably the one who did the casting process that Jolie has taken the heat for. If you had read the whole story in completion you would have known that. That is problematic in my eyes.
Anyways you people are the sad ones. Writers will defend writers because they sensationalize things just as EP did. She lead the readers to that conclusion regardless of what some say. I would be in her as foe speaking about my children the way she dis. so way of Viv has a shredded favorite blanket or I’d Shipping dresses like a boy. I’m going by her words and reaction when talking about the interview on ET. Unacceptable.
I was actually with her on the necessity of educating people about this dark time in world history and telling a story that’s not white and not American. But the transcript is indefensible and she should not have asked for an apology. She can barely complete a sentence in that transcript, does she realize how terrible she sounds? Is that why? It’s sad that her white privilege messed this up. I’ve always been a Jolie fan but this is not good. Especially because with her aid efforts and humanitarian work, she knew better.
So, a lot of you are here defending a journalist, friend with communist people around the world (e.g. Federico Rampini), who, I have no doubt, is more interested about distracting you from the orror of the communist ideology pictured in the movie that to tell the real truth about the audition process…here the villain is, or better, must appear to be, Jolie, not the communist ideology behind that orror…Wake up, people!!