It’s a Good Thing…

…that red-staters have blue-state icons to teach them cultural literacy and sensitivity to the greater world around us:

Actress Cameron Diaz appears to have committed a major fashion crime in Peru.

The voice of Princess Fiona in the animated Shrek films may have inadvertently offended Peruvians.

They suffered decades of violence from a Maoist guerrilla insurgency by touring there on Friday with a bag emblazoned with one of Mao Zedong’s favourite political slogans.

While she explored the Inca city of Machu Picchu high in Peru’s Andes, Diaz wore over her shoulder an olive green messenger bag emblazoned with a red star and the words ‘Serve the People’ printed in Chinese on the flap, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao’s most famous political slogan.

While the bags are marketed as trendy fashion accessories in some world capitals, the phrase has particular resonance in Peru.

The Maoist Shining Path insurgency took Peru to the edge of chaos in the 1980s and early 1990s with a campaign of massacres, assassinations and bombings.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the insurgency.

Ouch.

11 thoughts on “It’s a Good Thing…

  1. Maybe she meant it in the sense of “serve the people at room temperature with a side of creamed spinach.”

    It doesn’t much bug Angryclown that Che Guevara, Lenin and even Mao have become popular kitsch figures, any more than that Hitler and the Nazi regime have been reduced to a staple of comedy. But something tells me John Cleese is bright enough not to do that funny Hitler walk in front of the Holocaust Museum.

    It is funny, however, how bent out of shape you wingnuts get over the hijinx of celebutards like Diaz. I guess you’re shocked that not every Hollywood bim has a well thought-out political worldview.

  2. We have major luminaries like Leonardo DiCaprio warning us about climate change and Sheryl Crowe recommending hygeine modifications. I don’t take them seriously, but apparently many people do.

  3. Good point, Kerm. You don’t take ’em seriously, but if there’s an impure thought lurking in somebody’s mind, some wingnut will be working to eradicate it.

    Hey, I just heard that Jamie Farr is in favor of campaign finance reform. Get to work, wingnuts!

  4. What is wrong with a “person” who isn’t bugged when mass murderers are accorded status as “kitsch figures”?
    I think I’ll start a line of Ted Bundy Undies. We’ll start with his face on wife-beaters.

  5. angryclown said:

    “if there’s an impure thought lurking in somebody’s mind, some wingnut will be working to eradicate it”

    Well that’s something to worry about: “some wingnut” trying to “eradicate” somebody’s “impure” thoughts. I wonder how “some wingnut” will accomplish this task? Mind control lasers?

  6. Cleese may not have done the Hitler walk routine from Fawlty Towers at the Halocaust Museum…

    …but Graham Chapman was sharp enough when the gang was brought to Dachau. The Germans there would not let the Pythons and their hosts in (apparently it was closed)… so Chapman yelled out, “Tell them we’re Jews.”

    At least according to Cleese and Idle. (Hillarious story.)

  7. That’s because Angryclown, unlike Mitch, never makes definitive statements.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.