The Material Girl Does Malawi

Celebrity and reality have always occupied and will always occupy separate spheres. Refer to the famous scene in Sunset Boulevard in which Gloria Swanson's washed-up silent movie actress makes the delusional insistence that she was "always big-it was the pictures that got small." Sunset Boulevard, which culminates in Swanson's character's murdering the young screenwriter charged with resuscitating her career, is largely about the disastrous consequences of those two spheres intersecting. The film cynically contends that while celebrity is necessarily apart from reality, it is also, unfortunately, a part of reality as well.

The recent tabloid controversy over Madonna's adoption of a Malawian orphan is Sunset Boulevard made real. While Madonna is neither washed up nor a gun-wielding maniac, her very abrupt decision to adopt a 1-year-old child during a nine day charitable tour of the impoverished east African nation-a decision made controversial both by its spontaneity and its apparent violation of a Malawian law prohibiting adoptions by people who have not lived in the country for a certain amount of time-represents the same uncomfortable coexistence of celebrity excess with the real world portrayed in Billy Wilder's classic film.

Of course celebrity excess and international aid have long had a constructive and even symbiotic relationship, as Bono, Angelina Jolie, and others have demonstrated that the combination of millions of dollars with a keen sense of entitlement can in fact be a force for good in the world. But as Madonna's questionable adoption taught us earlier this month, money, magnanimity, and an almost unrestrained sense of personal privilege can be a bad, or at the very least, problematic, thing. Although Madonna's actions will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the adopted child, turning adoption into a matter of individual whim while so utterly and obviously flouting Malawi's laws cheapens and objectifies the very people Madonna was supposedly trying to help.

In Madonna's moral calculations, there is nothing wrong with this, as she apparently believes that actions amounting to borderline child abduction on an international scale are justified, so long as the place from which the child is being abducted has a less than microscopic Human Development Index rating. This is interesting from a philosophical standpoint. In viewing Malawi as a place so horrible that rescuing children from it is of more intrinsic importance than following its established rules, Madonna is advocating a world view in which the personal, moral imperative reigns supreme. If such an imperative is a charitable one, as Madonna's appears to be, this isn't such a horrible thing. Nevertheless, in placing ultimate good above international regulation and law, it sets a precedent for celebrities snatching impoverished children from whatever country they like, whenever they like-an untenable situation, to be sure.

Indeed, if the celebrity life is a perpetual orgy of self-contentment and condescension, then condescending toward 13 million Malawians in order to achieve an even greater sense of personal contentment is hardly surprising. Even so, it epitomizes a few troubling aspects of not just the celebrity mission towards the parts of the world in most need of outside help, but of the larger charitable mission as well.

Supposing Madonna was motivated by pure altruism, the Madonna-Malawian child incident highlights the need to help people without disrespecting them. If Madonna had personal or ulterior motives for the adoption-if she did it in order to feel good about herself rather than to do good for the world-then it highlights the perils of any aid mission fueled more by self-righteousness than the honest, genuine intention of making the world a better place. It is for this reason that for philanthropists and aid-givers from Madonna to Bill Gates to the U.S. State Department, the lessons of this small incident are more significant than the story's tabloid treatment would suggest.

But regardless of her motivations, the spectacle of going into a foreign country and arbitrarily whisking away a small child reflects the same kind of willful obliviousness toward how things work in the real world as the delusional and murderous actions of Gloria Swanson's character in Sunset Boulevard. And when the topic is helping others and improving the world, that's the last movie that should come to mind.