Sharon Stone sticks her foot in her mouth, says China's earthquake "bad karma" for its treatment of Tibet. (This reminds me of when people said Hurricane Katrina hit the US because we support gay rights)
Categories: International, Cultures, Human Rights, National, Politics, news
7 minutes ago
Sharon Stone's "karma" is having an instant effect on her movie-star status in China.
The 50-year-old actress suggested last week that the devastating May 12 earthquake in China could have been the result of bad karma over the government's treatment of Tibet. That prompted the founder of one of China's biggest cinema chains to say his company would not show her films in his theaters, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter.
"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone said Thursday during a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"
Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," adding that actors should not bring personal politics to comments about a natural disaster that has left five million Chinese homeless, according to the Reporter.
UME has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, China's biggest urban movie markets.
During the brief interview, which has also surfaced on YouTube, Stone also said she cried when she recieved a letter from the Tibetan Foundation asking her to help the quake victims.
"They wanted to go and be helpful, and that made me cry," she said. "It was a big lesson to me that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you."
Stone's words created a swell of anger on the Internet, including at least one Chinese Web site devoted solely to disparaging her comments.
An after-hours phone call and email to a representative for Stone were not immediately returned Tuesday night.
"To Sharon Stone's comment, it's unlikely that we will respond," said a woman who answered the phone at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. She refused to give her name or position.
According to the Web-based database imdb.com, Stone has at least four movies coming up between now and 2010, including "Streets of Blood," "Five Dollars a Day" and "The Year of Getting to Know Us."
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I think we all need to be careful about what we say or pointing fingers. Too many people jumped up and down and said Hurricane Katrina hit the United States because we support gay rights. That is wrong too.
When earthquakes hit Turkey and Japan, what do people say then? Or the next one in California?
What about the cyclone devastation in Myanmar, the volcanic eruption in Chile, or the massive earthquakes in Indonesia?
This neither helps the people in Tibet, nor those grief-stricken and homeless people cradling the bodies of their dead children.
If you speak about compassion, then practice it. This rhetoric does not help anyone.
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i totally agree with you. compassion is stronger than karma. being judgmental is the root of all prejudice.
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Well said, Patricia. It helps us all to remember that!
And it is perfectly ok to love Tibet and hate things that have happened; this comment is just not constructive.
Does anyone want to get in parents' faces and yell it's bad karma, as they hold dead children? Can't anyone see the inhumanity of that?
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Yes, well said.
I actually have a problem with that whole concept of 'karma', and how a lot of people seem to view it, personally.
I mean, you do good deeds and put yourself out for others because you care, or believe it's right, don't you?
You don't do it because you think you're going to benefit from it personally and have 'good karma' coming your way because you've 'earned' it from all your deposits in some Universal Karma Bank.
Likewise with this 'bad karma' nonsense.
Life the universe and everything is NOT that simplistic.
I can remember Glen Hoddle, then England soccer coach, getting the sack for comments of his regarding his religious views on disabled people, and rightly so.
Of course, it's always someone's 'fault'. and he suggested disabled people are paying a price for 'bad karma' from their previous incarnations on this earth.
Ridiculously ignorant, and it would be laughable if it wasn't so offensive.
Yes, 'inappropriate' to say the least, Sharon Stone's comments there, I'd say.
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Sharon Stone is a world away from the suffering currently going on in China and Myanmar, just to name a few recent world disasters. I don't think she cares if she has upset the Chinese. Steven Spielberg told them what to do with their Olympics and they didn't like that message either. So when it comes to China...it is the party line only. They are not usually a receptive group to criticism and negative messages anyway. To many Chinese who have kept the old ways, the concern about Karma does come into mind. It is a normal grief process for any human who has had their whole world destroyed in front of them, Budhist or not. I do not mourn for the Chinese Government, but rather the humans who are suffering.
I still think we ought to do little 60 minute type reports on China in place of the diatribe we hear about every athletes struggle to be at the Olympics.....but that's not going ot happen so
I plan to boycott the Olympics. Many people have told me they are doing the same. How is that for Karma?
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That is fine; that is you as a soul acting in accord with your belief in what is the highest good and most conscientious thing to do. We all have to do the best we can.
The concern among Buddhist Chinese about karma comes to mind, but as you said, Sharon Stone is a world away from the suffering. What Steven Spielberg did was in good conscience. Suggesting it is bad karma when you are at a movie festival living in luxury (though doing good by raising money for AIDS research) is not helpful to anyone, especially the humans who are suffering. It is the insensitivity that is truly unproductive.
Zhang Ziyi, the actress who was in "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" tried to raise money for the quake victims at the Cannes film festival, and was rebuffed by people who hardly knew the quake had even happened.
I agree with what you say, I mourn for the humans who are suffering.
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Charming of Ms. Stone. I am wondering what she will say when the big one hits LA? For every criticism one can make about the chinese govt, three could be made about the US, Britain...
Clean up your own yard, Ms. Stone, before spreading your karma fertilizer around everyone else's.
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