Africa Is a Country

Ben Affleck makes the Congo cool

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Ben Affleck makes the Congo cool

By
Sean Henry Jacobs

In what has little to do with the DRC, Affleck, dubbed Life President of Congo, gets hailed as "Hollywood’s New Role Model" and the "new paradigm of masculinity" in the entertainment world.

Residents in Beni region greet peacekeepers passing by in a MONUSCO armored personnel carrier. Image credit Sylvain Liechti for UN Photo via Flickr (CC).

In its infinite wisdom, The New York Times (it comes with being The New York Times), decided that one of the paper’s reporters, one Brooks Barnes, should write what amounts to a fluff piece (it’s not actual reporting) splintered with quotes in the “Fashion & Style” section about actor Ben Affleck’s supposed maturity and all-round goodness. Affleck, who we like to refer to as Life President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is held up as “Hollywood’s New Role Model” and as the “new Hollywood paradigm for masculinity.” His qualifications are being a husband, parent, and, yes … “eastern Congo philanthropist.” So the DRC is a prop for “the way to be cool now” in Hollywood. I know someone’s going to tell me this is all good fun. Link.

To be honest, it has little to do with Congo:

It’s true that these actors and their handlers saw something changing in show business. TMZ started to hold stars accountable for their behavior, with help from Twitter and bloggers. Simultaneously, a tabloid culture started to eat them alive. Mr. Ulmer said his research showed that people became more interested in seeing Mr. Pitt in the pages of Us magazine than a movie. Hollywood’s star-handling apparatus jumped in, realizing their clients needed to retreat to higher ground if they were going to remain stars — mysterious, aspirational — and not reality TV personalities.

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