Marshall and the Movies

The New York Times ran a piece this week talking about the impact of celebrities on charitable work, talking specifically about Sean Penn’s work in Haiti and Brad Pitt’s work in New Orleans.  Obviously, any celebrity who does work for charity is a good thing, as giving back is the right thing to do (this coming from a member of my school’s community service committee).

However, charity work has become a great PR stunt in recent years, and I feel at home in a generation full of skeptics who doubt the motivations of the celebrities at times.  I feel like Sean Penn does these things out of the good of his heart, but he’s a radical at heart with some sort of secret political motivation.  Pitt, on the other hand, I have little doubt is genuine since New Orleans is his home.

Anyways, for my personal connection to this article, I felt compelled to give to a charity after a celebrity sponsored it.  I was 8 years old and obsessed with celebrity “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and developed a bit of a crush on Tyra Banks after she sat in the chair across from Regis Philbin.  All the celebrities were playing for a charity, and hers was T-Zone.  What the charity actually was I had no idea, but I wanted to make contact with Tyra Banks!

So I worked odd jobs around my house and neighborhood, gathering my profits in a Quaker Oats box.  I wound up making about $65, which I enclosed along with a personal note for Tyra Banks to T-Zone.  Hopefully they got something out of my small contribution.  The moral of the story: the generation uncorrupted by skepticism can be inspired to do great things by celebrities they see working for charity!