Sean Penn’s relief work in Haiti may inspire other public figures to work on behalf of deserving causes
YOU THINK Fine Gael has it bad. The people of Haiti have had quite a difficult year so far. But imagine their surprise when they woke up one morning to find an armed Sean Penn in charge of one of their relief camps. Of course they were delighted! Two-time Oscar winner Sean (49) had previously rescued victims of Hurricane Katrina, but his Haitian adventure has brought celebrity intervention to new heights.
He has not only organised physicians and painkilling drugs for those struggling in the aftermath of the earthquake, but Donna Karan blankets as well. Sean has lived on the beleaguered island since January, taking time off only to collect his Oscar for his role in the film Milk, and to testify to a Washington committee.
On a national level, this trend of celebrity intervention at the scenes of huge disasters could lead to Michael Flatley going in to sort out the banks and Colin Farrell counselling Fine Gael. You may laugh, but what bright ideas are you offering? Michael Flatley was once a boxer and might do those bankers the world of good. Colin Farrell is pretty well in touch with his feelings as this stage. You wouldn’t shout “Up Mayo!” at Colin twice. Colin would not be impressed either by the cappuccino wing of Fine Gael, a group of people, it has been unkindly suggested, who were simply too posh to phone the party members whose support they so desperately needed in their heave against the leader.
Is this not reminiscent of the late George Colley being too much of a gentleman to canvass votes in the Fianna Fáil leadership race with the late Charles Haughey? Can these two stories possibly be true, or do political parties just make them up for the craic? Are these tales of patrician langour at times of internal party crisis the product of paranoia, social resentment or the burning desire for a more egalitarian society? I say, let Colin Farrell work it out, and get back to us when he’s done.
At least Colin Farrell won't be armed – although that could be arranged if those Fine Gael types start blubbing again. But Sean Penn is carrying a gun over in Haiti – a Glock pistol, whatever that is – which is an unsettling thought. Remember how cranky he used to get when he was married to Madonna? Even the excellent Vanity Fair, which reports on this venture in the current issue, at one point in the article calls Sean's Haitian initiative Mission: Implausible. The magazine also photographed Sean at the displaced persons camp looking moody in a very white shirt. Of course he was wonderful in Mystic River. But the thing is that Sean Penn is now managing a displaced persons camp. You have to say it is peculiar.
Most people are capable of living many lives and of appreciating realities that lie beyond the limit of their professional lives; Donna Karan didn’t send only blankets to Haiti, after all, she sent other stuff as well.
And as a freelance rescue worker, Sean has form. He rode round the flooded New Orleans in a boat, rescuing people. He has worked for famine relief, which is of course more than the rest of us – or me, anyway – have done. But one cannot help wondering how things are going to pan out in this new Hollywood-in-Haiti arrangement.
Workers for other NGOs will perhaps have to adapt to being treated like Hollywood PAs (they have no charity organisation as yet. They are too worn out to organise one.)
Like many international heroes and heroines, humanitarian Sean has certainly got his priorities right.
Of Robin Wright Penn, his former wife and mother of his children, he says: “She’s a ghost to me now.” Charming.
Sean Penn’s work has been praised by senior officers with the American troops in Haiti – in fact, Sean has been given two medals.
"Sean doesn't have to do it," according to Lieut Gen Ken Keen, who unfortunately was photographed by Vanity Fairwearing unflattering combat fatigues in khaki, so not his colour. (In the same picture, Sean was wearing camouflage pants and a black T-shirt. He has lost more than a stone since arriving on Haiti and looks fab. He is smoking 30 fags a day.)
However, the relief efforts of Sean also open up the interesting prospect of Hollywood celebrities, never known for their shyness, volunteering during crises and then turning up unasked, to get in everybody else’s way. (“You mean like journalists?” as one unkind member of my household put it, but we’ll leave that for another day.)
In fact, the celebrities at disasters thing is not so much a prospect as a reality. The director James Cameron (remarkably he turns 54 in August, the same month in which Sean Penn turns 50) has already been consulted by technical experts working on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Cameron directed the Terminatorfilms and Avatarand Titanic– hence his skill with underwater technology, presumably – but also, less reassuringly, one of the Rambofilms.
It is unclear whether Cameron can bring his underwater cameras here, to examine the wreckage of our economic system. But his people said they’d get back to us real soon.