Angelina Jolie has built a career claiming to be an advocate and champion for children in poor or underdeveloped countries, but now she is coming under fire for exploiting impoverished children in Cambodia while she was filming her upcoming movie, “First They Killed My Father.” Now fans of Angelina Jolie are expressing their outrage and disgust at the woman they previously praised as a humanitarian.
The controversy started when Angelina Jolie gave an interview to promote the upcoming film, which she directed, and spoke about the casting process she used to find Cambodian child actors. She would search for kids that lived in slums, orphanages, and circuses, basically looking for impoverished kids suffering hardship.
Angelina Jolie would play an unsettling game where she would put money on a table and ask the children what they would use the money for, then snatch the money away from the child.
Reaction to the very disturbing game was swift with people taking Angelina Jolie to task for playing with the emotions of children who already have a hard life. Some question why in the world did she feel it was necessary to ask orphans to steal money. People are asking why she thought it was a good idea to taunt poor and in some cases, starving children with money.
Why couldn’t the children just read for the part without having to exploit the kids? Many are using the word monstrous to describe both Angelina and the cruel psychological game, claiming Angelina gave orphans a glimpse of hope, only to take it away.
Angelina Jolie and others connected to the film are defending their casting method by saying it was just a game and that the children knew that it was a game beforehand and they don’t believe they did any harm to the kids by taking away the money. Although she is facing a ton of backlash, there are actually some fans who are coming to Angelina’s defense.
One person even equated Angelina’s game to pranks by television host Jimmy Kimmel, who sometimes pretends to take away gifts or candy from children and airs the pranks on his show. But, as another person pointed out, Jimmy Kimmel’s pranks aren’t being played on orphans or impoverished children. Now some fans are claiming they have lost respect for the actress and will never look at her the same way again.
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