Gwyneth Paltrow Food Stamp Stunt

So, Ms. Paltrow has decided to "live in poverty" by trying to eat on $29 per week, ostensibly to raise awareness of poverty.  Since I'm posting on the "Rants and Raves" board, this is all about my outrage at these types of celebrity stunts.

"Why is it outrageous, Soulful?  She's just trying to live in poverty for a while to know what it's like...."  Well, there are many reasons (not beliefs) that Ms. Paltrow's stunt is outrageous and the first one is that it is utterly unrealistic.  When Ms. Paltrow becomes bored with a rice-and-beans diet, or she's caught "cheating" when she is seen at a restaurant or high-end coffee shop, she won't be "living in poverty," anymore.  To live in poverty means to be poverty-stricken.  Period.  That's 24 hoiurs a day, and 7 days per week.  There is no holiday from poverty, and Ms. Paltrow is not experiencing true poverty, by any stretch of the imagination.  What we have here is someone who wants to appear compassionate and understanding of the plight of poverty-stricken people and their families, but she cannot actually experience poverty because she has options available to her that others simply do not have.

It's also outrageous because it's a stunt.  She isn't forcing her offspring to partake in her attempt, and that is utterly unrealistic, as well!  Those of us who live (and, have lived) within the parameters of poverty can't insulate our children from the ravages of poverty.  We can't tell anyone that our children aren't a party to our poverty, and send them off to a private school with their au paire.  Right or wrong, children are dragged into and through poverty as unwilling participants, and Ms. Paltrow has conveniently sidestepped that fact.  And, apparently, nobody else has a problem with this when it's being done to "raise awareness!"  REAL awareness means REAL experiences, and protecting her offspring from the experience is not only unrealistic, it invalidates the whole event.  It's not based upon truth or reality.

Finally, it's simply for publicity.  It's a means to keep her name in the press under the guise of altruism.  Think about the discussion between her agent, her publicist, and her..........what a great opportunity to connect with the general public, right?  No......it most certainly isn't.

I am outraged because I was forced into poverty because I was defrauded of my own financial assets by someone that I was married to.  I lived in a situation where I had no heat, no hot water, and no means to cook food, and I had $600 a month to pay for phone, electricity, gasoline, insurance, and medical needs.  My source of heat was a wood burning stove, as was my source of heat to cook with, and method of heating water.  It took hours to heat the water hot enougth to bathe in the sink, and if I wanted to wash and condition my hair, it required 24 quarts of heated water to wash and rinse my hair and my body.  It took hours to "cook" using this wood stove, as well - there was no boiling water for pasta or baking casseroles.  All foods were obtained from a Food Bank and either prepared in a crock pot, toaster oven, or iron skillet.  There were no other options.

Because it was indoors and the stack hadn't been cleaned in 5 years, burning that wood stove at a strong temperature was hazardous - I had to maintain a temperature of roughly 400 degrees to maintain heat, burn out the creosote, and avoid a possible flue fire.  The winters where I live are very harsh, and waking up with temperatures that are -20 or colder and a stove that is stone-cold is enough to vaporize any romantic notion of "roughing it."  People who talk about "roughing it" are those individuals who pretend - they play the part of pioneer, but they check out and return to their comfortable lives when it begins to be an inconvnience or it becomes uncomfortable.

Living in poverty means that there aren't any other options.  I didn't have the opportunity to wake up, one morning, scrape the frost off of the inside of the walls, and say, "I've had enough of this.  I'm going to scrap this experiment and go get a massage."  I had to live like that, every minute of every hour of every day for 2 years.  During that time, I was very sick, in tremendous pain, and suffering from malnutrition which actually exacerbated my disabilities.  My son was also living in this manner - no heat, no hot water, and poor sources of nutrition.

People who find themselves poverty-stricken tend to remain in poverty because it is a depressing, defeating, and hopeless situation, especially when children are involved.  Children born into poverty rarely have a fighting chance to improve their own lives - poor nutrition has dire effects upon developing brains and functions. 

For a celebrity to pretend that they're living off of $29 per week is, on every level, outrageous.  If Ms. Paltrow really wants to know what living in poverty is like, she'll give all of her money and everything that she owns away, stop being a celebrity-slash-actress, check into Section 8 housing, use the "shoe-leather-express" for transportation instead of a chauffeur, work at a fast food restaurant, and make ends meet the way that Real People do.

Poverty is hard.  It's mean.  It's ugly, and it's how the vast majority live, not the other way around.  I never was able to purchase organic produce, nor was I even able to purchase groceries for several months - I had to live on what I got from the local Food Bank, which was a lot of high-carb stuff, no protein, no fresh produce, and high sodium.  "Donated" items from individuals were typically outdated by years which is what Food Banks get from private individuals during food drives - people clean out their pantries and figure that those of us who are desperate will appreciate stuff that's been expired for years because "Beggars Can't Be Choosers," right?

GET REAL, all of you witless celebrities.  Stop the pretenses.