• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The US has a long and storied history of producing high profile weirdos that get trapped in a moment of international policy, like a mosquito in amber, and just keep hanging out with a foreign government we re-designated as The Enemy decades ago.

    Seagal has Putin. Dennis Rodman was tight with Kim Jung il. Johnny Depp is good friends with Mohammad bin Salman. Gal Gadot is a perennial Netanyahu gadfly. Rob Schneider campaigned for Victor Orban. Oliver Stone and Robert Redford still rep Fidel Castro.

    If you go into the back pages of US History, you’ll find moments when US officials attempted a thaw or brokered some kind of cooperative pact with a modern enemy nation. And typically, the State Department would send along an affable oaf or enthusiastic wanna-be celeb ambassador to make nice with the foreign head of state.

    And then US policy changes, but the celebs don’t get the memo.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Gal Gadot is Israeli

        You can be from a country and not like it’s national leadership.

        Robert Redford is dead.

        So is Fidel Castro.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            She’s been “produced” by Americans since her 2007 Maxim bikini photo shoot. Gadot is an American celebrity, having been in far more Hollywood pictures for English language audiences than Tel Aviv pictures for Hewbrew speaking ones.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Waters is far more anti-Ukrainian Nationalist than pro-Putin. But yes, another great example.

        Although Ukraine is another great candidate to watch for “Country that ages like milk, but social media dead-enders keep hanging on to” in ten or fifteen years.