Angelina’s latest addition to her “rainbow tribe”
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
It’s official. Angelina Jolie’s rumored Vietnamese adoption has gone through, and there are pics of the new kid as well.
Interesting that Jolie felt the need to rename a three year-old, who presumably already answers to his own damn name, Pham Quang Sang. Not for long though! Jolie has decided that from now on, he will be known as Pax Thien Jolie:
In Latin, “PAX” means “peace.”
In Vietnamese, “THIEN” means “kind and good” or “helpful” or “heaven” or “quieting” or “bright.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
berrybrowne wrote:
i’ve been a staunch angelina (as opposed to ew! madonna) fan, but i’m starting to think the rainbow tribe thing is getting out of hand. can’t she at least space them more, give each child more time to be spoiled, adjusted? she needs to make sure she meets the needs of the kids she has. and enough with the publicity already…
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 10:52 am ¶
wendi wrote:
i support what angelina is doing in the sense that she is helping children. great. BUT THE NAME CHANGE? they are people, not puppies…
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 11:38 am ¶
Lori wrote:
Hey Carmen,
I caught your Josephine Baker reference. Check out the Meltingpot…we’re on the same thought wave.
I just hope and pray Angelina and Brad are prepared for this enormous family.
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 12:55 pm ¶
Animelee/Andrew wrote:
I saw on the news yesterday that she wanted to PICK the kid she got, rather than just accept the child they gave her. If she truly wanted to help, she would’ve taken any kid the adoption agency gave her, rather than make a fuss in order to choose who she got, like the kids were pieces of chocolate in a Vietnamese box or something. They’re humans!
And renaming him is just terrible. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a name like Shit Face McGee or… *shudders* Destiny, and he had to be renamed! How disrespectful to the kid who could answer to his own damn name!
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 2:13 pm ¶
P.Moore wrote:
In English, “Angelina Jolie” means despicable.
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 2:21 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
I hope the kid starts demanding to be called by his “REAL” name in a few years.
After he’s got his own therapist, own lawyer, and likely, his own agent.
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 2:33 pm ¶
Angel H. wrote:
In 20 years:
“Mommie Dearest Revisted: Life in the Rainbow Tribe”
by Maddox Jolie-Pitt
with a forward by David Ciccone-Richie
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 4:05 pm ¶
merq wrote:
Angel H.
That so awesomely beat out the “Mommie Dearest” update my friend swore she’d publish one day with Solange Knowles.
Sure, that version promises both the bitter tone and sleazy photography of a LaToya Jackson tell-all. But this has a foreword by David frickin’ Ciccone-Richie!
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 7:15 pm ¶
teachergirl wrote:
The fact that Jolie renamed the boy is just horrible. Totally disrespectful to him and those who named him originally. Something else I find disturbing is that his new name (the first part of it) is French and, in my mind, naming a child after his country’s colonizers is ignorant and disrespectful to his people.
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 7:27 pm ¶
Ananse wrote:
Not to go all secret-decoder ring and all, but there’s something unnerving going on, no? She’s not just adopting, she’s adapting children of the world to fit her image of herself. Think about it:
Maddox Chivan [Thornton] Jolie-Pitt was selected in Cambodia as “Rath Vibol”.
Maddox = Celtic for “beneficient”
Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt was selected in Ethiopia as Tena Adam
Zahara = Swahili for “flower”
“Baby Piit” (i.e. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt) was born in Namibia
Shiloh = Biblical for “the peaceful one”
I mean, dang, she’s got any number of issues worth dissecting, but it’s worth noting that she has estrangement and abandonment issues up the wazoo, closely identifies with her mom and (too closely obviously) with her brother, but not her dad. She carved out this “earth mama of the/to the world embracing life” when the “i’m a death-obsessed punk goddess” didn’t work for her in her youth.
Here’s my favorite (really creepy)
Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt was selected in Vietnam as Pham Quang Sang
On a superficial level, “Pax” = Latin for “Peace” and “Thien” = Vietnamese for ” Kind, Good, Helpful, Heaven, Quieting, Bright, etc.”
Deep down, however, think about it: she’s a California native, so she’d be rooting for the western US NCAA Division I or…
the PAC-10 Conference.
Her adoptions are moving closer to home, the signs are there… She is the world people…
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 8:57 pm ¶
Angel H. wrote:
merq:
BTW, whatever happened to Solange after that shotgun wedding to her “baby-daddy”? And speaking of which, did Guy Richie ever officially adopt Lourdes/Lola or is she still Lourdes Ciccone-Leon?
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 9:46 pm ¶
kim wrote:
P.Moore wrote: ‘ In English, “Angelina Jolie” means despicable.’
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 10:44 pm ¶
merq wrote:
Angel H.
These are the questions, my friend…
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 10:50 pm ¶
Nina wrote:
Not to nit pick but Zahara is not the swahili word for flower but an an arabic word meaning flowering. It is also a variant of zahra which means “white flower” yikes! Other than that, I agree with most of you. Angelina’s antics are becoming tiresome. Adopting children at such a clip would not be allowed by U.S. agencies and borders on pathological.
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 11:18 pm ¶
Ananse wrote:
Nina: Hey, it’s a cheap decoder ring, but tasty cereal. Apologies and thanks all the same. Creepier, funnier, and more telling in your version, huh?
Wait til she “discovers” Australia (she’ll have to fly through on her way back to the US, the “deep rural South” and say Haiti (Pitt’s in New Orleans), & South America (just a hop, skip, jump away).
Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 9:37 am ¶
teachergirl wrote:
Oops. Pax is Latin. Paix is French, as per my earlier posting. Oh well. Still, I hate that she’s renaming the kids she’s adopting. Disrespectful and derogatory to say the least.
Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 2:14 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
teachergirl: Pax is the Latin root of the French Paix, so you weren’t far off at all…
Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 3:25 pm ¶
Ananse wrote:
Oui, Lyonside.
Last question from me/disturbing thought: smart friend pointed out that “Shiloh” is actually considered a prophetic Messiah reference when applied to a person, and “peaceful” when applied to a place, (in ancient Christian, Islamic, and Hebrew text, no agreement on “whats” coming). So wasn’t conception right around the time of “Tomb Raider”?…
Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 6:09 pm ¶
Hilary wrote:
Could there be anything more evident of a colonial mentality than adopting one of each child from each different part of the world in an attempt to make “a complete set”?
Not only with Pitt and Jolie not be able to understand these children’s experiences of being foreign adoptees, the kids won’t even be able to find common ground with each other because they all derive from different cultural backgrounds. Talk about total diasporic alienation, even from each other.
If she really wanted to give the underprivileged children of the world a better way of life, she could at least start with adopting 2 of each, so each pair would have another person that would be able to relate to their unique situation.
Right now, Jolie is just collecting “the set” and being a total colonizer.
Posted 17 Mar 2007 at 7:28 pm ¶
FEB wrote:
I don’t know if Jolie ever had a serious relationship or even dated a man of color, but I will not be supportive of white women who spend much of their bachelorette lives deliberately excluding men of color from dating, and then later seek children of color for adoption, as if they were ethnic tchotchkes.
There is something un-Kosher about this whole international adoption (i.e., trans-racial) by Hollywood celebrities. Peel away the glitterati and the self-congratulatory accolades, and the whole thing smacks of neo-colonialism. It’s basically “white man’s burden” revisited; in this case “white women’s burden.”
Posted 17 Mar 2007 at 10:15 pm ¶
borgie wrote:
the kid will never have an agent. No matter how famous his adopted mom and pop is, he, like maddox, is still Asian, and Asian men will never, ever be anything in Hollywood. I’m pretty sure her real, white daughter will be in movies in a few years though. Their black kid will do better than the poor Asian Jolies.
He and Maddox can both share a therapist though, being reminded everyday the poster child of horrible Asian adoption. I hope the Jolies (Angelina and Brad) knows that their son will never be anything in the movie industry. Maybe they do and they don’t really care, given that they’re just lifestyle assessories.
Posted 18 Mar 2007 at 1:31 am ¶
merq wrote:
Hilary:
In “fairness” to Jolie, she has stated a desire to have two of each minority kid, so none of them feels too much an outsider.
I’m ashamed I know this.
Borgie:
Dude, while I agree that the Asian Hollywood landscape is pretty dismal, I have to object to your repeated use of the word “never.” You’ve got Asian actors (from all over the continent) out there really working to break down walls, and your post belittles their efforts.
Posted 18 Mar 2007 at 8:07 pm ¶
borgie wrote:
merq: my remark has little to do with the brilliance of Asian American actors, rather the spectacular racism exhibited by Hollywood. There are plenty of great Asian American talents, but don’t worry, they will NEVER EVER SHINE. Hollywood is too busy making them do bit roles. As for those two? Oh please. The only chance for them to be on the papers is when they tried to rob a gas station for drug money. Hollywood will crumble before they allow Asians to succeed.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 9:58 pm ¶