Celebrity kindness

I was watching an episode of Oprah not too long ago, and it featured an interview with Meg Ryan. The main selling point was: "Meg Ryan - first interview in 2 years". Did anyone know she'd not done an interview in two years?

Anyway, Meg Ryan's reason for going on the show was to promote a charity she was involved in, in India, to help women. The interview was... weird. Meg Ryan doesn't seem like a very nice person at all, and she seemed to be straining to appear likeable. She laughed nervously at inappropriate times, and seemed two seconds away from a sarcastic remark throughout the interview.

I read that there was a disastrous interview with Michael Parkinson a few years back, and Meg's excuse for her shocking behaviour was Parkinson's choice of questions. You are a 'celebrity', surely if you agree to be interviewed on television, you can expect to be asked awkward questions. That's television. Furthermore, you are an *actress*, more equipped than the rest of us to gracefully field such questions with dignity and maturity, despite your personal feelings about the interviewer.

There was a strange undercurrent in the Oprah interview too. Oprah is usually quite warm and chummy with her interviewees, but I got the distinct impression that she didn't like Meg very much. The interview deteriorated into a 'competition' between the two over philanthrophic doings. "I went to India and helped women in need." "I'm building a school for girls in Africa."

I respect true philanthropy, but I don't see the need to toot one's own horn over it. It's one thing to make world issues and problems known to the masses, but why polish your own halo when doing so?