Background: I recently praised Gina Elise for her “Pin Ups for Vets”, describing it as a “worthy project.” My blog post on it is here.
Scientist Betsy Barton, a frequent commenter on my blog and one of my favorite readers, slammed actress Gina Elise (pictured) of www.Pinupsforvets.com in a recent blog comment. Elise says she “came up with the idea to recreate a nostalgic pin-up calendar that would serve three purposes”:
“1. The calendars would be sold to raise funds for our hospitalized Veterans.
“2. The calendars would be delivered as gifts to our ill and injured Veterans with messages of appreciation from the donors.
“3. The calendars would be sent to our deployed troops to help boost morale and to let them know that Americans back home are thinking of them.”
In response, Barton wrote:
“Please remember purpose number 4–Promoting Gina Elise. She is an aspiring actress…this ‘campaign’ is certainly very clever marketing on her part. I honestly applaud her initiative. No one is above having to promote themselves, and I do not think that the self-promotion negates all the good that she might do. But it is insulting that she pretends her purposes are completely altruistic.”
Betsy wrote to me and said “I’d love to hear your opinion — on or offline — on my Gina Elise comment,” so here it is. Sure, it’s clever self-promotion for Elise–that was obvious as soon as Elise first emailed me. But so what? If you want to get your product, services, or talents noticed and you want to make a living, you need to self-promote. She’s married her career and a good cause, which I think is just fine. It’s hard to launch significant projects and do some good in the world, and if you’re going to do it, you need media attention and money, and the two are often closely-related.
Also, if she’s going to do the work of creating, promoting, and selling these calendars, why should she not be compensated for that work? I doubt she’s making money off of it, so self-promotion is her “pay.”
I sometimes get this attitude about my work–because I’m a journalist promoting the cause of fatherhood, it’s somehow offensive that I earn a living doing it. I guess it would be more noble if I worked for free and let the bank repossess my home and my kids go hungry.
On a related note, I’m always amused how some guys with family law problems write me and expect me to drop everything I’m doing, spend weeks pouring over their case files, and then devote myself to publicizing the injustice they’ve suffered–all for free. And when I balk, they’re shocked–shocked!–and angrily denounce me for being “just in it for the money.”
I often feel like telling them to open the phone book, call up an electrician, explain to the electrician that they’d like him to drop everything he’s doing and rewire their house for them for free, and see what the electrician says. I have all the sympathy in the world for fathers trapped in these situations, but I receive over 100,000 emails a year and while I do try to help, my ability to do so is obviously limited.
I see Gina Elise as promoting some good values–respect for soldiers and veterans, a healthy view of sexuality, and–gasp–the idea that women can show some appreciation and respect for the men who make sacrifices to protect them. I see no reason why she shouldn’t personally benefit from her work.
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