Celebrity Swimsuit Snags 9 Cows For Poor Families in India

Ever wonder what happens with leave-behinds in fancy schmansy hotels? Well, EcoScraps (great little tumblelog, from Green Option media) reports some social entrepreneurial spunk that made me laugh out loud AND take heed. Get this:

The Local reports Nicole Kidman accidentally left her swimsuit poolside while filming in Sweden way back in 2002 while filming Dogville…Since then, it’s made the rounds under the charity gavel to yield 30,000 kronor for the Children’s Cancer Fund, 5,500 kronor for the Salvation Army and as of Saturday’s auction in Eslà¶v, 16,200 kronor ($2,500) the equivalent of nine cows to be sent to poor families in India.

The most recent owner of the bathing suit had been hoping it would fetch enough to buy 5 cows at 1,800 kronor a head, but it went almost double that, as charity auctioneer Bernt Dahlgren described,

“What a fantastic and bewildering response for this auction…It feels great that nine families, who barely own anything, would now each receive their own pregnant cow.” Yowza.

Now what does this say about the ‘clout’ of the celebrity zeitgeist and the impact on world culture and socio-economic underpinnings?

As a GWLN graduate selected as a U.S. delegate for Women Leaders for the World, we fundraise by selling “cow shares” to help pay the travel costs of bringing “women worthy of support” overseas to participate in the program!

I’ll have to tell GWLN founder Linda Alepin about this one, and Patricia Rain who heads up the delectable effort at The Vanilla Company to buy shares in Mariam’s cows and bring her over from Africa. (feature story coming soon)

Maybe we should tap the celebrity circuit to accelerate GWLN cow shares for social change enterprises, eh?

Now that I think about it, World Wildlife Fund did it with their “celebrity panda” stuffed animal auction awhile back…in ‘have fun, do good’ fashionista form.

Maybe if kids could see the juxtaposition and irony of the celebrity correlation to basic food and physiological needs (air, water, safety, etc.) it would help offer some perspective and shift the media focus a tad…

I could see some strong potential of humor used in PSAs/MTV-style via YouTube video clips or ‘bliptv’ to ‘drive the point home’ via visual representation of our cross-cultural superficiality…

The have/have not pictoral approach could be quite a poignant media mashup of humanity to veer toward social change.

Or…maybe go the auction route in ‘if you can’t beat ’em join ’em’ style…

Kind of like those hand-signed celebrity global warming shirts from WWF that got hawked on ebay declaring I’m “hotter than I should be.”

Hmn…cogs are turning now…

Visual Credit: Nicole Kidman in a scene from Dogville from The Age/Australia