Mamma Mia!

I just saw this movie, which my wife enjoyed very much and got on DVD. All fine, very entertaining at a surface level. But having read this dispatch from Robert D Kaplan of The Atlantic, I saw something disturbing:

Youth unemployment is high throughout the European Union, but it is particularly high in Greece, hovering between 25 and 30 percent. With few job prospects, rampant poverty in the face of nouveau riche prosperity, a public university system in shambles, a bloated government sector in desperate need of an overhaul, and a weak, defensive conservative government with only a one-seat majority in parliament, it is a ripe period for protests, which have had as their aim the fall of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. [Emphasis added]

Some more perspective:



Mamma Mia! the movie takes place in a Greek isle. The all the protagonists - the hotel owner, her daughter, the fiancee, the fathers, the guests - are all non-Greek. The local Greeks are all extras - servants, lifters, carriers, cleaners, etc. I can't imagine that this movie would leave a nice taste with the locals these days.

Speaking of extra faux pas, I also caught a guest on Ina Garten's cooking show on the Food Channel mock a soup kitchen just before singing a song about how nice it was to be in the Hamptons. Maybe it's the economy that brings out the best in us.