The blog post that writes itself

From the Hollywood Reporter‘s Karen Chu: Sharon Stone, who last year was a guest of the Shanghai International Film Festival, now faces a boycott of her films in China after she suggested the devastating May 12 earthquake there could have been the result of bad “karma.” Stone’s remarks, made Thursday at the Festival de Cannes, ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

From the Hollywood Reporter's Karen Chu: Sharon Stone, who last year was a guest of the Shanghai International Film Festival, now faces a boycott of her films in China after she suggested the devastating May 12 earthquake there could have been the result of bad "karma." Stone's remarks, made Thursday at the Festival de Cannes, pondered a link between the earthquake -- which to date has taken the lives of more than 65,000 -- and China's treatment of ethnic Tibetans and their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom she called "a good friend." "I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone said in a brief red-carpet interview with Cable Entertainment News of Hong Kong. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?" Her remarks triggered anger across the Chinese-language media and were called "inappropriate" by the founder of one of China's biggest urban cinema chains, who said his company would not show the Hollywood star's films.You can click on the story to read more, but here are two ways in which it might have ended: 1) "Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, denied that his decision to ban Ms. Stone's film had anything to do with Basic Instinct 2: "I said her comments were 'inappropriate,' not 'God-awful dreck from the dredges of hell.'" 2) "After making her comments about karma, Ms. Stone stepped into an elevator, which mysteriously stopped soon afterwards and began playing a uninterrupted loop of Catwoman on its video monitor for the next ten hours."

From the Hollywood Reporter‘s Karen Chu:

Sharon Stone, who last year was a guest of the Shanghai International Film Festival, now faces a boycott of her films in China after she suggested the devastating May 12 earthquake there could have been the result of bad “karma.” Stone’s remarks, made Thursday at the Festival de Cannes, pondered a link between the earthquake — which to date has taken the lives of more than 65,000 — and China’s treatment of ethnic Tibetans and their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom she called “a good friend.” “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else,” Stone said in a brief red-carpet interview with Cable Entertainment News of Hong Kong. “And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?” Her remarks triggered anger across the Chinese-language media and were called “inappropriate” by the founder of one of China’s biggest urban cinema chains, who said his company would not show the Hollywood star’s films.

You can click on the story to read more, but here are two ways in which it might have ended:

1) “Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, denied that his decision to ban Ms. Stone’s film had anything to do with Basic Instinct 2: “I said her comments were ‘inappropriate,’ not ‘God-awful dreck from the dredges of hell.'” 2) “After making her comments about karma, Ms. Stone stepped into an elevator, which mysteriously stopped soon afterwards and began playing a uninterrupted loop of Catwoman on its video monitor for the next ten hours.”

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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