Steven Spielberg To Finally Twist The Chinese Government’s Arm On Darfur

While universally recognised as a deity in the Hollywood community, Steven Spielberg is hardly ever taken to task for squandering his limitless God-powers by using his rainbow-spewing Happy Ending Machine to neatly wrap up his movies’ third act problems instead of pointing it in the direction of a war-torn Third World nation to cease its suffering. (In his defence, he hasn’t pulled any celestial strings to salvage On the Lot’s ratings, either.) But Slate’s Kim Masters writes that a recent bit of well-publicised heresy by Mia Farrow, who warned that Spielberg would become the “Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games” by taking a position as an adviser to the Olympics if he didn’t use his influence to decry China’s support of the Sudanese government, seems to have moved the almighty auteur to intercede:

On a far more somber and urgent note, Spielberg must also figure out what to do about Darfur. That may not seem to make sense at a glance but it does in light of his role as an artistic adviser to the Chinese for the ‘08 Olympics. The Chinese have clout in Khartoum, and Spielberg, as fate would have it, has influence in China. Bizarrely, Spielberg may be one of the most powerful people in the world when it comes to pressuring the Chinese to lean on the Sudanese government.

Yes, George Clooney and Don Cheadle and their associates have done their part to push China to act. But Spielberg is in a unique position to embarrass the Chinese if he were to withdraw from his role.

In early April, Spielberg wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking for action. Whether the Chinese have responded at all is still unknown, but sources say Spielberg will shortly have more to say on the subject.

Now that Spielberg’s written a letter to the Chinese president (he has a special filter set up that immediately trashes all nuisance e-mails sent by Clooney and Cheadle), we expect some positive action from their government shortly; after all, the Chinese can’t risk the possibility that their artistic adviser might withhold the spectacular opening ceremony he’s created for the Beijing Games and force them to go with something concocted at the last minute by a hack like Michael Bay, an embarrassment that would completely undermine their nation’s cultural credibility.

• E.T., Phone China [Slate]