On political correctness and pressure tactics

Having realized I havn't ranted to you, my readers, in quite some time, I finally have come back with an issue which had me thinking for some time.
Thanks to current media coverage , every idiot's comment made in however haste becomes the next big issue.Take for example the recent blunder Sharon Stone made. While trying to use a photo op to talk about Tibet, she said the earthquake in china was bad karma.Now don't get me wrong, what she said was quite stupid. Not that I expect great nuggets of knowledge from a glorified bimbo, but I digress. Here is what she said

"Well you know it was very interesting because at first, you know, 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,And so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don’t like that. And I had been this, you know, concerned about, oh how should we deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice bad things happen to you?"

This is the same woman who a few years ago said "All the exes in my life either had an offbeat mother or underwent some kind of childhood crisis. They were unbalanced, looking for parental guidance and they see me as the mother figure.I think all men are dogs. I honestly do. You know every man starts barking sooner or later.At least my character in BASIC INSTINCT has the good sense to kill men afterwards, so they won't go around sprouting nonsense."

As you can clearly see, she isn't known for intelligent comments. She even claimed once that she had gone to Mensa school when there wern't any mensa schools at all. But what she did say was to hint towards the fact that it might be the result of bad karma. I get it, she has to be held accountable. So newspapers blast her lack of brains. Americans now feel ashamed to be called american because of her and cosmetics giants fire her.

Really? Thats the biggest issue at hand? Is that the only headline our media, who I assume is more intelligent than Sharon Stone could find to harp on? That's the biggest issue that they could crusade against? Every small town reporter takes the littlest of stories and cries foul and when they get that person publicly hated they do their victory dance. Talk about patting one's own back. I wonder why I havn't seen enough talk on Darfur, the Iranian president for suggesting all kaffirs should die Or Dubya for that matter. Celebs need to be more politically correct than everyone else, to keep their varied number of fans happy. My problem isn't with her opinion, she has changed religions thrice in the last 2 decades, going from Scientology to Buddhism and has been making an ass out of herself for years. My problem is with the media and how they pick the easy targets. I don't see any major active effort in curbing anti homosexual, or even anti racist propaganda anywhere. Discounting the lone voices, most of these 'brave' reporters skirt by the real issues.

Again , I digress. My rant is two fold. One part of it is directed against the media, and the other part on this trend of pressure tactics and taking political correctness too far. One of the basic human rights is freedom of speech. Now of course I dont mean anyone should get away with anything and there shouldn't be any accountability. My question is this, where do you draw the line? We are living in an age when every little group has a PR exec, and some form of media backing. And every few days you hear someone being forced to retract their statements. I am not getting into whether the statements were hurtful or not, all I am saying is that this is damaging freedom of speech quite badly. And these pressure tactics are not about righting wrongs, they are only about having the last say.

It's not about the little man getting his/her vindication, its about I am big enough for you to be wary of me, so be careful what you say. If the organization is big enough, its untouchable. You make any accusation and you can be dragged to court. Take the Hindutva fanatics for example. A few months ago Aamir khan went to some ceremony where the Indian flag was flown at half mast, and a patriot filed a case against him, citing that his presence was traitorous to the country. Richard Gere kisses Shilpa Shetty on stage about Aids awareness and people are screaming for his blood, going on endlessly about how he hurt the Indian sentiment. Now I wonder, if I filed a case against Narendra Modi , that he offends me by being alive, would that get enough attention? Would that cement my career? You know what they say, a controversy is a great way to gain attention. I realize that my rant is becoming quite wide in its berth, and there are many issues to be discussed under this umbrella, but humour me. It's a rant, not a research paper.

If the media is actually that unbiased and looking to right wrongs, why dont we see enough criticism of Christian militant action thats starting to take form in the US? Or children's cartoons being used to teach terrorism to Muslim kids? Why doesnt the media force these people to retract statements and apologize for their insensitivity? Arn't there thousands of far more important issues?

My other issue is on political correctness but I am only going to highlight 2 examples in Hollywood which I know about. First and foremost, the famous game God of War is being made into a film.

For the uninitiated, God of war follows Spartan warrior Kratos, as he is assigned the duty of killing the God of War by Athena herself. Now in the game the character is voiced by an African American, that itself was the only nagging thing about the game. Now the film version is going to star a black actor(supposedly Djimon Honsou). Is it just me, or does that sound insane? The game was cool not only for the action, but for its deep connection to Greek mythology. And the lead character is even Spartan, then why cast a black actor? Is that really going to guarantee box office attendance? Or is the African American population that stupid that they will only go if they see a black Spartan? The God of war movie can be brainless enough to match or even outdo 300, which didnt have any black actors in the lead but still was a huge box office success.
The other is another film being made on the life of Hannibal Barca,the general of the Carthaginian empire. Now Hannibal was a Phoenician, who were the ancestors of modern day Brits, Scots and Anglo Saxons. He was 100 % caucasian. Then why on earth would Vin diesel be cast in that role?

Being part of the film industry I can truly understand the need to take audience tastes into account. But to believe that race of the actor can guarantee success,or for the producers to justify such casting by saying that in this day and age it is the right thing to do, to cast a member of an entirely different race supposedly for racial unity, is reprehensible. Again, it simply becomes an issue of how far is too far. I know what you must be thinking, it's just a movie who cares. You are probably right , I might be reading too much into this. But for the life of me, I can't reconcile this in any way. Any insights?