By Andrew F Cooper – University of Waterloo
[From the Blog Editor: This is the first blog post by Celebrity Blogger. This post launches a new series within Rising BRICSAM. Periodically Celebrity Blogger will provide new insights into the intersection between popular culture and global affairs. Watch for it.]
Celebrity activism continues to garner a huge amount of attention. The popular Guardian newspaper’s Development Blog currently features a Podcast on the role of celebrities in development http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2010/dec/17/focus-podcast-celebrity-aid-development?intcmp=122
William Easterly wrote a typically provocative Op Ed in the Washington Post (December 10) on ‘John Lennon vs. Bono: The death of the celebrity activist
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/09/AR2010120904262.html And Daniel Drezner added a quick follow-up piece on his Foreign Affairs Blog.
While the Guardian and Drezner are intrigued by the staying power of celebrity activism, Easterly is convinced he knows the answers: Bono’s access oriented, professional approach to activism serves as a wrong-headed approach. Pointing to the way not taken, he bemoans the symbolic demise of John Lennon’s enthusiastic amateur brand of celebrity activism.
From my own work, showcased in my Celebrity Diplomacy book and subsequent articles, I judge Easterly to be wrong on both counts. Through his fixation on Lennon, Easterly demonstrates he is stuck in a time warp with a focus on narrow profile of dissenters. If he cared to take a global look he could find that this rebellious stream among celebrity activists (or what I term, anti-diplomats) is alive and well. Some of these dissenters such as Harry Belafonte go back to the civil rights era in the US. However, in recent years, there has been a marked transnational turn. In 2006, Belafonte along with Danny Glover made headlines by praising Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution. And this list of dissenters can be expanded to include not only other mainstream entertainers (Sean Penn jumps out!) but also a number of vibrant activists in many other parts of the world. In his preoccupation with musicians from the Anglo-sphere Easterly misses the amplified role of performers/dissenters such as Angelique, Kidjo and Arundhati Roy.
Reinforcing the need to expand the global lens a number of these dissenters are featured in the Guardian Blog, notably Bianca Jagger and Annie Lennox. Among other campaigns, both of these celebrity activists have been outspoken critics of Israel’s offensive against Gaza taking part in major rallies in January 2009.
Turning away from this extended pattern of dissent, Easterly’s portrays Bono as a charming technocrat. Yet, as witnessed by his work in the context of the G8 summit process, what is unique about Bono is his ability to go beyond the common boundaries of celebrity activity by acting both an insider and outsider. Bilaterals with G8 leaders were combined with meetings with representatives of civil society, press conferences and public events (such as the 2007 Raise Your Voice against poverty in Rostock) Bono is also an exemplar mentor for other celebrities across the spectrum from Matt Damon to Alicia Keys. If he is a wonk he combines that element of celebrity diplomacy with a deep reservoir of spirituality. After all, Bono made Jesse Helm’s cry by his depiction of AIDS as the leprosy of our age.
What provides celebrity activism with its legitimacy and selective effectiveness is its essential dualism. Diversifying since the Lennon era, notable dissenters that operate as rebellious advocates persist. Rather than being crowded out they operate in contradistinction to the networked and professionalized celebrity stream, epitomized by Bono through his work at DATA/ONE. Rather than nostalgically bemoaning the decline of the stream of dissent, and dismissing celebrity ‘wonkism’ as a wrong turn, this diversity – both in style and geographical scope – needs to be fully appreciated.
The celebrity streams operate as two faces of the same fascinating and on-going phenomenon.