The Oscar’s are coming up so it is a good moment to delve into a few areas of celebrity activism. One of the most interesting competitions this year at the Oscar’s is for the Best Documentary category – what a change that is.   Well, anyway, among the strong group of short listed films is the scathing critique directed and by Charles Ferguson of the recent global financial crisis –  Inside Job.

Although narrated by Matt Damon, the ‘stars’ of the documentary come not from the world of Hollywood but from finance – the titans of Wall Street – with supporting roles from policy-makers – the folks in Washington – and a number of under performing economists. Among the big questions this documentary triggers is whether we can depict non-entertainers as celebrities?

In the case of business celebrity status is accorded to those who not only make massive amounts of money but who also give some of that money back the Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s of the world.

How do the stars of Inside Job such as the leading lights of Goldman Sachs do according to this test? Some ex-Goldman Sachs have certainly tried to make the shift to this status. In the same week I saw Inside Job, The Financial Times accorded the ‘How to give it’ to Larry Linden, a retired (2008) general partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs. Linden maintains that Goldman Sachs ‘has a longstanding charitable tradition, which continues. For example in 2004 Linden acquired 840,000 acres of pristine forest in Tierra del Fuego as collateral on a package of distressed debt. Linden was asked back to the firm to arrange management and funding to conserve this forest permanently’.

I will leave it you to determine whether such action shifts the impression of Inside Job of Goldman Sachs from notoriety to celebrity.

But what this example suggests is that such organizations and their personnel may require a closer assessment about the philanthropic efforts. Before the crisis there ware laudatory stories of Hank Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary and head of Goldman Sachs, preparing to give the bulk of his fortune (then estimated as $800 million) to environmental charities. Where does this promise stand now?

Even if the extremely negative depiction of Goldman Sachs in Inside Job is unfair, however, other executives of this firm and their counterparts should get better advice about the names of the charitable Foundations they support. The best or worst illustration of this image disconnect is the participation of Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (along with Dick Fuld formerly of Lehman Bros.) in the Robin Hood Foundation, an organization designed to target poverty in New York City.

After watching Inside Job, many viewers may come away feeling that any association of these financiers with a narrative of ‘robbing from the rich to give to the poor’ should be reversed. At least it looks like that from screening this documentary.

The events in Egypt continue to resonate with celebrity politics.  Reflecting on my last blog post on the state hold on celebrities  it is useful to focus briefly on Mrs. Mubarak.  A number of Wikileaks about her role show her involvement in Egyptian politics.  Far from being content in playing a symbolic role as First Lady, Mrs. Mubarak was interpreted by a number of US diplomats to have played a major political role in trying to assure a dynastic succession to Gamal, the Mubaraks’ son.

But let me shift the focus in this blog post from the old regime to more future oriented scenarios. In particular I view the events in Egypt as opening up the puzzle once again:  can celebrities go home again?

To suggest that an individual such as Mohamed ElBaradei is a celebrity runs into all sort of thorny definitional questions. But he did gain a measure of fame from winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his work as director of the UN nuclear agency. These achievements put him in a different category than those who gain celebrity status only by some form of support to a cause.

Yet, in some ways the question of whether or not a notable such as ElBaradei can go home again echoes other circumstances from the world of entertainment and sports. Although the list is likely longer, those I put at the top of the cluster of those celebrities away from their home are: Wyclef Jean, George Weah and Imran Khan.

All of these individuals received some measure of kudos as long as they concentrated their attention on non-political activities. Wyclef Jean used the fame he achieved as a member of the Fugees as a platform to build the Yéle Haiti Foundation. George Weah a star footballer became a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and an advocate for youth in his home country of Liberia. Imran Khan moved from being an iconic cricketer to an activist, starting a charitable foundation in Pakistan bearing the name of his mother and serving as a UNICEF special representative for sports.

Moving from social activism to success as an elected national political leader however seems to be a ‘bar too high’. George Weah lost the Liberian presidency in a run-off with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Imran Khan had a disappointing career as a politician. And Wyclef has been barred from running for the presidency in Haiti for not meeting the residency requirements.

These failures can all be put down to problems attached to these individuals – whether opportunism or lack of organizational prowess. Yet their lack of success also reveals how difficult it is for celebrities – whether defined by ascription or achievement – to go back home.

Such a bar, although not the only constraint in the case of ElBaradei, offers an insight into how difficult it will be for him to emerge as a political actor in the new Egypt.

The main focus on the events in Egypt has been on the mass gathering of demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo.  These demonstrators became the media heart of the protests against the Mubarak regime. Yet as in other areas I have looked at the role (or non-role) of celebrity activists is salient as a lens focused on the intersection of politics and culture.

One thematic issue that emerges from such an enquiry is the differing levels of activism between older and younger celebrities. A major older celebrity is Omar Sharif the Oscar winning star of Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago and other movies. What is striking in his comments is his desire for both change and stability. On the one hand, he says that President Hosni Mubarak should have resigned. ‘Given that the entire Egyptian people don’t want him and he’s been in power for 30 years, that’s enough’. And he added: “The president hasn’t improved the standard of living of Egyptians. There are some people that are very rich — maybe 1 percent — and the rest are all poor trying to find food.”

Yet he expresses concern over moving beyond the Mubarak era. As he told AP: “I personally don’t know what they [anti-Mubarak forces] will do afterwards. Who will they bring, who will take his place, who will be in charge of the country?” This fear was magnified if it turns out that the Muslim Brotherhood gains from the exit of Mubarak leaves. “They [the Muslim Brotherhood] were trapped and now are starting to come out. They have 20 percent of the population, and it’s frightening for me.”

This cautious on the one hand and on the other hand attitude can be contrasted to the enthusiastic anti-Mubarak views of young celebrity protestors, some of whom have gained prominence in other countries. A case in point is Khalid Abdullah described by the BBC who repeatedly interviewed him as a ‘British-Egyptian’ actor (the Kite Runner is his best known film, and he was honored at the 2010 Cairo film festival) who rather than looking down at ‘Liberation Square’ like Sharif is actually in the square. Besides Abdullah’s distinctive characteristics his role also raises the question of whether celebrity activists who have gained some measure of fame abroad can go home again – a theme that I will return to next week.

If the shifting agency of celebrity activism needs to be looked at further however so must the embedded context in which celebrities have had to operate in Egypt. What jumps out is the tight grip of the state. As I have pointed out in earlier blog posts a wide number of Egyptian celebrities dating back to Umm Kulthum in the 1960s have been mobilized for the interests of the state.

What is different about Egypt under Mubarak is the personal nature of this grip. Rather than just promoting celebrities because they adhere to the interests of the state, Mubarak’s family members have taken on the role of celebrity activists. The best – or worst – illustration of this phenomenon is the endorsement of Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of Egyptian president as a goodwill ambassador for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

The Egyptian first lady may be committed to good causes, as other individuals in this role are. Indeed, she has won a number of awards for he work. Yet, in witnessing the pent up demand for change I can’t escape the conclusion that having her as a goodwill ambassador is just one more indicator about how pervasive the hold of the Mubarak regime on Egypt has been.

As in other parts of the world, a healthier format would be to have prominent celebrities – with no state links – exclusively appointed to this role, especially from the younger generation of activists.

The image of Bono taking centre stage once again at Davos on a panel about ‘Raising Healthy Children’ could easily open up another grueling debate about the merits of the U2 lead singer as a global celebrity activist. This is a subject I have commented on in the past, notably in the Global Governance journal. Although I take an extremely positive view of Bono’s efforts (to the point of suggesting that there is a dynamic that can be termed the Bono-ization of diplomacy!), the criticism of his role as a development campaigner has to be taken seriously. Such attacks include delving into his private financial affairs pertaining to the movement of some of his corporate profile for tax advantages.

Whatever readers think about the ethical motivations and application of such hard-edged practices a bigger question has to be asked. Should we target Bono for criticism because he combines, musical entertainment, business self interest and celebrity advocacy at the same time?  Can we let the older generation of rock stars off the hook for focusing on the first two activities without any sustained effort on the third?

My attention to this issue is influenced in part by my reading Keith Richards’s autobiography (Life) over the holidays. I came away with two very different thoughts. The first was a reaffirmation of the view that talents need to be cultivated if not by vigor of tiger moms and the 10,000 hours rule (the length of time that Malcolm Gladwell suggests it takes to become an expert in any field). What drives the success of the Rolling Stones is how much practice they put in.

More in tune with the theme of this blog, however, is that there has never been any focused move by the Rolling Stones to do anything that benefited the public good. They were quite explicitly rebels without a genuine cause. Above all self -indulgence trumped any sense of giving back.

To be sure, this attitude can be rationalized by a number of factors. The Stones were quite clearly ripped off by promoters and managers at the early stage of their career.  And in the pre-Thatcher era they had to pay massive amounts of tax, pushing them to live abroad. They even titled one of their biggest albums, Exiles on Main Street.

Yet opportunities were there for them to expand their horizons. Bianca Jagger became interested in a wide range of causes by the late 1970s but this triggered no similar commitment on Mick Jagger’s part (apart from some apparently low-key and much later project participation such as lending his voice to an education campaign in South Africa in early 2010 and work on a UN charity album in 2009).

Keith Richards was obviously impressed by Václav Havel the Czech intellectual president but there was no spillover effect after a concert in Prague. Even Eric Clapton, a well-known advocate of the view that rock stars should just ‘keep to the music’ has set up and continued to maintain a strong connection with a non-profit drug rehabilitation centre on the Caribbean island of Antigua (part of a region that Mick and Keith spent much time). Keeping to strict parameters about how rock stars should behave made the Rolling Stones immensely wealthy but in comparison to Bono the impression is one of restricted lives. It seems perverse then that the U2 singer comes under such criticism for stretching out in terms of celebrity engagement when the Rolling Stones are free of such criticism by downplaying social engagement.