Article by Dan Colasimone /
ABC News /
August 30, 2019 /
Click here to view original /
How did you first hear about the catastrophic fires in the Amazon? Was it via a news outlet or a celebrity’s social media feed?
Your answer likely depends on your age bracket and which apps you browse through in your downtime.
Model and actress Cara Delevingne posted to her 43 million Instagram followers about the fires on August 21, posting a rebuke of the media for not reporting on them for the past three weeks.
The wording and photos were taken from a Twitter post two days earlier. Leonardo DiCaprio also Instagrammed about the situation in Brazil on August 22, “regramming” a post by environmentalist Nick Rose from a day earlier.
Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo alerted his combined 380 million social media followers to the fires at about the same time, as did Madonna on her Instagram: “We need to WAKE UP!” she implored.
The BBC first reported on the fires on their website on August 23, CNN’s initial story dropped on August 22, while ABC News Digital first addressed the issue on August 21.
Whether the news-slingers were reacting to celebrities reacting, or the newsworthy hook that smoke had reached Rio de Janeiro and plunged it into darkness, it’s quite conceivable you would have heard about the fires through your favourite celebrity, rather than a news outlet.
Are celebrities helping solve the world’s crises?
Celebrities can play a role in bringing important causes to the forefront of public consciousness, says Lauren Rosewarne, author, pop culture expert and social and political sciences lecturer at the University of Melbourne, but she warns that isn’t necessarily helping solve the problem.
“The biggest benefit of celebrity activism is consciousness-raising: helping to draw mass attention to an issue that might not be getting much media or, alternatively, which may not yet be on the radar of their demographic of fans — often younger people who are less likely to be consuming traditional news,” Dr Rosewarne said.
“[But] it’s very, very important to recognise the limitations of consciousness-raising.
“So as with all activism, to be successful a movement needs to move beyond someone using their platform to just shout about an issue.”
At which point it’s worth noting that beyond posting about it, DiCaprio says he has raised $5 million to help with the crisis in Brazil. Cheers, Leo.
It’s also worth noting, the photos of the fires used by Ronaldo, DiCaprio, Delevingne, Madonna and other famous types were all taken years ago, and were not of the current outbreak of fires — Ronaldo’s was from another fire in another part of Brazil in 2013, DiCaprio’s (also shared by French President Emmanuel Macron) was taken by a photographer who died in 2003 and Madonna’s was taken in 1989.
While the posts may have lacked the accuracy to match their good will, there is no doubt the fires are blazing at unprecedented levels.
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) says there have been more than 74,000 fires so far this year in Brazil — an 84 per cent increase on the same period in 2018 and the highest number since records began in 2013.
In comparison, 40,136 fires burned in the region last year.
So while the pictures may be fake, the catastrophe is not.
‘Message is often lost’ when huge egos get involved
Sean Penn is often mocked for putting himself front and centre in whatever the cause du jour is.
Bill Maher once gently roasted his friend:
“He truly is a man of action. When you need someone to show up in a rowboat when there’s a flood, or interview El Chapo … He went to Damascus last year. Syria. Even Mormon missionaries won’t go to Syria.”
Dr Rosewarne points to people like Penn who are, rightly or wrongly, assumed to be simply attention-seeking.
“My thoughts immediately go to Sean Penn in terms of bad examples. Ditto [U2 frontman] Bono,” she says.
“In both examples it’s not actually that both are bad activists so much as both are divisive and, arguably, over-exposed characters whose public identity is one dominated by assumed huge egos, and thus the message is often lost in assumptions that they are just self-aggrandising.”
In 2010 Mother Jones magazine mocked up a map of Africa indicating which countries various celebrities had “claimed” as their own, in relation to their charity work. It was only partially tongue-in-cheek.
“She’s focusing on Malawi. South Africa is Oprah’s territory,” Madonna’s publicist was quoted as saying.
While such characters may provoke mirth, that doesn’t mean they aren’t still doing a lot of good.
People may have laughed at pictures of Penn carrying sandbags in Haiti, but when he threw his clout behind the J/P Haitian Relief Organisation, he and his celebrity mates raised $54 million to aid the country after its devastating 2010 earthquake.
Questionable causes
“Not all celebrities are excellent spokespeople and therefore it’s wise for them to pick and choose those that they get involved in and to educate themselves sufficiently so to not harm a cause,” Dr Rosewarne says.
American actress and model Jenny McCarthy is one of the faces of the scientifically debunked and potentially dangerous anti-vaccination movement, blaming her son’s autism on the MMR shot he received as a baby.
Dumb and Dumber star Jim Carey has also been an outspoken anti-vaxxer, while Jessica Biel recently spoke out publicly against a Californian bill that seeks to limit medical exemptions from vaccinations.
Experts have warned celebrities holding such views could have the strongest influence over parents who are on the fence as to whether to vaccinate their children.
Prince Charles has been accused of being a “snake oil salesman” by for Exeter University Emeritus Professor Edzard Ernst over his decades-long push of homeopathic medicines.
There are also instances of well-meaning stars actually doing more harm than good.
Perhaps the most famous celebrity charity drive of all, the Live Aid concerts to provide relief for the Ethiopian famine of 1983-85, may have been much more harmful to the country than beneficial.
According to a number of investigations since, the concerts simply raised money for the despots and warlords who were causing the famine in the first place — resulting in further death and starvation.
The celebrities who do a world of good
The caricature of the attention-seeking Hollywood star showing up for the benefit of photographers at the latest crisis point isn’t always a fair one.
While the work they do no doubt polishes their personal brands, the likes of Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and DiCaprio clearly do a world of good, both with their financial donations and by attaching their names to causes.
“A good example is George Clooney with Darfur,” says Dr Rosewarne
“Michael J Fox for Parkinson’s is also an excellent example because he brings lived-experience authenticity to a cause that another celebrity simply can’t.
“Something similar could be said for the women activists/victims in the #MeToo space who spoke from the perspective of those who were personally impacted but who were using their platforms to speak on behalf of other victims who don’t have such exposure — think Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan.
Aside from her fervid work as a United Nations Special Envoy for refugees, Jolie has potentially saved thousand’s of women’s lives by raising awareness of the threat of breast cancer.
After she penned an article in the New York Times in 2013 about her decision to have a double mastectomy, tests for the breast cancer BRCA gene shot up by 64 per cent in the US, Science Daily reported.
When speaking out becomes a better option than staying quiet
As perhaps the most celebrity of celebrities in the last decade, anything Taylor Swift says — or doesn’t say — becomes pored over by her fans, critics and the media.
“In our modern call-out culture, there is a tendency for fans to call-out their favourite celebrities for not using their platforms for good,” Dr Rosewarne says.
“Taylor Swift is an example of a star who, for many years, was accused of failing to use her platform to spotlight feminist and LGBTQI issues.”
Swift, who started in country music — and associated with conservatives — also refrained from voicing her political views until recently. She was famously criticised for not supporting Hilary Clinton in the 2016 US elections.
Dr Rosewarne says now that Swift has become so influential, it is less risky for her to champion her causes.
“Initially she needed to be mindful of the values of the fan base that she was cultivating, nowadays however, she has transitioned into pop — and has a very big LGBTQI following — and thus has to now think about the values of those who support her career today.”
Swift broke her political silence in October, 2018, when she said she would vote Democrat in the midterm elections.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, Swift expressed her disillusionment with the state of America under President Donald Trump.
“We’re a democracy — at least, we’re supposed to be — where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate. I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy,” she said.
In March, 2018 Swift called for gun control and in June she published an open letter to Tennessee’s Republican Senator Lamar Alexander in support of the Equality Act.
At the VMA awards on Wednesday, Swift called out the Trump administration’s lack of acknowledgment of the Equality Act for LGBTQI rights, after accepting the award for video of the year for her pride-themed anthem You Need To Calm Down.
Many conservatives turned on Swift after her announcement about the midterms, including Mr Trump, who said he liked her music approximately one quarter less.
“Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25 per cent less now, OK?” he told reporters.