Celebrity Humanitarianism

The Ideology of Global Charity

Ilan Kapoor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415783385
• eBook ISBN: 9781136178368
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the last two decades especially, we have witnessed the rise of 'celebrity' forms of global humanitarianism and charity work, spearheaded by entertainment stars, billionaires, and activist NGOs (e.g. Bob Geldof, Bono, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Bill Gates, George Soros, Save Darfur, Medeçins Sans Frontières). This book examines this new phenomenon, arguing that celebrity humanitarianism legitimates, and indeed promotes, neoliberal capitalism and global inequality.

Drawing on Slavoj Žižek's work, the book argues how celebrity humanitarianism, far from being altruistic, is significantly contaminated and ideological: it is most often self-serving, helping to promote institutional aggrandizement and the celebrity 'brand'; it advances consumerism and corporate capitalism, and rationalizes the very global inequality it seeks to redress; it is fundamentally depoliticizing, despite its pretensions to 'activism'; and it contributes to a 'postdemocratic' political landscape, which appears outwardly open and consensual, but is in fact managed by unaccountable elites.

1 CELEBRITIES: HUMANITARIANS OR IDEOLOGUES?

DOI: 10.4324/9780203082270-2

There is a now famous Bono joke that goes something like this:

In the midst of a U2 concert, Bono approaches the microphone earnestly, asking for complete silence. He proceeds to clap, slowly and steadily, and pronounces in a hushed voice: ‘I want you all to think about something: every time I clap my hands, a poor child dies in Africa.’ Upon which, someone in the crowd screams, ‘Well, stop bloody clapping then!’

The joke, of course, lies in the gap between the metaphoric meaning of Bono’s performance and the literalness of the audience member’s understanding of it. But what if, speaking metaphorically, the latter understanding really were true – an African child is dying because Bono is clapping? That is, what if it is the performance of the celebrity’s humanitarianism that is the show? What if staging the ‘poor’, dying African child is a cover for the structural violence leading to that death? And all said and done, what if the clapping is actually applause for that child’s death (for otherwise, no one would profit)?

In this chapter, I want to take up many of these implied themes – celebrity self-promotion, diversion, propaganda, and profiteering, as well as audience adulation, accedence, and incredulity. Broadly speaking, I want to argue that celebrity humanitarianism legitimates late liberal capitalism and global inequality. Drawing on Žižek, I hope to show, in fact, that such charity work is deeply tainted and ideological. Its altruistic pretensions are belied by several notable accompaniments: its tendency to promote both the celebrity’s brand and the image of the ‘caring’ (Western) nation; its entrenchment in a marketing and promotion machine that, willy-nilly, helps advance corporate capitalism, as well as the very ‘poverty’ it purports to remedy; its support to a ‘postdemocratic’ liberal political system that is outwardly populist yet, for all intents and purposes, conducted by unaccountable elites; and its use and abuse of the Third World, making Africa, in particular, a background for First World hero-worship and a dumping ground for humanitarian ideals and fantasies. All the while, I want to underscore Žižek’s important point about our own complicity in this ideological work: as audience members and fans, or indeed even as detractors or critics, we too easily carry on our lives, consoled that someone is doing the charity work for us, just as long as we don’t have to.

Celebrity humanitarianism

Celebrity humanitarian work has become de rigueur these days. Whether in the form of mediatized events (concerts, awareness campaigns, product/campaign endorsements, travel to crisis areas), personal charity (donations, volunteer work, child adoption), or lobbying (i.e. pressuring political leaders), do-gooding is a virtual career requirement for the established or aspiring star. Almost every day, it seems, George Clooney is organizing a fundraiser, Steven Spielberg is making a pledge, Scarlett Johansson is going on a mission, Jay-Z is touring Africa, a star like David Beckham is being appointed as UN Goodwill Ambassador, or American Idol is ‘giving back’. Charity work has become so clichéd, in fact, that even Brüno (a.k.a. Sacha Baron Cohen) sees it necessary to adopt an ‘African’ baby to jump-start his Hollywood career!

I think it’s important though to examine this phenomenon more closely, given that the pairing of humanitarianism with entertainment – commonly referred to as ‘charitainment’ or ‘politainment’ – is a potent combination, bringing to international development the enormous resources and reach of ‘star-power’ and the media. I will focus primarily, although not exclusively, on the humanitarian work of Bob Geldof, Bono, Angelina Jolie, and Madonna, outlining in this section some of their key accomplishments, and in the next, the ideological underpinnings of their work.

Geldof has become much more famous as a global activist than as a rock singer and leader of the 1970s band, The Boomtown Rats. This is mainly because, benefiting from the onset of the global information industry in the 1980s, he pioneered the charity-rock-concert-as-global-media-event. Although his activism follows in the footsteps of such entertainers as Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, George Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Joan Baez, Danny Kaye, and others, he is often credited (along with Bono) with being the first to involve celebrities in large-scale global causes, thereby successfully galvanizing widespread public and media attention. Today, he has become a key player in global politics, especially concerning poverty, debt, trade, and HIV/AIDS. He is treated as a political leader in his own right, benefiting from one-to-one meetings with the likes of Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, and Stephen Harper. In 2007, he persuaded Angela Merkel to include African development on the Heiligendamm G8 agenda, and he has been known to chide G8 leaders for not meeting their aid commitments, sometimes publicly shaming them into increasing their aid budgets. It is no wonder, then, that he and a few of his celebrity colleagues (Bono, Jolie) are labelled ‘celebrity diplomats’ (Cooper 2007, 2008a), engaging in what he himself calls ‘punk diplomacy’:

I … realised what enormous potential there was for me … for saying the unsayable and confronting those in power … They had to listen because I had not only the money but the constituency of support which that money represented. And it was a populist, non-governmental constituency … Punk diplomacy … was born …

(Geldof quoted in Hague et al. 2008: 11)

In 1984, responding to widespread news reports about famine in Ethiopia, Geldof co-wrote and recorded the song, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ to raise funds for famine relief (‘Band Aid’). What was particularly compelling for him and the wider British public at the time was a Michael Buerk BBC documentary showing chilling images of suffering Ethiopian babies with emaciated bodies and swollen heads, desperately being nursed by their mothers. Geldof’s song echoed the ‘biblical scene’ staged in the documentary (Edkins 2000: 109), evoking Christian charity and the birth of the child-saviour. Recorded by forty-nine pop stars, the song became the fastest selling single of all time. It sold over three million copies and raised over £8 million (it was re-recorded and re-released in 1989) (BBC 2006).

After a visit to Ethiopia in early 1985, and keen to keep the famine in the spotlight, Geldof organized ‘Live Aid’, two live charity concerts in London and Philadelphia showcasing top musicians. The sixteen-hour concerts were broadcast in full on radio and TV channels in Britain and elsewhere. Dramatic video footage of the famine was aired, and public contributions were solicited (Geldof practically demanded public donations, declaring, ‘There’s people dying now, so just send us the fockin’ money’; cf. New Internationalist 2006). Watched by some 1.5 billion people worldwide, Live Aid raised over £110 million for famine relief in Ethiopia (BBC 2006).

In 2004, British Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed Geldof to a newly set up Commission for Africa, whose mandate was to examine African development. The Commission’s report called for better governance across the continent, with the need for support from the West on a range of issues, particularly debt reduction and development assistance (Commission for Africa 2005). These recommendations became the basis for the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit.

At the same time, Geldof became the main organizer and de facto spokesperson of a broad-based global NGO effort (the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, represented in the UK by the Make Poverty History campaign, and in the US by the ONE campaign) to compel G8 leaders to better address global poverty issues. A series of ten simultaneous Live 8 concerts was held across the globe. Eschewing fundraising in favour of political lobbying, the intent was to help focus world attention on the Gleneagles summit and, more specifically, to pressure G8 leaders into increasing Western foreign aid, reducing/cancelling the debt of the poorest countries (especially the so-called HIPC or Heavily Indebted Poor Countries), and improving the terms of trade for the South. The concerts were watched by some three billion people worldwide (Live 8 2005), while at the summit itself Geldof and Bono were received like political leaders, benefiting from exclusive meetings with George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and other G8 leaders.

The Live 8 events were a massive success in terms of garnering public and media attention. Large demonstrations, marches, and petition campaigns were organized across England and Scotland, with some 750,000 ‘Votes for Trade Justice’ delivered to Tony Blair (Nash 2008: 170). In Britain especially, media coverage happened not just in the news, but also in such TV sit-coms as The Vicar of Dibley, an episode of which included a Make Poverty History campaign video. And in the run-up to the summit, the BBC aired an Africa TV series, including Geldof’s own production, Geldof in Africa. But ultimately, Live 8 was largely a failure in terms of its primary aim of influencing G8 development programming and policy: I will develop this point further in the next section; suffice it to say for the moment that, to date, neither substantial debt cancellation nor much more Western aid has actually materialized, and WTO trade negotiations to improve the terms of trade for the South (especially in agriculture) have largely failed.

Like Geldof, Bono (a.k.a. Paul David Hewson) has become a force to reckon with in the global anti-poverty movement, although unlike Geldof he has successfully kept up his musical career as the frontman of the Irish rock band, U2. His foray onto the global stage began mostly in the mid-1990s, when he took a lead role in Jubilee 2000, the international NGO movement devoted to clearing Third World debt by the new millennium. He spoke about the issue of debt at the 1999 Brit Awards, and then, along with Geldof, led an NGO delegation to lobby Bill Clinton, the World Bank, and other policy-makers in Washington.

In 2002, Bono established DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), an advocacy association headquartered at Universal Studios in London and financed mostly by the likes of George Soros and Bill Gates (Cooper 2008a: 51). In an effort to bring attention to some of the issues taken up by DATA, particularly HIV/AIDS, he convinced US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill to accompany him on a tour of Africa. A year later, he was instrumental (along with Geldof) in lobbying George W. Bush to create the largest ever aid commitment for a single disease – the $85 million Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Then, at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2006, he launched Product (RED), which brings together corporate brands and consumers to raise funds for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa (see Chapter 2 for details).

Bono has collaborated closely with Geldof on a number of fronts, including, as just mentioned, the 2005 Live 8/Make Poverty History campaign and the frequent lobbying of political leaders. Their joint efforts have also gone into publicizing development issues in the media: they have guest-edited several newspaper and magazine issues together, usually focusing on Africa – an issue of The Independent in 2006, Bild-Zeitung in 2007, and The Globe and Mail in 2010. In 2007, Bono guest-edited (this time without Geldof) the July 2007 volume of Vanity Fair. The aim of the issue was to ‘re-brand’ Africa, with photos from Annie Leibovitz and contributions from Brad Pitt, Barack Obama, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Desmond Tutu, Condoleezza Rice, and several others (Vanity Fair 2007).

Like Geldof, Bono has earned substantial credibility within global development circles. He has educated himself on North–South issues, and has not hesitated to surround himself with professionals: DATA, for example, is staffed by senior policy analysts and experienced development workers. He calls Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist and ubiquitous ‘development advisor to the stars’,¹ his ‘mentor’; both have been frequent travel companions to Africa, especially on debt issues. Bono often uses the language of justice in his public forays on development and poverty, and frequently likens the experiences of colonialism, famine, and the displacement of his homeland, Ireland, to those of contemporary Africa. Typical of his views is the following excerpt from an interview he gave to Michka Assayas:

Two hundred years ago, it appears that very little difference existed in living standards between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. Today, a very wide income gap exists: the North is many times richer than the South. What brought this gap? The answer seems to lie in colonialism, trade, debt. The reason … is largely to do with us, and our exploitation of unfair trading agreements, or old debts. You can’t fix every problem. But the ones we can, you must.

(quoted in Cooper 2008b: 258)

Arguably, Bono has been a more effective diplomat than Geldof, whose opinionated views have sometimes rubbed people the wrong way. Bono is charming and versatile, adept at talking about scripture as much as colonialism, and conversing as much with such arch-conservatives as Jesse Helms and Pat Robertson as with liberals such as Clinton, Mandela, or Tutu (cf. Cooper 2008b). But while ready to compromise, he is no push-over: he has not hesitated to chide allies such as former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin for not living up to aid commitments, and in 2007, when Martin’s successor, Stephen Harper, said he was too busy to meet Bono at the G8 summit, the latter only had to publicly chide Harper for the lagging Canadian record on African aid before a meeting was hurriedly organized (Rachman 2007).

If Bono and Geldof are quite business-like in their approach to global activism, Jolie and Madonna appear more empathetic and ‘caring’, although no less business- and media-savvy, in theirs. Jolie contributes significant personal time to her humanitarian causes, and often portrays herself as a ‘witness’ to disasters, conflicts, and other people’s suffering. She reportedly became interested in development issues while filming in Cambodia in 2000. Since then, she has carried out several missions across the Third World, donating personal money for refugee causes and relief agencies, from Chad to Darfur to Haiti (the Jolie–Pitt Foundation was established in 2006 to continue this charity work). She has put a lot of effort into volunteering for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and was named its Goodwill Ambassador in 2001.

Like Geldof and Bono, Jolie has engaged in political lobbying, frequently pressuring members of the US Congress on human rights and refugee issues, speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum (in 2005 and 2006), and becoming a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations in 2007. Like Geldof and Bono, moreover, Jolie has deliberately tried to publicize her humanitarian work. In 2003, she published personal reflections from her field missions, entitled Notes From My Travels (Jolie 2003). With a view to reaching out to Western youth, she and economist Jeffrey Sachs agreed to a 2005 MTV documentary focusing on their visit to Kenya (Diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa). Over the years, she has also accepted to do several magazine interviews/articles, speaking about her personal goals and charity work – the 2007 Marie Claire article, ‘Angelina – from the heart’, is a well-known example (Connelly 2007).

But it is perhaps for her role as mother and transnational adoptions advocate that Jolie is best known. As Jo Littler points out, her charity work ‘indicates a globalised sensibility and a cosmopolitan caring, an effect augmented by Jolie’s high-profile Benetton-style adoption of a range of differently shaded children from a variety of countries’ (2008: 238). In addition to her own three biological children (including twins), she has adopted children from Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Vietnam to much sought-out publicity and fanfare. She has given several interviews advocating for transnational adoptions (cf. Davidson 2007), so much so that following her adoption of Zahara...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: celebrity humanitarianism and ideology
• 1 Celebrities: humanitarians or ideologues?
• 2 Billionaires and corporate philanthropy: ‘decaf capitalism’
• 3 ‘Spectacular NGOs’: activism without action?
• Conclusion: what is to be done?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index