Celebrity Activism is an Oxymoron
Alt Title: Stop Asking Celebrities To Do Anything But Open Their Fucking Purses!!
I had just turned nineteen years old when the uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri took place following the state-sanctioned execution of eighteen-year-old Mike Brown Jr. I don’t think it would be remiss to say that Brown’s murder and the protests that followed propelled us into the political moment that we are in today – for better and for worse. This political moment also shaped much of the online activism that is commonplace today: journalists and organizers began curating information in Twitter threads, and hashtags like “Black Lives Matter” entered the public imagination.
To look at the landscape of social media activism now, it feels nearly impossible that there was a time not too long ago when it was considered unapproachable or even taboo to express one’s support for whatever social causes. In fact, a celebrity is branded as “problematic” if they remain radio silent during periods of great political upheaval. Despite the fact that you can find an Instagram infographic on Ariana Grande’s story about “5 non-optical ways to be an ally” or see a viral tweet of Chris Evans quote tweeting Trump telling Trump that he’s “bad,” it feels as if the needle has barely moved.
The concept of the internet as a radical mobilization tool was still so fresh and new however that I, along with the other young people who were watching everything unfold in real-time on our social media timelines, still felt completely helpless and fell prey to notions of “voicelessness” that is often ascribed to the occupied class. Our rage towards the state quickly started to boil over into rage towards the celebrity class, who overwhelmingly seemed unfazed by the events that were happening in Ferguson. It felt particularly cruel, in my mind, that members of the Black celebrity class were being silent as they would often use their Blackness and the language of solidarity in order to promote their products, music, movies, etc. while being mute on the violence happening to poor Black people. That was nearly a decade ago.
There are ways that social media has blurred the lines between the proletariat and the bourgeois and there are ways that it has only revealed – or perhaps even exasperated – the continued deep division amongst the classes. No one can forget the cringy rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” put out last year at the beginning of the quarantine by celebrities including Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot. Her cringe-inducing crooning would come to pale in comparison to her recent statement about the ongoing attacks on Palestinians by the Israeli government. It doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that knows that Gadot used to actually be a part of the IDF and still proudly supports them to this day. But now in a post-Ferguson social media landscape where not saying anything about the hot social justice issue of the moment is almost worse than saying the wrong thing, we are forced to watch as celebrities are clumsily trying to figure out how to engage these issues in order to appease the masses.
It’s not wrong to feel like people with immeasurable influence should “use their platforms” and “spread awareness” and all the other things we’ve convinced ourselves is enough to really push us forward towards liberation. Celebrity, however, is often a site for the sort of exploitative systemic violence that we’re wanting them to speak out against. The uprisings of last summer in response to the state-sanctioned murder of George Floyd gave way for radical new ideas to end police violence. Celebrities during the protest spent much of the time reaffirming their allegiance to their class interests by chastising protestors for destroying property and putting forth reformist ideas for police brutality that only upheld the state.
Even celebrities with quote good politics unquote are still celebrities whose entire position relies on aligning themselves with the state. What does it mean that an actor like Mark Ruffalo could speak out against the oppression of Palestinian people while being the face of a major movie studio that frequently collaborates with the military? Or that someone like Jay Z could bail out protestors while also having financial investment in carceral surveillance technology? Activism in this way only expands the scope of violence facilitated by celebrities.
The desire to see celebrities as the face for social movements stems from the same desire that sits at the core of questions about where the leadership is for liberation movements. It’s a paternalistic approach to social justice that often augments the already present power imbalance. The power that is needed to bring about the liberation of colonized people comes from people bound by their struggle and their shared principle being organized against their oppressors, not a handful of people who have been ordained by their obscene amount of wealth.
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