Celebrity Diplomacy Is a Good Thing

In this post I want to focus on the Heribert Dieter and Rajiv Kumar article from this module, "The Downside of Celebrity Diplomacy: The Neglected Complexity of Development". It is clear that the authors do not think highly of celebrity activism. They claim that celebrities lack the competence and legitimacy to deal with international issues and their actions may do more harm than good on the efforts they focus on. I disagree with this conclusion and think the author's focus in on examples that reaffirm their position rather than look at celebrity advocacy and its impact as a whole.

The primary example the authors focus on is Bono's efforts to help Africa. They claim the singer's efforts to raise aide for Africa could be doing more harm than good. Rather than raising the ability of African's to deal with problems themselves, they are creating a beggar's mentality that will prolong the continent's suffering. They argue that good government is a necessity in order for the "Big Push" of aid to help. I would counter that Bono's job and mission is not to build good government. That is not something an outside actor is responsible for. That is the job of the people of Africa. Bono is merely an advocate and is bringing attention to the plight of the people. He's not claiming to be a diplomat who will solve government disfunction. He's an advocate who is trying to provide aid to the people who are suffering.

In this example, obviously Bono is not qualified to deal with all the complexities of the situation. He's a singer not a diplomat. This fits their conclusion that celebrities lack the competence to deal with major global issues. But what about the plethora of other instances of celebrity activism where the celebrity involved is more than competent enough to make a difference? Consider Emma Watson's involvement in the HeForShe Campaign for example. In addition to being very well educated, she has on-the-ground experience working on these issues and her efforts have helped change the global conversation around gender equality. Another example to consider would be Bill Gates. Through his efforts, the Gates foundation has essentially eradicated Polio. This is no small feat.

In my opinion, Dieter and Kumar exaggerate the negatives of celebrity involvement and assume that all celebrity advocates are trying to solve fundamental problems of governance. This is simply not true. By and large celebrities are just advocating to bring attention to issues and drive conversation that will inspire change. Some will take on larger roles on issues and try to be involved in the solution, but rarely do they do this alone. In these cases, the celebrities usually work alongside actual experts in the field to derive and implement solutions. This article also does not consider the good that celebrities have already done through their activism. Without the involvement of celebrities like Bill Gates, Emma Watson, or Bono - many issues would still be on-going or worse than they were before.

Overall, I was not a fan of this article. If Dieter and Kumar want to make the argument that there negatives to celebrity activism, then they should show evidence of this from more than just one case study. I will concede that it does make one think about the potential side effects of celebrity activism, but in general I think the conclusion is misguided.

Source:
Heribert Dieter and Rajiv Kumar, "The Downside of Celebrity Diplomacy: The Neglected Complexity of Development," Global Governance 14 (2008)