I went into this week's discussion convinced of the futility of celebrity's choosing a cause and making it their public crusade; however based on the interaction in class I am now less sure. I believed that celebrities were largely amateurs doing professional's work and distracting the public with 'feel good' causes which largely caused us in the mass citizenry to avoid confronting the hard problems because we had already helped with Bono, Bon Jovi, or Ben Affleck. I saw Katherine's point that some more significant celebrities such as the pope, may be able to motivate large populations to do good; however I still questioned the long term impact of those efforts.
I walked away last night with the feeling that I had been missing something all along. I believe now that as was mentioned, with great power comes great responsibility; so then, these people with the access to the media, money and a fan base, should use that to maximize the good of all humans. While these celebrities likely do detract from other 'more significant' causes, or only cause short term spikes in interest; the fact of the matter is they are actually doing some good. And at the end of the day, some good is better than no good. We cannot prove that the people who 'felt good' after helping some actor/singer would have done anything at all if left to their own devices, so then I should be more careful about saying that celebrities are not good for anything in the realm of aid and diplomacy.
I do still have concerns about amateurs doing professional's work. More needs to be done to educate those who latch onto a cause, and we should demand that true experts be given access to decision makers such as Congress if there is a celebrity being invited. We should encourage these celebrities to act as the face of a movement, not the leader of it; they should leave that to people who are trained and experienced in the field.
Tim, I think most of our classmates came to class with the same idea as you but few changed their minds about the good of celebrity diplomacy. It would have been interesting to hear more of your opposing viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point that some good is better than no good. We also need to remember that the media's capture of celebrity diplomacy is by no means comprehensive nor reflective of all the viewers it affects. Maybe Bono's desire to help Africa has inspired youth that like his music to also go out of their way to help Africa. This wouldn't be documented in a video about Bono's AID relief.
I completely agree with you that more needs to be done to educate those engaging in this type of professional work. However, the same can be said about politicians, bad musicians, lazy teachers and abusive priests. Why do we need and expect celebrities to act on a higher moral ground than others? Isn't there a saying that we all have baggage, the trick is finding others with baggage that matches your own.
Oh, and I love the title of your post! Its an interesting question by itself.
DeleteTim,
DeleteYou make some good points in your post. I definitely agree with you that celebrity diplomats have to be more educated before they speak to politicians and law makers. Celebrities do more good when they support an organization instead of leading it.
You make a good point that celebrities do some good, which is better than no good at all. I also agree with you that people who supported an actor/singer might not have done so on their own. I am sure that there are a lot of U2 fans that support ONE or (RED) just because these organizations were founded by Bono. If Bono would not have founded these organizations, these fans probably would not even know about them let alone support them.