| brucekluger.com |
USA Today, June 28, 2006 Hear them out Celebrity activists are an easy target: When Hollywood stars stoop down to help the underprivileged, their efforts often appear pious or self-serving. The results, though, tell a different story. By Bruce Kluger Celebrity gossip has gotten to be a drag. While it used to be a kick indulging in the guilty pleasure of showbiz dish—marital infidelities, movie set tantrums, the randomly tossed telephone—nowadays Hollywood headlines seem more suited to page one than Page Six. In the past few months alone, say the papers, Nicole Kidman was appointed goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Naomi Watts and Matt Damon were in Zambia, sounding an alarm about HIV/AIDS, and George Clooney was kicking up sand in Darfur, hoping to shine a spotlight on that war-torn region. Oh, yeah—and Los Angeles cops plucked a protesting Daryl Hannah from a walnut tree. When did everything get so darn serious? The truth is, celebrity activism has been around since Charlie Chaplin first kicked that beach ball-globe as The Great Dictator, and War Bonds saleslady Hedy Lamarr sold kisses for $25,000 each in support of our GIs overseas. But as the news and entertainment industries continue to morph into one another, do-goodism of the rich and famous has become just another front in the culture wars. As a result, the TV, movie and music stars who pipe up on behalf of pet causes often earn more bile than bravos among grumpy pundits. "The problem with the humanitarianism of the entertainers is that it perpetuates a confusion of politics with culture," argues New Republic columnist Leon Wieseltier, who calls Angelina Jolie "the African queen" and deems longtime rabble-rouser Michael Douglas unworthy of discussing international peace. "(This) teaches Americans to live vicariously...in slavish imitation of people luckier than themselves." Then there's the hypocrisy factor. Peter Schweizer, author of the celeb-cause wrist- slapper Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, reports that Barbra Streisand spends $22,000 a year watering her lawn and gardens, while she lectures Americans on the need to cut back on water and gas consumption by hanging out their wash and junking their SUVs. Oh, Babs. On one hand, the critics make a good point. Those more accustomed to signing autographs than to penning policy papers often raise eyebrows, not awareness, as they move from the sound stage to the sound bite. (Bo Derek's vacant-eyed endorsement of President Bush, for example, continues to amuse me.) And even when a star knows of what he preaches, the delivery tends to teeter between the riotously pious and hopelessly hammy. Who can forget Richard Gere's infamous attempt to mind-meld with Chinese leaders over the thorny issue of Tibet from the stage of the Academy Awards? Not exactly a Bono moment. But to write off all celebrity activists as windy, whiny and woefully out of touch is to ignore the unique advantage celebrities have in getting their message out. For starters, entertainment idols are notoriously image-conscious, so when they put their careers on the line for a cause, you've got to figure they're drop-dead serious about their positions. (See the Dixie Chicks as exhibits A through C.) But more important, tarring all stars as know-nothing opportunists unfairly undermines those who rise above garden-variety activism and actually conduct the research required for good advocacy. Take Martin Sheen. Because of the veteran actor's famous outspokenness—not to mention the fact that he played the president on TV—conservatives have practically called for an all-out jihad on the guy, depicting him as the worst thing to happen to America since the invention of the Chia Pet. But why not give Sheen his soapbox, especially considering his street creds? Arrested for protests more than 60 times, he has engaged in the kind of investigative legwork expected of journalists and scholars, not empty-headed leading men. He has stood with impoverished migrant workers, provided hands-on aid to the "scavengers" of the Payatas garbage dump in the Philippines, and continues to speak with authority about the hazards of nuclear waste. If this kind of substantive homework doesn't earn a fellow the right to spout off, what does? Meanwhile, Leno and Letterman can make all the cracks they want about Angelina Jolie, but when the actress sat down last week with CNN's Anderson Cooper for her first post-Baby Shiloh interview, I learned more about child starvation in Namibia than I've ever gotten from the nightly news. For my money, I have come to appreciate what celebrity activism brings, not to the rancorous roundtables but to where it's needed most: the coffers. Last summer, Primetime Live's Diane Sawyer followed Brad Pitt to Africa, where the actor was doing work on behalf of the ONE campaign to fight global AIDS and poverty. Sawyer wanted Pitt to spill about his breakup with Jennifer Aniston, and he agreed—provided the show would devote equal coverage to ONE's battle. While the dashing actor's romantic confessional made headlines—then evaporated—within a single news cycle, the wrenching images of hungry and impoverished African children clearly had a lasting impact. Within two days of the broadcast, ONE had recorded a 560% leap in Web donations and a sevenfold increase in the sponsoring of needy kids. That's activism. What's amusing about all of this is that conservatives are the ones who most often sneer at Hollywood cause-peddlers—and yet they seem to have short memories. After all, 26 years ago this November, didn't they take a particular shine to a movie star-activist themselves? And if I remember correctly, the guy wasn't even that good an actor.
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