Environmental Advocacy and Celebrities
Critically evaluate the growing importance of celebrity advocacy in important global issues such as environmentalism, human rights and anti‐poverty campaigns.
The media often depend upon celebrities and their stories to sell papers or get website traffic. We can receive news anywhere and at any time that suits us. While we need to hear the bad news, we quite often like our news to be entertaining. Some celebrities choose to advocate for important global issues but their involvement may be considered critically. Do they gain from their advocacy? Can their fame be of detriment to the cause? Does the cause really benefit?
· Actors
· models
· film producers
· music artists
· sports stars
· royalty
have all supported environmental causes. We should ask what they are gaining, and whether the cause always benefits.
Actors
Martin Sheen, US star of Apocalypse Now, has been a longtime supporter of Sea Shepherd, founded by Paul Watson in 1977. Greenpeace formed in 1971 out of a group of mostly Quakers who went to sea to protest nuclear testing under the Aleutian Islands. Paul Watson thought the group needed more activism and founded Sea Shepherd which today has, according to them, the world’s largest private navy with eleven ships. Perhaps due to the involvement of media stars, Sea Shepherd is extremely media savvy; they use drones for footage of whales, post videos on YouTube and websites, use social media. MV Martin Sheen is a research vessel used in their campaigns like 2019’s Operation Milagro; against whaling, ocean plastic, illegal fisheries, ghost fishing gear.
Sea Shepherd’s Media Advisory Board includes Brigitte Bardot, Richard Dean Anderson, Pamela Anderson, Daryl Hannah, Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan. This connection enables the actors to externalise publicity. The story is not about their personal life or inside their home. The fans get interesting and positive news without gossip.
Models
An early supporter of Sea Shepherd was French model Brigitte Bardot. She was featured on many covers of Elle, among other magazines, and caused a sensation when she elected to leave the fashion world and live quietly, concentrating on supporting nature causes. She was photographed with baby seals by Sea Shepherd in 1977 to raise awareness of the cruelty of the Canadian seal pup killing. Protests against the powerful fur industry took off during the 1970s with the rise of television.
Brigitte Bardot left her career at its height and sought no publicity for herself. The other celebrities who support causes have an equal opportunity to promote the cause and their own name. If they want to be hired, or better paid, or better publicised, they need to get their name in front of producers and the public.
Film producers
Leonardo DiCaprio made an early name for acting — Romeo and Juliet, Titanic. His eponymous foundation launched in 1998, has supported “nearly 200 projects from 132 different organizations across climate science, marine and land conservation, critical species preservation and indigenous rights,” according to DiCaprio. “The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation has provided more than $100 million in grants to projects both at sea and across all seven continents.” In 2019 this organisation joined two others in creating Earth Alliance. US-born DiCaprio has produced two documentary films about nature and climate change; The 11th Hour (2007), Before The Flood (2016). He acted in The Revenant (2015) which ran out of snow in a Canadian Arctic forest; the filming had to continue in the Argentine Andes, which are treeless at the snowline. An actor’s name attached to a creditable foundation means each gets positive connotations. Some young actors came to grief, but DiCaprio seems to have been extremely wise and well advised. He recently posted on Instagram about combating the fires destroying the Brazilian rainforest, referencing figures from the National Institute for Space Research, Brazil.
Music artists
Another person highlighting these fires is UK music artist Gordon Sumner, or Sting. In 1987 he, his wife Trudi Styler, filmmaker Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and an indigenous Brazilian leader, Raoni, established Rainforest Foundation. In 1990 separate investigations by Rolling Stone and World In Action found that the fund was based in Sting’s London home, it held lavish charitable funding banquets, and confusion existed over lands it wished to demarcate. In 2002–2004 the fund was criticised by Charity Navigator for not spending enough of its income on the ground. Such comment can reflect badly on all involved. Since 2008 the fund has been given a top efficiency rating and supports projects in 12 countries.
Sports stars
Serena Williams became a UNICEF Ambassador in 2011. The US born tennis star has visited a village in Ghana and assisted in providing mosquito nets, Vitamin A drops, vaccinations, health and literacy education. Fighting poverty and inequality helps to protect nature. Sports people retire early, and a brand ambassador for an aid organisation could continue to gain sponsorships for new projects. UNICEF gains visibility every time this lady makes a comment about her advocacy work that gets retweeted or tagged.
Elite people: Royalty.
Elites have always been the subject of news stories, because of the position they were born to or married into, or both. Prince Charles’ land in Cornwall is farmed according to traditional methods with hedge-laying and heirloom varieties. Princess Eugenie, daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, mainly features in fashion pages. So, her decision to support the Sky News Ocean Rescue campaign with its zeitgeist hashtag passonplastic, including the announcement that she and Jack Brooksbank were having a plastic-free wedding at Windsor, gave Eugenie her own identity.
Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, visited the retreating Chiatibo glacier in Pakistan. Kate donned the Chiatibo hat, just as Princess Diana did when she visited. Women’s magazines commented on this hat, the leather outfit and accessories Kate wore. If this is what it takes to get a mention of retreating glaciers and climate change into the pages of Hello! and Harpers Bazaar, and onto the lips of the chattering classes, the royalty are doing their job.
The young royals don’t need money, followers, or attention. But they do have a duty to keep the royal family in the public eye, set example and keep relevant, or another generation might vote the institution into obscurity.
Celebrities advocate for causes daily. One reader may not respect their opinion, or may be cynical about motives. But another reader does at least consider their opinion, or believes that if their motive coincides with the need at hand, the action transcends personalities. Raising global public awareness may be all that is needed to diminish the slaughter of wildlife for fashion, close the hole in the ozone layer, educate girls in poor communities, and reduce ocean plastic contamination. Celebrities are well placed to do the job, because the public have placed them in this position.
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