Cause & the celebrity effect

Celebrity activism can put the spotlight on flagging causes, but it can also create a culture of lazy opinion-making. The public should seek a more informed view.

The last couple of weeks has seen the media explode with stories centring around one concern: celebrities and social causes. Questions crowd around an incredibly narrow bandwidth: Does the presence of celebrities help or harm a social cause? I fear if this question is not addressed calmly, rationally and quickly, it will swallow the appreciably more important business of social justice.

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First, clearly everyone agrees there is no offence taken when celebrities support causes that are universally accepted as ‘good’, such as, communal harmony or fighting female foeticide. Second, celebrities do a great service when they refocus attention on flagging causes.

In the United States in the early Nineties, after the first few years of inspired activism against HIV, the issue began to slip out of media attention. Celebrity activism helped put the spotlight back on a topic that was as troublesome, if not more, as before.

Third, it makes the most sense for celebrities, once the microphones and cameras are trained on them, to direct media attention towards the persons involved with the real business of working on the ground. No message could be more authentic than theirs. The marriage between celebrities and social causes starts sliding on slippery ground when the cause in question is not a simple, unambiguous one, but either has two sides to it, or is about injustice towards a group of peoples or is heavily political, or, like in the case of the Sardar Sarovar dam, is a potent combination of all three.

But, beyond this, I believe the more pressing need is to focus on the ramifications of celebrity social activism -- the emergence of a culture of lazy opinion-forming. ‘X celebrity has said this is what I should think about the Supreme Court decision on Y issue. I’ve always liked her, so that’s the opinion I’m going to adopt.’

While role-modelling is a mostly innocuous pursuit, issues of critical social significance demand a different mindset from the imitation of a celebrity’s latest fashion in clothes or dance. While it would be unrealistic to expect the reader/listener to seek and receive an exhaustive view of a problem, a broad, all-sided knowledge of the issue can be obtained with a careful look at the newspapers and the internet.

However, accessibility of these media are out of the reach of some and they assume a level of literacy. This is where a celebrity can truly exercise her or his power with great benefits. This is where, when the time comes for a media bite, an opinion need not be expressed but a summary of the facts for and against can be put out. This is where the business of real democracy can start.

I am fully aware that television and, to a certain extent, print journalists, have never shown an inclination for this kind of response, that TRPs love the question, ‘Madam, sankshep mein, what do you think of…?’ But if these very same professionals feel the issue of celebrity-hijacking-of-social-causes is of primetime-worthy gravity, then it should not be unreasonable to expect them to understand and encourage a more responsible role from celebrities.

The third link in what will be a tremendously powerful chain is the general public. The business of real democracy starts and ends with civil society. And democracy does not come easy. We have to be constantly vigilant because the business of power is the direct enemy and the business of power is invariably more fruitful, more seductive in the short-run.

Today, the Right to Information Act has strengthened our hands in ways the nation has yet to understand. Let’s find out how to use it, let’s find out which NGO has already used it to collect information on an issue we need to make an informed opinion on and ask them for it.

At the very least, ask, ask, ask the questions. Because if all we do is rely on the next celebrity’s opinion on an issue where lives are in the balance and then follow that opinion and move on with our lives, then we will have more burnings, and this time it will not just be film posters and petrol-doused effigies.

It will be the sweet-acrid smell of bodies dead from starvation, displacement and broken hearts. Mass pyres lit with paper tapers made from the pages of our Constitution.