Up Front Apology: I
thought I hit publish on Thursday. I was wrong, whoops!
This past week’s discussion of celebrities on the
international relations stage was intriguing, to say the least. Celebrities have increasingly thrown their
weight, wealth, and popularity behind NGOs, national and international
governments, and global issues. Until
Erica mentioned her decidedly negative experience with celebrities working with
her organization, I never considered these actions to be an issue. After further discussion, critical thinking,
and digging into some celebrity case studies provided in our readings, I think
this may be because organizations and governments have become better at
sweeping the negative experiences under the rug or relegating them to
nonexistent instances. Despite these
negative experiences, I still hold to my belief that celebrities are still
human, most of them, and for that reason cannot be held entirely at fault for
some of the international debacles that may have occurred under their
thumb. Part of the fault also lies with
governments and agencies that back these celebrities without a vetting process
or thinking projects through to completion before implementing; in the Army, we
like to call this phenomenon, an attack of “the good idea fairy”. Everyone has ideas, but they are not all
good.
Part of our discussion included a question of whether or not
celebrities should even be allowed to assist NGOs. I think yes.
Perhaps not in any official capacity; as Erica mentioned, it can very
easily turn into an ugly situation where the celebrity tries to overpower
leadership and take over operations because they think they know what’s best
and bring money and power to the table.
But, certainly, they should be able to serve others by devoting time,
resources, and money to causes they deem worthy; as humans it’s natural to want
to help people, especially in times of crises.
Without this outlet, they will surely only become more self-centered and
the potential for positive change in our world would be greatly
diminished.
All celebrities are not created equal, and we, as NGOs,
governments, and people fighting for global change, need to hold accountable
those who disrupt progress and encourage/guide those who are seeking to do
good. Andrew brought up an excellent
point in class about finding a reliable method for actually holding a
celebrity’s feet to the fire. How do you
ensure that, when a celebrity is chosen as a spokesperson or even ambassador,
that they will not “go rogue”? Unfortunately,
there is no current promising answer.
However, I think the first step may be to choose more carefully and
implement contracts for more specific roles in international relations roles,
and promote more generic service as a way to engage issues they care about. Additionally, the groups and governments they
work for and with need to be less worried about negative repercussions and more
concerned with promoting their causes in a positive and engaging manner.
Courtney,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about the collective responsibility to things running as they should. Not all NGOs are equally effective. Some that are not could possibly be with support. And not all celebrities come in with equal experience or humility/arrogance. Some are respectful and effective in calling attention accurately to the issues. Others, not so much. But, as someone mentioned in class, I would rather see a celebrity trying to do something good in the world than wasting his/or money and fame otherwise. I had mentioned in my Week 13 blog, there are loose agencies in existence to keep some of this in check, but they tend to be localized or limited to like-minded cooperative organizations that probably are not the problem to begin with. Not sure it would work, but I suggested something borrowing off of both the UN NGO-recognition criteria and the WTO structure to streamline self-monitoring and coordination between the organizations world-wide. This could include provision of guidelines for celebrities associated with NGO work.