Celebrity Activists

I couldn't believe it when my weeks of lobbying paid off and my editor at Life & Style magazine (where I freelance) finally gave me the go-ahead to hop on a train and head to Washington, D.C., on April 30 to cover the Save Darfur Coalition's rally against genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

But while this was to me a journalistic coup of epic proportions, it also offered up a twofold dilemma. First, it was clear my editor only agreed to send me to the rally because of its planned celebrity contingent: George Clooney and Russell Simmons would definitely be there.

But in order to get any coverage of the event into the magazine at all, I needed to prod the various celebrity speakers and attendees into producing "newsworthy" (again, remembering that term is relative in the celebrity magazine context) quotes -- without eclipsing or detracting from the utter seriousness of the purpose at hand. I was absolutely mortified at the prospect of asking the inane, stalker-ish questions so typical of the gossip magazines and quickly erased all thoughts of them from my head.

The second slice of my discomfort had to do with my inherent uncertainty about celebrities taking up humanitarian or political causes. As a rational human being, I know luminaries have brains like everyone else and are certainly capable of embracing a cause passionately. But my skepticism lingered over the issue of efficacy when the other 99 percent of their passion is splashed across "Page 6" or In Touch.

The current climate is obviously ripe for involvement. According to an article in the July 2, 2005, issue of The Economist, the business of aid in the 1990s "endured listless donors and woeful budgets. But now the mood and the money are on an upswing."

Stars themselves have become a big part of this phenomenon -- prolonged human suffering (including but not limited to famine, poverty and that wrought by natural disaster), it seems, is the sexy celebrity cause du jour. According to a 2005 article in Time Europe major issues like the internet, terrorism and the Iraq war don't necessarily "lend themselves to the high wattage celebrities can bring." Moreover, in a day and age of digitized and global media, it probably (hopefully?) becomes a lot harder for high-profile people to turn a blind eye to misery, especially for those who call themselves "role models."

There are even basic training camps for celebrities who want to get involved in something worthwhile but need a hand in understanding the issues. For example, the Creative Coalition brings together artists and celebrities to learn about causes, eventually enabling them to do things like lobby on their behalf in D.C. Similarly, Participate is a group linking up big films (and presumably their stars) with like-minded grassroots organizations. Associations such as these, of course, do wonderful and important things. But the little devil perched on my shoulder is whispering that they also shroud the celebrities involved from the get-go with disingenuousness.

I arrived at the Darfur rally, then, with a secondary purpose: to try and determine what impact, if any, a celebrity could have on an important cause. I moseyed up to Nick Clooney (George wasn't doing any press at all) and asked him how he viewed the confluence of celebrity and humanitarian causes, especially considering the stature of his son. He told me, "We're in a culture of celebrity, and we all know it. It drives me crazy. But George [with his recent fact-finding mission to Chad and Darfur] said 'If you're going to take all these cameras and follow me, follow me here. Let's all find out something for ourselves that might be worthwhile for the whole human condition.'"

Similarly, Joey Cheek, (the Olympic speed skater who donated a total of $40,000 in prize money from his gold and silver medals to refugees in Darfur) told me, "For better or worse, at this point in our society, people look to celebrities. I think it's a bit of a travesty ... but it's the reality we live in. If you have a brief moment of celebrity like I did at the Olympics, I thought it was better to do something useful, raise awareness."