Photograph by Ron Eisenberg / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
Words by Molly Lipson
Fashion Week. The Grammys. The Baftas. The Brits. The Golden Globes. And just yesterday, the Oscars. It’s been an awards-filled few months, and as usual, coverage of the events—of what people wore, who they turned up with, and what they said on the red carpet—has been circulating online.
But other news has also been circulating. The genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Eight million people displaced in Sudan. Millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo forced to flee rebel fighting. Entire communities pushed into poverty because of soaring prices. All the while, polluted air and water continue to kill people in the Global South. Anti-trans and anti-abortion legislation is brazenly being introduced and reinforced in supposedly “developed” nations. And unrelenting police, military, and state violence remains a constant in the lives of marginalized and racialized people.
As celebrities gush over their ball gowns, the vast chasm between the glitzy world of fame and the real world—a world in perpetual crisis—has not gone unnoticed.
In 2022, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was given the floor at the Grammys to implore the West to support his resistance to Russia’s invasion. Momentarily, the international awards show became a rare bastion of political action. Two years on, it has been duly noted that the same grace has not been offered to Palestinians at any single awards ceremony, fashion show, or high-profile event in recent months.
What’s more, very few celebrities have spoken out about Palestine at all. Most of those who have are either Muslim, Black, brown or Latine: Khalid Abdalla, Kehlani, Ramy Youssef, Melissa Barrera, and Indya Moore for example. An Instagram account noting celebrities who have said something about Palestine includes celebrities who have said anything about Palestine. Often, these actions are relatively noncommittal—like signing an open letter or re-sharing a post on social media. Though such actions are better than nothing, they still do not match the scale of impact a celebrity can have considering their power, privilege, and protection.
Alongside the widespread silence on Palestine, other recent incidents have shown just how disconnected with reality celebrities can be. During the press tour for Dune Part Two, both Anya Taylor Joy and Florence Pugh’s outfits sparked outrage over religious appropriation; Taylor Joy wore a dress that resembled an Abaya, while Pugh wore a headscarf. In other news, environmental activists have also called out Taylor Swift’s incessant private jet usage for the disproportionate harm it causes the planet. The conversation has since broadened to scrutinize the travel patterns of the world’s most privileged and how their lifestyles drive climate change—with private jets having become a symbol of excessive wealth and the delusion of self-importance.
Celebrities with financial, social, and material cushioning worry about being canceled despite the protection their fame affords them.
There are some rare examples of celebrities who appear to have understood how their privilege operates, and in turn deflecting attention from themselves whilst acknowledging how their involvement in social justice movements can catalyze an important dialogue. Back in June 2020, actor Cole Sprouse was arrested in Santa Monica at a Black Lives Matter protest. In a statement posted on his Instagram he articulated what his arrest meant, and didn’t mean; how it should be viewed, and how it shouldn’t.
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At the heart of the issue of celebrity inaction is the question of proportionality and responsibility. When delivery drivers went on strike over unjust pay and working conditions on Valentine’s Day, they faced severe backlash and police violence; activists are faced with terrorism charges and years in prison for taking action against Cop City, an ecologically destructive expansion of policing in Atlanta; and many arts, culture, and media workers have been fired or otherwise punished for speaking out about the genocide in Palestine.
Racialized and marginalized people who are directly impacted by system injustices often have the most to lose when standing up against them—and yet they do it anyway. They lead the resistance, and they do so whilst experiencing the very oppression they are fighting. In comparison, celebrities with financial, social, and material cushioning worry about being canceled despite the protection their fame affords them.
Since last night’s Academy Awards, praise has flooded in for celebrities who wore Artists for Ceasefire badges on their designer outfits. But surely, it is time we call out the piecemeal nature of such symbolic action as a response to genocide. More effective were the protestors calling for an end to the bombing of Gaza who blocked the roads outside the venue where the Oscars took place, causing delays of up to an hour for some celebrity arrivals.
In the real world, editors are quitting their jobs over their magazines publishing pro-Israel content; the playwright Victor I. Cares is refusing to take their HIV medication until their company, the New York Theater Workshop, calls for a ceasefire; and academics like Amin Husein and Jairo I Fúnez-Flores continued to speak out in solidarity with Palestine despite facing suspension. Some artists have pulled out of performing at SXSW Festival due to its sponsorship by the U.S. Army and companies involved in weapons manufacturing.
We must demand the same from celebrities. Their action must be bold: quit, strike, boycott. Imagine an Oscars ceremony where no one turned up; a Baftas night where people refused their awards; a multi-million-dollar film set empty because its lead actors declined to film. This is the kind of impact only famous people can have—actions that would make a much more significant statement than wearing a small pin on a lapel.
Imagine an Oscars ceremony where no one turned up; a Baftas night where people refused their awards; a multi-million-dollar film set empty because its lead actors declined to film.
It’s time that we start interrogating fame as a structural privilege in the same way as whiteness or being male. Because fame creates a power dynamic that permits exclusions and special treatment for certain people over others.
Fame—and the wealth and reach that so often accompanies it—is a privilege, even if a famous person also experiences forms of racialization and marginalization. Intersecting identities mean that we all hold intersecting positions in socioeconomic hierarchies. Like race, gender, and class, fame is one such characteristic that defines someone’s position. In the words of Kehlani, which they shared in a now-deleted Instagram post about the genocide in Gaza: “To my peers and people that are in the spaces I’m in, what the f**k is wrong with y’all? You’re being silent for the sake of money and business like that amounts to what the f**k is going on. There’s an insane amount of unchecked privilege on literal f**king display, and it is gut-wrenching. It is disgusting.”
Fame does, of course, also come with its own set of disadvantages. The ruthless invasiveness of fame—paparazzi, tabloids, online trolling, stalking—are the result of a capitalist system where gossip and hate sells. The result for those in the spotlight is often varying mental health problems that have claimed the lives of many. And in this way, the exploitation of fame and famous people belongs to the same problem that gives those people such disproportionate power to begin with.
All of us are responsible for creating and maintaining the structures that uphold the cult of celebrity. We are both on the receiving end of the harm it inflicts—on us as individuals and on us as a society—as well as being partly to blame. It is our buy-in to fame that fuels it: our obsession with celebrities and their lives; purchasing products they promote; and gobbling up articles about who they’re dating, what parties they went to, what drugs they took. We keep industrialized fame not just alive, but alight with the burning flame of power.
Some might think it seems unfair to expect our favorite celebrities to act any differently—even during crisis times. But, in a world in dire need of influential action, it also seems implausible that they aren’t using their platforms, their power, and their reach for good. “There can be no business as usual during genocide,” Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed el-Kurd told Al Jazeera when speaking of a campaign launched earlier this year calling on artists and filmmakers to strike against German institutions over the country’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza. “It’s our moral responsibility.”
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