In the age of reality TV, it's not just ordinary folk who are getting real. All hail the rise of celebrity activism
American actor George Clooney has recently been doing more work off the screen than on, especially for the One Campaign, an anti-poverty organisation which includes Bono's Data. Recently, he spoke to the United Nations Security Council about the importance of deploying troops to Darfur after the African Union peacekeeping forces pull-out on Sept 30.
'After Sept 30, you won't need the UN,' he told the 15-member Council. 'You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones.' The African Union has since said its troops will stay on in Darfur until the end of the year.
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IMAGINE if U2 lead singer Bono had come to Singapore for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meeting to protest on behalf of his civil society organisation Data (Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa). Data was formed in 2002 by Bono, Bobby Shriver - a scion of the American Kennedy family - and activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop The Debt Campaign. It aims to eradicate poverty and HIV/Aids in Africa.
Whether Bono would have been made to speak his mind inside a tiny protest area or in a cavernous ballroom, his words would definitely have monopolised media coverage and dwarfed all other issues. After all, since 2002, the Irish rock star has been a regular participant at the World Economic Forum (WEF), usually stealing the show from the politicos. Such is the power of celebrity, for better or for worse.
And more of them seem to be speaking up these days.
American actor George Clooney has recently been doing more work off the screen than on, especially for the One Campaign, an anti-poverty organisation which includes Bono's Data. Recently, he spoke to the United Nations Security Council about the importance of deploying troops to Darfur after the African Union peacekeeping forces pull-out on Sept 30.
'After Sept 30, you won't need the UN,' he told the 15-member Council. 'You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones.' The African Union has since said its troops will stay on in Darfur until the end of the year.
As the world becomes smaller and its problems get bigger, celebrities exist in their rarefied stratospheres at their own peril.
Look at Tom Cruise. In August, the actor was dumped by Paramount Studios after a 14-year partnership.
In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Cruise's value because of his controversial - read loopy - public behaviour and views.
In short, celebrities have to get real these days - they have to be seen not as contributing to the world's problems, but actually helping to solve them.
THANKFULLY, a lot of them don't just talk the talk, they also walk the talk.
Bono and Clooney have travelled to Africa countless times, as has American actress Angelina Jolie, who does work for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
Granted, there are others who are mere dilettantes. But so what?
Even Bono started off as one. His involvement began in 1984 when U2 took part in Band Aid and Live Aid, Irish pop star Bob Geldof's Ethiopian famine-relief efforts. Those two iconic events are largely credited with preparing a generation for the Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History movements.
While many of the celebrities eventually moved on, Bono and his wife Alison Stewart decided to spend six weeks working at an orphanage in Wello, Ethiopia.
In an interview with Time magazine, which named him a Person of the Year in December last year, he said: 'You'd wake up in the morning, and mist would be lifting. You'd walk out of your tent, and you'd count bodies of dead and abandoned children.
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Jolie also started slowly. She got acquainted with Cambodia's problems when filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider there in 2001. One thing led to another and, since last year, she has attended the WEF.
She also lobbies humanitarian interests in Washington where she has met congressmen and senators at least 20 times since 2003.
In an interview in Forbes, she said: 'As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball.'
CELEBRITY activism is not particular to the West, although Asian stars tend to be less actively involved with causes, either because they are not interested or because, culturally, they tend to not like drawing attention to themselves.
But there are those who buck the trend. Ten years ago, when HIV was still a subject that many preferred to avoid, Indian actress Shabana Azmi was the first celebrity there to appear in a public information campaign promoting HIV awareness.
The Public Service Announcement in which she hugged a HIV-positive child received the highest viewership rating ever for a television spot.
Azmi, also an advocate for social justice, was a member of the upper house of Parliament in India. She has received a number of accolades, including the Padma Shri in 1988, given to Indian citizens for excellence in their field and distinguished contribution to society.
In Hong Kong, celebrities abound but few are known to be activists.
When they do speak up for a cause, it is usually as a group led by gongfu star Jackie Chan, and usually against media intrusion.
The most recent example was a Chan-led protest in August, following the publication of semi-nude pictures of singer Gillian Chung in a tabloid.
Otherwise, Hong Kong stars generally steer clear of activism, except for one notable instance.
In 1995, disc jockey J.J. Chan, his face ravaged by Aids, appeared in a TV advertisement appealing for greater understanding and community support for people suffering from HIV and Aids.
He was the first Hong Kong and Chinese celebrity to publicly disclose that he had Aids.
Before Geldof's Band Aid, celebrity activism in the West had its most fecund period in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s with the pro-civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements.
Of course, celebrity activism does not always work.
In 1972, British singer John Lennon hatched a plan to stage an anti-war, anti-Republican concert tour in the US to coincide with the presidential election.
It would have been the first concert by an ex-Beatle since the group broke up. But, more significantly, 1972 was the first year 18-year olds were given the right to vote in the US.
Lennon wanted to help persuade young people to register to vote and vote against the war, which meant voting against Richard Nixon.
When the Nixon Administration found out, Republican senator Strom Thurmond suggested in a memo that 'deportation would be a strategic counter-measure'.
The US Immigration and Naturalization Service quickly began deportation proceedings against Lennon, based on his 1968 misdemeanour conviction for cannabis possession in London which, it said, made him ineligible for admission to the US.
He spent the next two years in and out of deportation hearings, the concert tour never got staged, and Nixon won the 1972 election.
But in the end, Watergate ended Nixon's career, the deportation proceedings against Lennon stopped and the singer stayed on in the US, getting his Green Card in 1975.
For better or for worse, no such drama has accompanied celebrity activism this time around.
Rather than confrontation, engagement between politicians and celebrities seems to be the preferred method - a win-win situation which makes the politician look hip and the celebrity look serious.
This, of course, has opened the celebrities up to criticism. Bono, for example, has been derided for colluding with the powers-that-be, thereby legitimising their actions.
But just because they may have superhuman egos doesn't mean they aren't human beings, deep down inside.
As Geldof himself once said in response to critics: 'I am withering in my scorn for the columnists who say, 'It's not going to work'. Even if it doesn't work, what do they propose?
Every night forever watching people on TV dying on our screens?'
Indeed. A politician could not have said it any better.
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