Climate Change and Post-Political Communication: Media, Emotion and Environmental Advocacy by Philip Hammond & Hugh Ortega Breton

Author:Philip Hammond & Hugh Ortega Breton [Hammond, Philip & Breton, Hugh Ortega]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Environmental Policy, Political Science
ISBN: 9781138777507
Google: kpxADwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 26535829
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

4

Climate change and celebrity culture

Several authors have been struck by the ‘celebritisation’ of climate change in the early twenty-first century. Support for global charities is ‘practically part of the contemporary celebrity job description and a hallmark of the established star’ (Littler 2008: 238–9). ‘Being green has become trendy in Hollywood’ (Thrall et al. 2008: 370). The ‘environment – and in particular, climate change – is the new black’ (Goodman forthcoming: 1). Celebrity environmental activism is not a new phenomenon (Brockington 2009: 13; Meyer and Gamson 1995: 181), but many commentators have identified a significant increase in the scope and scale of celebrity environmental campaigning in recent years. It has been suggested that celebrities have become ‘more and more elevated as authoritative and seemingly “authentic” voices’ on the issue (Anderson 2013: 340), and that they have ‘positioned themselves as increasingly powerful and politicised meditators’ of our relationship with the environment (Goodman forthcoming: 1). By 2010 the association between the environment and celebrity culture was already so close that Max Boykoff et al. could wryly suggest that celebrities were starting to supplant polar bears in the public imagination, as ‘the new “charismatic megafauna” for climate awareness, understanding and engagement’ (Boykoff et al. 2010: 2; Boykoff and Goodman 2009: 399).

Other causes have also attracted much celebrity attention in recent years, of course – the other particularly prominent areas of activity being humanitarianism and international development (see, for example, Brockington 2014, Chouliaraki 2013, Kapoor 2013). Indeed, celebrity interest in climate change has to be seen as part of a larger change, sometimes characterised in terms of a coming together of celebrity culture and charity – ‘charitainment’ (Thrall 2008: 377) or ‘celanthropy’ (Rojek 2014) – but also understood in terms of what Philip Drake and Michael Higgins (2006: 87) call ‘the increasingly interwoven nature of celebrity and politics’.1 This chapter focuses on this interweaving of celebrity and politics, as a symptom of the post-political.

In assessments of celebrity activism there is often an implicit assumption that there is still a clearly delineated arena of politics proper, in relation to which celebrity campaigning could operate, for good or ill, effectively or unsuccessfully (Hammond 2009). Yet the sphere of public political activity has also been transformed by its intermingling with celebrity culture. This chapter follows the distinction that John Street (2004: 437–8) makes between two types of ‘celebrity politician’: celebrities who speak out on public and political issues, and politicians who behave like and/or associate with celebrities. In relation to celebrity climate campaigning, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Thompson are discussed below as examples of activist celebrities – people who have used their fame from the world of entertainment as a platform to campaign around the issue of climate change. Here and in the next chapter we also look at celebrity activists – individuals who initially came to prominence through more conventional political/campaigning activity but who have latterly achieved a kind of celebrity status – focusing on the examples of Al Gore and Naomi Klein. Gore has worked extensively

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.