Wielding the privileged power of choice
Are we expecting celebrities to make our big decisions for us?
Celebrities of all sorts have always been placed on a social pedestal, far enough away that they’re out of arm's reach for most of us. In the last several years, most notably with the introduction of social media, it’s felt as though this reach has shrunk so much that we have celebrities in the palms of our hands. It creates a sense of closeness, a relatability. And if they share their political, social or other beliefs, that can either make us feel closer to them or send a knife down the centre of the image we created of them. While it’s one thing to follow along with your favourite artists’ lives online—and encouraging when they appear to share your moral values—it’s another to put the entire weight of your value system on someone whose job it is to entertain.
Couches are for interviews, not therapy
In an interview for It Ends With Us, a journalist asked Blake Lively and Brandon Sklenar what advice they would give if a fan came up to them with a story of domestic violence (the movie’s theme), asking for advice or help. Lively got a lot of heat for the way she responded to this question, which was somewhat flippant and deflective, especially when considering the serious nature of the question and the movie she was promoting. From a PR perspective, her response could have been more empathetic, less reactive and sarcastic. But my first thought watching this clip for the first time was why is a journalist asking a celebrity actor to give out counseling advice to a hypothetical domestic violence victim? My second thought was why would someone seek solace from an otherwise untouchable celebrity?
It seems as though we have completely forgotten that celebrities, even influencers, are professional actors, performers, and content creators whose job it is to entertain us. They do not have the expertise of someone who holds their character’s job title, social status or experience, broadly speaking. Just because an actor has played the role of an abuse victim, doesn’t mean they can speak to that subject, that pain or trauma. Nor should they. It’s beyond presumptuous to assume that they would even be able to hold a conversation with a fan, who in this case is coming to them with a very traumatic experience.
A stand beyond the stage
We expect celebrities to do more than entertain. And there is a time and place. A perfect example is Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for U.S. President. I’m a longtime Taylor stan and one of the reasons for that is the way she carries herself and the way she responds to big events, whether it’s a political endorsement or a health scare (or worse) of a fan at her show.
In her announcement, she said she’s done the research and she feels Harris is the best candidate. She also encourages fans to do their own research to come to whatever conclusion they believe is in the best interest of the country. The message is very logical, very strategic. Swift, of course, knows the power and influence she holds—but she also takes this responsibility seriously.
In the 24 hours following her endorsement, the U.S. voter registration site saw a massive spike, driving roughly 400,000 people to the site. Swift also reminded her fans that they need to be registered to vote before they can participate in the upcoming election. She didn’t tell anyone who to vote for, rather how she came to her decision—one the internet was wildly anticipating.
Swift’s fanbase is largely young women, a demographic that is historically left-leaning in its politics. This isn’t the first time she’s spoken up about her politics—she also made it clear she was supporting Democratic candidates from her hometown Tennessee riding during the 2018 midterms–hence the internet waiting on the edge of their seats for her to drop her endorsement for the current election.
Looking at social media influencers, one of the things that drove content creator Elyse Myers to abandon her social media channels this past spring, deleting all the uploaded content and going dark for months, was the pressure from people in her comments to take a stand on the war in Gaza. Myers’ work is largely comedy- and feel-good-based. She has spoken out about her own neurodivergence, motherhood and other big (often controversial) subjects, but this instance of the internet almost seemingly needing her to go public about her political beliefs on the war raises the question:
Do people not know how to make decisions for themselves anymore? And are we relying too heavily on the beliefs of content creators and celebrities to help us decide where our beliefs land rather than do our own research and come to our own conclusions.
We’ve lost our self-sufficiency when it comes to informing ourselves and it’s time we stop taking that privilege for granted.
The privilege of power and choice
Acclaimed Irish novelist, Sally Rooney, recently said in a profile for the New York Times that her novelist self and her political and personal selves are separate:
I feel that I have been given a very privileged position in public discourse, particularly in Ireland. I have the power to intervene in public conversations. I still feel disinclined to do it unless I feel that there might be something that I could contribute that I haven’t seen said elsewhere. In cases like that, I don’t want to use the words “moral duty,” but I do feel a bit of an obligation. What’s interesting to me is that you raise the question of whether that invites people to read my work in a personal way. I think, But what does that have to do with anything? I feel like my political work is there and public and I can stand by it and I’m happy to discuss it, and my fiction is the same, and that all feels separate from my personal life, which I never want to talk about and doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with my work. Those feel like separate things to me. Two of them I can talk about, and the third one I can’t or don’t want to.
Understanding the “privileged position” any notable person has in public discourse is essential. As Rooney wages, perhaps it’s not a moral duty, but an obligation, and how that person addresses a public, political situation matters. People are watching. They’re also mimicking because of the weight they have placed on this person’s opinion–to no fault of the celebrity–but it still needs to be considered when crafting responses and choosing what you’re going to take a stance on, when and how.
It was these considerations, I believe, that made Swift’s endorsement of Harris so powerful, so pivotal. But she also didn’t leave the onus on herself–if her audience was trying to hand the responsibility of voter decision-making over to her, she gently put her hands up, pressed their open palms back towards their bodies and said no thank you, that’s your choice. And that choice is a privileged position to be in.