Save the world with Ben and Matt: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and the importance of film texts to critical discussions of star campaigning

ABSTRACT

By looking at films such as Good Will Hunting and Argo, this paper provides close analysis of the on-screen roles of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, alongside a discussion of their involvement in social and political causes. Existing scholarship about Hollywood campaigning tends to gloss over the importance of films, viewing on-screen roles as secondary to a star’s off-screen activities. Instead, I argue that on-screen roles are directly relevant to any understanding of activist endeavour. Building on ideological critiques of celebrity humanitarianism, the goal is to show how films are crucial in shaping not just the media and institutional traction of Hollywood star campaigners, but also the wider instrumentalities that their campaigning performs. The paper concludes that close analysis of the on-screen roles of individuals like Affleck and Damon can help to reveal just how embedded the phenomenon of star campaigning is within neoliberal capitalism, as well as dominant discourses of race and gender. It can also uncover slippages in this phenomenon, whereby stars are able to mobilise their on-screen image to amplify attacks against the same hegemonic forces.

KEYWORDS:

• Celebrity humanitarianism
• Ben Affleck
• Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI)
• Matt Damon
• Harvey Weinstein

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Entitled ‘Ben Affleck & Matt Damon Take Shots at Each Other’, this video is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZmJPr4jHE (OMAZE 2014).

2. Obviously, designations such as ‘safe’ and ‘apolitical’ ignore the way in which this type of humanitarianism is deeply embedded within the wider power relations of global politics.

3. Reason magazine is published by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think-tank which claims to support ‘the values of individual freedom and choice, limited government, and market-friendly policies’ (https://reason.org/).

4. A version of this video is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WIv7Xk8BjA.

5. In her analysis of the ‘post-democratic’ dimensions of ECI, Budabin (2015, p. 132) provides a valuable critique of the organisation’s claim of building campaigns up from the grassroots, showing how its activities both reinforce and rely upon the power of ‘political and financial elites’.

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Joshua Gulam

Joshua Gulam is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at Liverpool Hope University. He completed his PhD at University of Manchester in January 2017, and has published on topics including the political economy of celebrity activism, lasting screen stardom, and horror cinema.