“A Delicious Way to Help Save Lives”: Race, Commodification, and Celebrity in Product (RED)

Abstract

The Product (RED) campaign raises money to fight AIDS in Africa by helping to sell brand-name merchandise to affluent consumers. This paper examines the racialized representations of the (RED) website and the campaign's use of a consumer–celebrity fund-raising model. Through the analytical lens of critical cultural studies, I argue that (RED) commodifies Africans and “African-ness” under a celebratory guise, and reinscribes a narrative of Africa as a “problem child.” The campaign paradoxically trades on the very disparities of global capitalism that propel the AIDS crisis. It is central in (re)producing the human consequences of globalization, shoring up a symbolic and material marketplace marked by extreme poverty and extreme consumption.

Keywords:

• Celebrity
• Post-race
• Philanthropy
• Whiteness
• AIDS

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Crisipin Thurlow, Ralina Joseph, Rebecca Clark, Manoucheka Celeste, Sara Diaz, Jamie Moshin, Christine Harold, and Heather Boyd for their most valuable feedback, editing, and proofreading on drafts of this paper. Also, many thanks to the anonymous reviewers and to Dr. Shiv Ganesh.

Notes

1. I follow Young's (1990, pp. 11–12) discussion of the terms First and Third World. Third World had a positive connotation at its 1955 inception at the Bandung conference of new Asian and African nations. It was proposed on the model of the French Revolution's Third Estate—the people—and it is worth reclaiming this positive sense.

2. Thanks to the anonymous reviewer who reminded me of McClintock's book.

3. Thanks to Christine Harold for a discussion that helped me make this link.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Bell

Katherine Bell is a PhD candidate in the Communication Department at the University of Washington, USA