Celebrity diplomacy, spectacle and Barack Obama

Abstract

In an era when media culture is at the centre of politics, both in the sense of elections and governing, it is not surprising that celebrity diplomacy is growing in scope and perhaps significance. As celebrities assume more important roles in politics, I would argue that the phenomenon is highly ambiguous and difficult to generalise about or appraise at this point in time. In one of the first attempts to thoroughly examine the phenomenon of celebrity politics, Andrew Cooper's Celebrity diplomacy (2009) sets out a broadly positive appraisal of celebrities' interventions in diplomacy – laying out a critical history that demonstrates a long entwinement of celebrities and political causes, from Audrey Hepburn to Princess Diana and contemporary examples such as Bono and Bob Geldof. While Cooper is generally intrigued by celebrity diplomacy, he also calls attention to its defects – such as the deflection of attention from more serious diplomatic efforts or informed professionals as spokesmen for issues. Cooper also points to the dangers of amateurism and celebrity diplomats blundering or discrediting good causes, as well as the concentration of celebrity diplomacy in the North rather than the South. ¹

Reflecting upon, Barack Obama's election as US President, I want to use Cooper's work as a launch-pad for a brief discussion of how a politician's celebrity can aid in understanding the intersection of celebrity and politics. In so doing, I want to add the concept of media spectacle to Cooper's analysis. That is, when daily cable news, presidential campaigns and major media events are presented in the form of media spectacle it is likely that the media attention and often spectacle produced by celebrity activism will publicise their issues, and make such celebrity diplomats more public and perhaps effective advocates for their causes than normal diplomats. Obama arguably won the presidency because of his effectiveness at mobilising media spectacle, whether on the campaign trail, traditional media publicity or through the internet, such as YouTube videos such as ‘Obama girl’ and ‘Yes we can’, as well as the circulation of Obama's speeches, which were complemented by other videos made by Obama's often young supporters. Clearly, by the end of the long presidential campaign, Obama emerged as a celebrity of the highest order. ²

Both during the campaign and now in his role as president, Obama has used his super-celebrity status to engage in public diplomacy for his agenda. In part, his phenomenal popularity, after the bitter anger throughout the world at the Bush–Cheney administration, is a positive antidote to rising and dangerous anti-Americanism. In turn, it also provides leverage as a global diplomat to promote his agendas. After Obama's trips to Europe, the United Kingdom, Trinidad, Ghana and other places during his first months as president, it may be the case that Obama is the world's major super global celebrity bar none – a judgement that might explain Obama's highly controversial award of the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009.

Hence I would argue that, in the contemporary era of media spectacle, it helps politicians to be global celebrities to effectively promote national interests or deal with global issues. Cooper notes how Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela have used their superstar celebrity status to promote global issues and engage in celebrity diplomacy after their terms in office. Obama's position suggests that in an era of escalating media spectacle more politicians, including those still active, will use their rock star status and access to the media as an instrument to push through their issues or agendas.

Obama's success in celebrity diplomacy highlights the disjuncture with the Bush/Cheney administration. As I have argued elsewhere, ³ their failed unilateral and highly centralized diplomacy (or anti-diplomacy) shows the need for a broad range of diplomatic efforts to grapple with global problems – ranging from official national and global institutions and diplomats to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to celebrity diplomats. More than ever, I think that there is global awareness of environmental crisis, poverty, global health problems and issues around food and agriculture, water and the eco-system itself, as well as problems concerning political refugees, starvation and localized political problems – problems so enormous that they need multiple efforts, including celebrity diplomacy. The failure of traditional diplomacy, I think, is illustrated dramatically by the failure of the Bush–Cheney Iraq fiasco: a small group of neo-conservatives (Neocons) pushed this policy through with a highly centralised campaign of true believers promoting Iraq as a site of weapons of mass destruction. The Neocons, with the help of Colin Powell (who should have known better), were able to ram the policy that enabled the Bush–Cheney administration to invade and occupy Iraq through the United Nations and the US Congress. At the same time, they excluded views not in line with this small secretive group, including a large number of CIA intelligence experts, State Department diplomats and others who went public with their criticism of how the Iraq disaster was mis-organised and mis-managed from the start.

As noted, Obama's recent world tours and meetings with European, African, Asian and Latin American leaders show how politicians are becoming major celebrities and how celebrity politics is normalised as an important, perhaps key, segment of global and regional politics. For example, Fidel Castro has long been a superstar celebrity politician in Latin America, but also globally, and now Hugo Chavez seems to have aspired to Fidel's model of celebrity politician and has become something of a master of political spectacle. One can argue one way or another about Chavez's politics and tactics, but it is clear that he is a master of media spectacle and celebrity politics. In his trip to the United Nations a couple of years ago, he appeared after George W. Bush and roamed around the stage saying that he detected the smell of sulphur, and perhaps the Devil had just been before them.

You could argue that this is bad politics, protocol and diplomacy, but it is great performance art and gets great media attention, as did the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush – although this cost him some months in prison. Chavez's gesture of giving Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano's book on US imperialism in Latin America and getting a picture of Obama smiling and shaking hands at the Trinidad meeting for leaders of the Americas was a great example of political theatre. The morning after this meeting I noticed on the BBC website that Galeano's ‘Open veins of Latin America: five centuries of the pillage of a continent’ (1997), which was ranked 54,295 on the sales charts of bookseller Amazon.com, had risen to number 2. I recall an earlier incident where Chavez held out a Noam Chomsky book, and in one day it had skyrocketed up the Amazon list – if Obama is the world's superstar celebrity politician, Chavez is the number 1 book promoter.

Finally, as a strong critique of celebrity diplomacy, I would suggest that a major effect that some may deem negative would be that celebrity diplomacy contributes to the culture of celebrity where our idols, our role models and ideals, are constructed by media images and spectacle. I have suggested that this is the case in politics alluding to Obama as global super-celebrity and Cooper's analysis of Bill Clinton as global superstar diplomat. In this world of media spectacle there may be pressure for politicians, as well as celebrity diplomats, to substitute spectacle for substance and engage in symbolic politics rather than the hard work of diplomacy, policy formations and debate, compromise, and then the laborious work of implementation. On the other hand, a politician's celebrity, or celebrity diplomacy of the sort that Cooper has analysed, can help to implement and push through policies that may effectively address difficult problems. Celebrity may therefore be a vital aid to policy implementation and traditional politics and diplomacy in the current media age, with positive effects as well as potentially negative ones. Obviously, celebrity politics is a relatively new phenomenon, and it is still too early to appraise its effects and consequences for contemporary politics.

Notes

1. Although Cooper does provide a good analysis of emerging celebrity diplomats from Africa, Bollywood and other non-western sites in one chapter.

2. For my views on the centrality of media spectacle in contemporary politics and Obama's mastery of media spectacle as a prime cause of his political success, see Kellner 2009.

3. See Kellner 2005.