Celebrity-black: the meanings of race and performances of aid celebrity outside the mainstream Hollywood/UK circuit

Abstract

This article studies the intersection between race, culture and celebrity in the context of Danish ‘aid celebrities’ by analysing the radicalised ‘celebrity persona’ of the Gambian-Danish A-list actress, singer, director and comedian Hella Joof. The analysis pays particular attention to her performances as Fairtrade Ambassador and as host in an annual aid telethon Danmarks Indsamling. These performances of the ‘aid celebrity’ position are read against the backdrop of the cultural constructions of race and celebrity in the Danish context, and of Joof’s own performative interpellations of these throughout her career. The article posits that a celebrity figure like Joof can be read as occupying a liminal position vis-à-vis Danish relations to ‘Africa’, which comprises a particular celebrity position: ‘celebrity-black’. The analysis shows how the cultural meanings of both celebrity and race were troubled by Joof’s performances during the telethon show, which was split between performing the figure of ‘the African woman’ and Danish ‘cultural insiderness’. The article concludes that unlike the US context where the category of ‘black celebrity’ has been analysed as connecting to a particular social group, the Danish cultural context and the cultural imaginaries around race in this context illuminate the fluency of the celebrity sign. Hella Joof is not a black celebrity, she is ‘celebrity-black’ – a cultural insider who can, via her celebrity position, simultaneously embody ‘Danishness as whiteness’ and ‘the African other’.

Keywords:

• aid celebrity
• race
• culture
• Denmark
• liminality

Notes

1. Between the 1600s and 1800s Denmark held a number of smaller areas and trading posts in Asia, Africa and the West Indies. The fort of Tranquebar in India was the most significant of the Asian possessions. On the African continent, Denmark held trading posts in ‘the Gold Coast’ (contemporary Ghana). For an in-depth description of Denmark’s colonial history in Africa, see (Christensen (2002) and Jensen (2005). Most significant of the southern colonies were three islands in the West Indies, where the Danish West Indian trading company held concessions on slave trade and sugar production (Frello 2010). We are not taking into account here Denmark’s northern colonies: Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

2. The metaphor dates back to the early 1900s, depicting peasant-like manners juxtaposed against more sophisticated German manners at the time. Contemporary uses of the idiom connotes to ‘real Danish identity’, with racial undertones. When someone is depicted as ‘pæredansk’ they are ‘all Danish’; implying a rural Danishness, often used in jovial mockery (Ordbog over det danske sprog 2014).

3. The sketch is, for example, featured as one of six on the Lex & Klatten-fan Facebook page, and in PR material for a recent DVD of the show.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lene Bull Christiansen

Lene Bull Christiansen holds a PhD in International Development Studies from Roskilde University, Denmark, where she is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Culture and Identity. Her PhD research dealt with gender in Zimbabwean cultural politics. Her current work deals with development communication, celebrity and nationalism in Denmark. She is a core member of the Research Network on Celebrity and North–South Relations and heads the Research Cluster on Celebrities as New Global Actors at Roskilde University.

Lisa Ann Richey

Lisa Ann Richey is Professor of International Development Studies and Director of the Doctoral School of Society and Globalisation at Roskilde University in Denmark. She also serves as Vice-President of the Global South Caucus of the International Studies Association. She is the author of the books Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (with Stefano Ponte, University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and Population Politics and Development: From the Policies to the Clinics (Fountain Publishers, 2008), the co-editor with Stefano Ponte of the special issue of Third World Quarterly ‘New Actors and Alliances in Development’ (35 (1) 2014), and editor of Celebrity Humanitarianism and North–South Relations: Politics, Place and Power (Routledge, 2015). She works on new actors in international aid, citizenship and body politics, and gender and the Global South. She leads the Research Network on Celebrity and North–South Relations (https://celebnorthsouth.wordpress.com/).