Feeding the World a Line?: Celebrity Activism and Ethical Consumer Practices From Live Aid to Product Red

Abstract

This article examines the nature and efficacy of three major celebrity-inspired, ethical consumer charity campaigns: the 1984-5 famine relief movement, Live 8 and ―Make Poverty History,‖ and Product Red. Through an analysis of some of the most significant texts, spaces, and figures of each campaign, I establish how organizers capitalized on the ―one-world‖ notion to effectively draw audiences to consume both charity concerts and merchandise; and I identify the economic and psychological beneficiaries of each campaign and their subsequent celebrity driven, ethical consumer spin offs. My analyses allow for a theorization of the ways in which both Africa and charity function within the Western cultural imagination. You can be absolutely sure, on the day you die, somebody is alive in Africa because one day you bought a record or a book or watched a pop concert. And that, at once, is a compliment and a triumph, and on the other hand, it is the ultimate indictment of us all. (Bob Geldof) In the early 1980s, less than ten years after drought had devastated regions throughout the Horn of Africa, millions were once again faced with the prospect of starvation. 1 By the summer of 1983, as a result of civil war, government mismanagement of resources, changes in US and UK foreign aid policy, and environmental degradation, food and water had become scarce commodities in both Ethiopia and The Sudan. 2 1 The Ethiopian famine of 1983-86 was the worst in recorded history according to the findings published in Stanley Siegel, Harvey Gutman, Tania Romashko and Louis Connick‘sThe U.S. Response to the African Famine, 1984-1986: An Analysis of Policy Formation and Program Management (1986: 1). 2 For more information on the complex causes of famine see Freedom House, Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine (1990: 45). For detailed discussions regarding