Masculine interventions and transnational celebrity activism in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti

Abstract

For a time following the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, two male celebrity activists dominated transnational media coverage of the recovery effort. Grammy-award winning musician Wyclef Jean and actor/director Sean Penn both reacted swiftly by travelling to Haiti and garnered praise for their financial and organisational contributions to the relief efforts. The two men also engaged in a brief conflict over who was the more legitimate activist in Haiti. The symbolically powerful feud between the two men produced themes of transformation, travel, time, and competence that relied upon gendered and racialised norms to position one man as a more authentic activist than the other. Through critical analysis, I argue that transnational media created a narrative around Jean and Penn in which masculinity, ethnic and national identity, and celebrity converge to reinforce oppositional male archetypes.