THE CHALLENGE OF CULTURAL ELITES - CELEBRITIES AND SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS

Although celebrities have become a regular fixture in modern social mo vements, there is little explicit theory on why, or on how they may af fect the movements in which they participate. We begin by discussing t he resources celebrities can bring to bear on social protest movements , as well as the risks that celebrity participation entails both for t he movement and for the celebrity. We suggest a notion of political st anding, which sets limits on the sorts of causes in which celebrities will generally participate. In constructing their legitimacy to speak for a movement, celebrities frequently alter the claims of that moveme nt to more consensual kinds of politics. We examine the entry, action, and influence of celebrities in particular movements by looking at tw o recent controversies in which celebrities are deeply involved: The o ngoing efforts to preserve the woods around Walden Pond, and the recen t passage, and subsequent political fallout, of an antigay referendum in Colorado. In the first case, celebrity participation led to a redef ining of movement claims into a non-conflictual inclusive politics tha t skirted important questions. In the second case, the larger claims o f gay rights and liberation were eclipsed by the entry of celebrities into the conflict who universalized the opposition to discrimination. We conclude by discussing the systematic biases that movement use of c elebrities may create, and the need to consider the impact of celebrit ies' peculiar relationships to audiences as they affect political move ments and public life.