My Wave: Celebrity culture is being exposed during this pandemic

ZIONIST actress, Gal Gadot and a host of other celebrities were met with severe backlash over what many social media users call their tone-deaf cover of John Lennon’s hit, Imagine.

Although the celebrities on the said video montage saw their work as a roll-call for solidarity, the public lashed out and ridiculed Gadot and her famous peers attempt at “uniting” the masses during this pandemic.

A criticism repeatedly made was the people wanting the celebrities to dig deep into their pockets and donate money to frontline workers or other people in need.

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How is a song going to unify us?
I personally struggled to watch the entire video, not because the singing was bad, but because it is my opinion that, based on what it contains, these celebrities don’t take the public nor the coronavirus pandemic seriously.

Did they expect the masses to eat up and praise whatever mediocre efforts they’ve made towards helping people during this pandemic?

I, for one, see this as an opportunity for celebrities and other elites to prove their usefulness and importance to society by helping people in need. Instead, we’re getting cringe-worthy videos of them singing and promoting their work. Ellen DeGeneres was widely criticised after she compared coronavirus confinement to jail. Her telling people to “calm down” and saying “this’ll pass” while exercising in her luxurious mansion did not sit well with social media users worldwide.

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Instead of celebs doing meaningful work, we’re hearing people like Vanessa Huygens making insensitive comments about the pandemic. “We’re all going to die anyway,” isn’t an appropriate thing to say during a pandemic, Ms Hudgens.
We’re also having to endure videos of them clapping for front-line workers from their mansions and posting videos from their indoor pools where they’re telling people to be “brave” (are the “” necessary?) during this tough time.

Celebs need to understand that their fans want to see meaningful contributions from them, not empty gestures.

It’s clear to see that a lot of these celebrities are bored and are struggling to function now that many of their fans don’t have spare attention to give to them. Their performative activism is clear for all to see now. Online web users have repeatedly called out celebrities for their hesitance to redistribute their wealth. Many condemned it.

Although some celebs like Tom Hanks and Idris Elba have tested positive for the coronavirus, the masses have expressed their annoyance over the fact that the most privileged people in our society are being tested for this illness even though they aren’t risk workers (do we know this is a fact? – in SA, you can only get tested if you show symptoms and were in touch with someone who has or may have the virus, regardless of whether you are rich or not.

 Average citizens who are high risk, on the other hand, cannot get tested easily. In South Africa, for example, only persons who display symptoms of the virus qualify to get tested. This is according to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases. It has also been confirmed that we have a serious test kit shortage.

I understand people’s frustration because celebrities are posting their negative results online and seem to expect a collective sigh of relief from us.
This pandemic has exposed the narcissism of many celebrities. In a tweet, Pharell Williams has asked regular people to make donations to help people in need. He shared a link to a GoFundMe page where more than $4 million has been raised to provide healthcare workers with critical supplies. Although he donated to the fund himself, some members of the public responded that his tweet was not appropriate while some are “being laid off and can’t pay our bills,” as expressed by Twitter user @domi_renee.

South African hip-hop artist Cassper Nyovest compared himself to American artists in an attempt to illustrate why he would not be financially able to make a donation towards combating Covid-19. Although he is quick to flaunt his Belntly, he claimed that he does not have “Rihanna money”.

Although celebrity culture won’t completely disintegrate, there are regular people out there who worship the ground these people walk on – hopefully we will see a shift in people’s attitude and hopefully we can all see that attention-seeking elites aren’t more important than our livelihood.

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