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Holding up Half the Sky Global Narratives of Girls at Risk and Celebrity Philanthropy

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Holding up Half the Sky Global Narratives of Girls at Risk and Celebrity Philanthropy Holding Up Half the Sky Global Narratives of Girls at Risk and Celebrity Philanthropy Angharad Valdivia a Abstract: In this article I explore the Half the Sky (HTS) phenomenon, including the documentary shown on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network in 2014. I explore how the girls in whose name the HTS movement exists are repre- sented in relation to Nicholas Kristoff and six celebrity advocates. This analysis foregrounds Global North philanthropy’s discursive use of Global South girls to advance a neoliberal approach that ignores structural forces that account for Global South poverty. The upbeat use of the concept of opportunities interpellates the audience into participating in individualized approaches to rescuing girls. Ulti- mately girls are spoken for while celebrities gain more exposure and therefore increase their brand recognition. Keywords: Global South, Media Studies, neoliberalism, philitainment, representation, white savior b Girls figure prominently as a symbol in global discourses of philanthropy. The use of girls from the Global South lends authority and legitimacy to Western savior neoliberal impulses, in which the logic of philanthropy shifts responsibility for social issues from governments to individuals and corpo- rations through the marketplace, therefore help and intervention are “encouraged through privatization and liberalization” (Shome 2014: 119). Foregrounding charitable activities becomes an essential component of celebrity branding and corporate public relations that seek representation of their actions as cosmopolitan morality and global citizenry. Focusing on the Half the Sky (HTS) phenomenon that culminated in a documentary by Maro Chermayeff (2012) shown on the PBS network in 2014, in this article I examine the agency and representation of six celebrity advocates in relation to the girls in whose name the HTS movement exists. I investigate this deployment of Global North philanthropy in which Global South girls become the discursive vehicle uniting US authors, the philanthropic arms of global corporations, and celebrity journalists and actresses performing the Girlhood Studies 11, no. 3 (Winter 2018): 84-100 © Berghahn Books doi: 10.3167/ghs.2018.110308 ISSN: 1938-8209 (print) 1938-8322 (online) GLOBAL NARRATIVES OF GIRLS AT RISK AND CELEBRITY PHILANTHROPY b role of “transnational caretakers” (Shome 2014: 114). Girls in the HTS doc- umentary simultaneously embody Anita Harris’s (2004) girls-at-risk and her can-do girls who deliver the world from its crisis of poverty using their newly acquired educational skills and economic empowerment. Additionally, the inclusion of US celebrities positions them as savior mothers/advocates of Global South girls. The confluence of girls at risk, philanthropy, entertain- ment, and celebrity culture come together throughout discourses circulated through mainstream media. In Diana and Beyond (2014), Raka Shome explores the ways in which white Western women, especially celebrities, are positioned as global mothers in popular culture, “saving, rescuing, or adopting international children from underprivileged parts of the world, and rearticulating them through familial frameworks that recenter white Western (and especially North Atlantic) het- erosexual kinship logics” (389). Shome focuses on Diana Spencer while Julie Wilson (2012) analyzes Angelina Jolie, shedding light on two highly visible white Western celebrities whose images have been globally articulated to the rescue of underprivileged children from the Global South. Against the back- drop of the market as the place in which to transact problem solving, Wilson notes the gendered aspects of this convergence citizenship, caring, digital culture, and audience labor. Both scholars draw on Jo Littler (2008) who finds that in the process of elevating themselves from the mundane to the sanctified, celebrities benefit the most from their engagement with global philanthropy. Dan Brockington (2014) summarizes this relationship. Celebrity advocacy for international development is … not marked by any sig- nificant beneficial change to awareness of the needs of distant strangers, or devel- opment issues … these are ultimately vehicles for building celebrities’ brands more than they are vehicles for improving public understanding of development. (154) Celebrity global philanthropy itself is part of the elision between entertain- ment and politics enabled by widespread circulation of mediated images, what Thomas Meyer (2002) calls “politainment” (3). Ergin Bulut et al. (2014) propose the enhanced concept of philitainment by which they mean that social action and citizenship cannot be considered outside the param- eters of global capitalism but also that there can be a technical fix for global inequality issues, one that can be solved through an app, digital game, or other forms of techno-consumerism. Scholars of political communication also explore celebrity studies. Mark Wheeler (2012) draws an upbeat con- clusion that celebrity engagement increases democratic participation, but Martin Scott (2014) finds that celebrities are ineffective in mediating distant suffering to Western audiences. Moreover, John Street (2011) notes that 85 a ANGHARAD VALDIVIA when celebrities articulate themselves to political causes they are simultane- ously being used to attract advertising. This latter suggestion links Littler (2008) to Dallas Smythe (1994) who notes that the real commodity in tel- evision is the audience being delivered to advertisers. Likewise, celebrity phi- lanthropists deliver audiences to advertisers via whatever platform it is on which they appear. All scholars explore the dangers of conflating politics and entertainment. HTS provides an opportunity to assess full blown phili- tainment and the implications for global citizenship standing for the celebrity advocates and Global South girls. The convergence of Global South girls, celebrity philanthropy, and glob- ally circulating media is evident in a number of cultural locations. In con- temporary fiction, as Holly Bass (2016) points out, Zadie Smith (2016) braids celebrity philanthropy with the salvation of African girls throughout her novel, Swing Time, thus delivering an indictment of misguided philan- thropy. The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls in South Africa pays for the education of girls through a school infused with neoliberal goals. And Malala Yousafzai, from Afghanistan who rose to global prominence after being shot in the face because of her support for girls’ education, trav- eled to Nigeria in 2014, months before winning the Nobel Peace Prize, to add to the global outcry about the missing girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Saving and educating African girls has become a cause du jour on the global philanthropic stage. HTS Presence HTS draws on the old Chinese folktale1 about a hummingbird confronting an elephant, that represents the collective power of the little people versus larger forces. Mao Zedong gendered the slogan for political purposes, urging Chinese society to treat women as equal workers as well as encouraging women to join the labor force. The expression, “women hold up half the sky” brings gender into the folktale and foregrounds women’s public sphere labor. Unsurprisingly, scholars, politicians, and media figures use this metaphor to bring attention to their work on gender inequality. Predictably, HTS also generates philanthropic impulses. The website for Half the Sky Foundation and the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2008) by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are the two most prominent examples of taking HTS into phili- tainment via Global South girls. First, Jenny and Richard Bowen, a US 86 GLOBAL NARRATIVES OF GIRLS AT RISK AND CELEBRITY PHILANTHROPY b couple, created the Half the Sky foundation in 1998 upon adopting a Chinese baby in 1997 and noticing that orphans lacked human love. They report bringing Maya home as “emotionally shut down. Vacant … but after just one year of nonstop loving attention … a butterfly emerged from the cocoon.” 2 Half the Sky foundation, now called OneSky, claims to help “China to reimagine its approach to child welfare” (n.p.) placing Chinese girl orphans into loving homes rather than just feeding and sheltering them. The website maintains a gender-neutral language although it acknowledges that 95 percent of all healthy abandoned orphans are girls. Chinese girls function as recipients of Western charity, compassion, and wealth. Featured stories reiterate the message of improving the health and happiness of chil- dren as they are, one hopes, eventually placed with a loving family that implicitly resides in the Global North. Half the Sky Foundation lists a pow- erful group of transnational sponsors3 and precedes the Kristof and WuDunn movement.4 Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2008) by Kristof and WuDunn is the second and most prominent major US philanthropic intervention on the HTS bandwagon. The upbeat note of “oppression into opportunity” results in best seller status turned into a multi-media movement. Perhaps its breezy journalistic style with its banner at the bottom of the front cover that loudly and proudly proclaims, “Win- ners of the Pulitzer Prize” helped to promote the book’s great resonance. Per- haps the use of the word opportunity in the title of a book that is full of horrific examples of poverty, child sexual slavery, rape, prostitution, female genital mutilation (FMG), and generalized victimhood
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