Can Postcolonialism and Neoliberalism reveal all?

Understanding Celebrity Humanitarianism through a Case Study on Rihanna and Fenty Beauty

Nina Huovinen

Communicaton for Development One-year master 15 Credits Fall 2020 Supervisor: Tobias Denskus To my biggest fans - my grandparents. Kiitos for the endless support. Abstract

Celebrity humanitarianism has become a notable field of research within Communication for Development. Largely built around case studies of individual celebrities engaging in the development and humanitarian fields, mostly postcolonial and neoliberal critique has been put forth regarding the effects of such engagements. These critiques at times go to the extent of suggesting that celebrity humanitarians might be doing more harm than good by for example shifting the focus away from underlying structures. As the field of study often provides more critique than constructive suggestions, this study is built as a deductive case study aiming to test the extent to which current prominent theoretical frameworks are able to understand celebrity humanitarianism when a celebrity humanitarian is studied as a more comprehensive construct. The focus of the case study is the Barbadian singer Rihanna and her cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty. The dominant theories are challenged with including a business aspect of the celebrity’s ‘ecosystem’ and by examining such aspect through a Corporate Social Responsibility lens.

Key words: Celebrity humanitarianism, theory testing, case study, Rihanna, Fenty Beauty, Corporate Social Responsibility Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1 1.1 Relevance of the Study 2 1.2 Aim and Research Questions 3 1.3 Outline of the thesis 5 2. Background 7 3. Literature Review 9 3.1 Celebrity Humanitarianism 10 3.1.1 ‘Distant others’, Power, and Postcolonialism 11 3.1.2 Privatization of Development, Agency of Aid Recipients, and Neoliberal Critique 13 3.2 Communication for Development and Corporate Social Responsibility 15 4. Methodology 19 4.1 Case study 19 4.1.1 Textual and Discourse Analysis 20 4.1.2 Qualitative Document Analysis 21 4.2 Data Collection 21 4.3 Validity, reliability, and generalizability 23 4.4 Limitations and delimitations 24 5. Results 25 5.1 Rihanna the Celebrity Humanitarian 25 5.1.1 Award Acceptance Speeches 25 5.1.2 Interviews 26 5.1.3 Impact Videos 26 5.2 CSR in the Fenty Empire 27 5.2.1 Supply Chain Transparency and Global Impact at Fenty Beauty 27 5.2.2 Social Responsibility Reports by LVMH 27 6. Analysis 28 6.1 Rihanna the Celebrity Humanitarian Unveiled 28 6.1.1 Understanding the discourse of Rihanna the Philanthropist 31 6.2 Corporate Social Responsibility at Fenty Beauty 32 6.3 The Clash of Philanthropy and Business? 33 7. Conclusion 36 Bibliography 39 1. Introduction

Over the course of my Masters studies in Communication for Development, I have developed a keen interest in celebrity humanitarianism and philanthropy, most recently during the spring of 2020. In particular, I found that the vast majority of research portrayed celebrity philanthropy in an overwhelmingly negative light (i.e. Brockington 2014 a & b, 2016, Kapoor 2013). Despite the varying levels of wealth and power often held by celebrities, very few scholars acknowledged any positive effects or potential in celebrity philanthropy. Therefore, my original motivation can be seen as looking to explore the positive impact celebrity philanthropy can have towards humanitarian activities, and ultimately arguing for a more holistic approach to celebrities. Therefore, this study is built as a deductive case study aiming to test the extent to which current prominent theoretical frameworks are able to understand celebrity humanitarianism when a celebrity philanthropist is analyzed as a more comprehensive construct, in this case including their social and economic impact. Perhaps partially influenced by my exchange studies in Barbados in 2016, I instinctively thought of Rihanna as a prime example of a celebrity who could provide for a more complex case study for this research. Robyn Rihanna Fenty, globally known as Rihanna, was born on the Caribbean island of Barbados on 20 February 1988. She is a world renowned, award-winning singer and Hollywood actress. In addition to her career as a singer and an actress, Rihanna is also a businesswoman and a founder of two charitable foundations. In 2019 she claimed the status of world’s richest female musician, above the likes of Madonna, Céline Dion and Beyoncé (Robehmed 2019, Pagano & Kim 2019). Using her wealth and international fame, Rihanna has also extended her influence into the fields of development and humanitarianism through building partnerships with multiple causes and organizations (i.e. UNICEF, Global Citizen), as well as starting her own non- profit foundations. Additionally, her business brands, carrying different variations of her last name ‘Fenty’, have been widely praised for their inclusiveness and diversity (i.e. Rueckert 2017, Meeda 2020, TFL 2019, BBC 2018, Ritschel 2020). An important note on what sets her apart from most so-called A-list celebrities and global superstars, and what supports this thesis’ case selection, is her distinctive background. While other stars that are the focus of ComDev and celebrity humanitarian studies may have had challenging backgrounds (in their respective frameworks), most of them still originate from what is often referred to as the Global North, whereas Rihanna was born and raised in Barbados, which is generally considered to be part of the Global South (World Population Review

1 2020). While further remarks on Global North-South relations are reserved for later sections of this thesis, the above mentioned factors are presented here in order to demonstrate the rationale behind building this case study around not only Rihanna as a celebrity but around the wider Fenty ‘ecosystem’ that is linked to her. Given these factors and careful considerations, I believe that Rihanna provides an ideal subject for a study on celebrity humanitarianism and philanthropy, and that this study will provide unique insight into an increasingly researched topic in the world of Communication for Development.

1.1 Relevance of the Study

One of the central questions in the field of ComDev is whether someone or something is actually ‘doing good’ or rather just ‘looking good’ (i.e. Wilkins and Enghel 2013, Jones B. 2017, Enghel and Noske-Turner 2018). This central question and its answers frequently lead scholarly discussions towards an overwhelmingly critical perception of celebrity humanitarians, and often initiate a ‘hunt’ for their mistakes. This phenomenon especially appears to be most prominent when it comes to celebrities and their endeavours in ‘doing good’. Studies supporting a positive view on celebrity humanitarianism have long been overshadowed by the immense volume of highly critical accounts (i.e. Littler 2008, Kapoor 2013, Brockington 2014a). This criticism of celebrity humanitarianism has shown to display postcolonial, post-democratic and neoliberal biases, as the common portrayal of a celebrity philanthropist in the current body of literature is a wealthy, American, white superstar who has been lifted in their position of power through discriminatory structures (i.e. Clarke 2009, Sèbe 2009, Mubanda Rasmussen 2016, Biccum 2007, Chouliaraki 2013, Brockington 2014a, Cosima Budabin 2016, Budabin 2020). Additionally, current research on celebrity humanitarianism is often conducted as either ethnographic case studies or discourse analyses, focusing on a single celebrity at a time and limiting the scope to aspects such as their political effects on a particular cause or location (i.e. Mubanda Rasmussen 2016, Mostafanezhad 2016, Cosima Budabin 2016). Some scholars have extended their focus to address business aspects of celebrity humanitarianism and included analyses of consumerism (Daley 2013) or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Richey and Ponte 2011), while others have investigated the dissemination of private-sector logic and rationalities through humanitarianism in the form of ‘philanthro-capitalism’ (Burns 2019) as well as the ‘financialization’ of development aid (Järvelä and Solitander 2019). While different approaches and foci have been applied to

2 both; studies of celebrities and the interlinkages of development, humanitarianism and business have only been explored to a limited extent. My interpretation of this particular field of study is that discussions regarding world- renowned superstars that do not come from white, privileged America or Europe are heavily underrepresented. Similarly, more diverse, nuanced stories that extend beyond narratives of ‘white savior’ virtue signalling are rarely represented. On the other hand, studies that explore a celebrity as a broader ecosystem, rather than only as a one- dimensional agent, are also frequently underrepresented. Lisa Richey and Stefano Ponte’s (2011) work on Brand Aid and Product RED provides an enlightening in-depth case study and opens the door for ‘hard commerce’ and CSR within development studies. However, while RED was established by a celebrity humanitarian, Bono (Richey and Ponte 2011, p. 1), and provides for an extremely interesting case in the effective humanitarian action, it is still a business-model solely focused on the aid sector and therefore does not fill the gap in analyzing and understanding the ecosystems of individual celebrity humanitarians more holistically.

1.2 Aim and Research Questions

Departing from the gap in ComDev literature that was discussed above and which is further elaborated upon in the literature review, the aim of this study is to increase the understanding about celebrity humanitarians as more complex characters than previously acknowledged. While adopting a somewhat similar methodology as other scholars have, in the form of a case study, and simultaneously acknowledging the efforts previously put forth in bringing a business angle and CSR into ComDev, this study demonstrates the importance of unveiling the business angles of individual celebrities in the attempt to gain a more comprehensive understanding of philanthropic celebrities as humanitarian actors. This exploration is reflected against the dominant theoretical approaches in the field in order to test their ability to provide a comprehensive understanding of celebrity humanitarians. While the possibilities for in-depth research investigation into studying philanthropic celebrities like Rihanna are numerous, the previous introduction has shaped the main research question as follows;

3 To what extent can the postcolonial and neoliberal critiques guide us in understanding celebrity humanitarianism?

To reach a coherent answer to the above question, the research needs to be guided by initially addressing less abstract aspects. In order to link Rihanna more firmly to the broader discussion on celebrity humanitarianism, the first sub-question focuses primarily on the discourse regarding her humanitarian actions and publicly declared motivations and values. Subsequently, an aspect of the purpose of this study is to identify a more comprehensive picture of the ecosystem linked to a celebrity humanitarian Rihanna via a business perspective. In addition to the argument that such focus is absent in the wider literature, this area is also the most relevant aspect of Rihanna to analyze given that in her recent years she has profoundly shifted much of her focus from music to her entrepreneurship and brands. The second sub-question of the study looks into one of her most prominent business endeavors; the cosmetics company Fenty Beauty, which has also been hailed for diversity and inclusion (Rueckert 2017, Meeda 2020, TFL 2019) and has a continuous connection with Rihanna’s charitable foundation. Accordingly, in order to answer the main research question, I begin by answering the following sub-questions;

- To what extend do postcolonialism and neoliberalism assist in understanding Rihanna as a celebrity humanitarian? - To what extent does Fenty Beauty fit in the discourse of Rihanna as a celebrity humanitarian, when utilizing a Corporate Social Responsibility analysis?

Building upon this introduction, this study hypothesizes that the existing theoretical approaches towards celebrity philanthropy and humanitarianism are heavily postcolonial and neoliberal in nature, and that there is a clear need for a more holistic and inclusive study of celebrity humanitarianism, as shown in the case of Rihanna and her diverse Fenty ecosystem. Through answering the above questions, I believe that this study will contribute to the fields of ComDev and celebrity studies in a profound and practical manner. After successfully utilizing this research design, the aim of this research is to encourage a greater interest in more multidisciplinary studies, where ComDev researchers and students further examine the interplay of business and development, beyond the

4 ‘clearly’, ‘automatically’ relevant case studies, such as the case of RED [Richey and Ponte 2011). Ultimately, I build an interesting and original contribution to our field, while upholding a rigorous methodological standard. Finally before proceeding to the outline I will add an important disclaimer. While this study’s hypothesis does propose that Rihanna’s unique background provides for a more complex study in celebrity philanthropy, this thesis does not presuppose that this celebrity is better suited to philanthropic work than other celebrity humanitarians, nor does it presume that she conducts philanthropy more ‘correctly’, especially since any widely approved, established ranking criteria does not exist. This study rather provides a critical assessment of the often 'picture perfect’ discourse of Rihanna and highlights the interlinkages between her different roles. Most importantly, the case of Rihanna and Fenty Beauty is utilized for theory testing purposes.

1.3 Outline of the thesis

After having introduced the aim, purpose and research questions of the study, I now proceed to introducing the outline of what follows in the thesis. In order to avoid research that confounds the reader with lists of achievements, affiliations, and brands, it is crucial to provide adequate background information on the subject. Therefore, this thesis begins with a background chapter, which is divided into sections focusing on Rihanna’s history and ongoing efforts in philanthropy, and the ‘ecosystem’ of the Rihanna brand. After the background chapter, this thesis continues with a thorough review of ComDev literature, situating the case more strongly within the field. The literature review also provides a brief exploration on the study of celebrities across different disciplines as a field of its own, and includes a more in-depth understanding of how celebrities, as well as their link to development and philanthropy, have been studied previously. Here a discussion of theoretical critiques towards celebrity humanitarianism is provided. The chapter also links the ComDev field to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and brings in literature from business journals to ensure a well- rounded understanding and use of the concept later on in the thesis. After an overview of previous research, the thesis continues with a methodology chapter. Here, the choice of methods and the process of data collection are thoroughly explained, and the matters of validity and reliability, as well as limitations and delimitations, are addressed. After explaining the methodology, the research findings are introduced in a

5 results chapter, followed by an analysis. The analysis chapter follows the framework provided by the research questions, focusing initially on Rihanna as a celebrity humanitarian, after which it turns to an analysis on the ecosystem of the Rihanna brand and Fenty Beauty, and finally connects the results in discussing how well the dominant theoretical approaches are able to understand celebrity humanitarianism. The study ends with a conclusion, where the main findings and reflections are reviewed and suggestions for future research are provided.

6 2. Background

To increase the readability of the thesis, especially for readers unfamiliar with Rihanna or her Fenty brands, this chapter presents background information that will be beneficial in this regard. Since her debut in 2005, Rihanna has sold over 60 million albums and 215 million digital tracks, which has made her the top-selling digital artist in history (Roc Nation). More importantly for the purposes of this study however, after releasing her latest album in 2016, she has mostly been in the news due to her entrepreneurial and philanthropic efforts. According to website ‘Look to the Stars - The word of celebrity giving’, which collects data on philanthropic efforts of celebrities (cited in i.e. Brockington 2014a, Hood 2016, p. 108), Rihanna has supported 24 charities and contributed to philanthropic causes ranging from HIV/AIDS and domestic abuse to peace-building, slavery and human trafficking (Look to the Stars). She founded her first own organization: the Believe Foundation, in 2006, at the age of eighteen, with the purpose to help terminally ill children (Clara Lionel Foundation). Six years later in 2012, Rihanna launched the Clara Lionel Foundation (from hereafter ‘CLF’), which is still active to this day (Clara Lionel Foundation). In addition to programs with a global focus, the foundation has also provided development aid in Barbados and throughout the Caribbean (ibid.). As part of partnerships with various organizations and initiatives, Rihanna’s philanthropic efforts have taken a variety of different forms. In April 2016, reports emerged that Rihanna had signed a USD 10 million deal with LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, a French luxury good conglomerate, to create her own makeup brand Fenty Beauty, which was set to be launched later that year (Daily Mail 2016, Wolf 2016). Fenty Beauty went on to break cosmetic industry norms with its release of 40 foundation shades in the original launch of the brand. This, among other features of the brand, led to Fenty Beauty being praised for “its inclusivity of ethnic color tones to which the industry had not adequately catered previously” (Conlon 2019, Cochrane 2019 in Alleyne 2020, p.6). By 2018, the makeup line made over USD 500 million in sales and was included in Time magazine’s list of “most genius companies of 2018” (Davies 2019). With the May 2018 release of her global lingerie brand SAVAGE X FENTY, Rihanna expanded the Fenty ‘commercial umbrella’, a term cleverly coined by Alleyne (2020). Throughout 2018, her business endeavors garnered more praise as the product selection and the models used represented a large range of different body types (Nittle 2018). In 2019, Rihanna’s partnership with LVMH expanded when the company announced that the

7 luxury goods conglomerate would launch a new ‘luxury Maison’ (fashion house) with the singer (LVMH 2019).

Image I.

The ‘Fenty Empire. Focus areas for the study are highlighted.

8 3. Literature Review

The field of Communication for Development (ComDev) is strongly associated with development cooperation organizations and projects, and examining their effectiveness, impact, and communications. Many of the driving questions focus on pinpointing global inequalities and the North-South (power) relations (i.e. Richey 2016). The ultimate question of how to conduct effective development communication appears repeatedly throughout the literature, with different foci, and scholars continue to discuss how to do communication for development, and communication about development. I reviewed many researchers who also question who is ‘allowed’ or should be doing communication for development, and found that while not all researchers may ask these questions directly, ultimately they illustrate the end goal of what conducting ComDev research (hopefully) aspires to reach: improving the world through development communication. One notable ComDev scholar, Thomas Tufte (2017), links communication for development to critical thinking and postcolonialism. His work also provides an example of the close connections between theorizing and developing practice in the field as the different roles of media and communication in social change is discussed through practical examples (ibid.). In discussions of development and international aid, some critics have, however, even gone as far as to declare international aid to be ‘beyond repair’ and calling for its elimination (Richey and Ponte 2011, p.89). Often the negative perceptions of this field becomes even more highlighted when adding celebrities into the equation. In regard to research designs and topic selection, the ComDev field provides a plethora of opportunities. While some sub-fields of the discipline maintain a more limited focus, including the studies on celebrity humanitarianism, others have embraced the advantages of a more holistic approach to conducting research. One example of such a broader and more interdisciplinary approach is the political economy of development (Pamment 2014, p. 53). In the process of mapping remaining questions for future political economy of development research, James Pamment (2014, p. 54) pinpoints also the importance of ethical considerations in development studies. He discusses connections between NGO activities and ‘colonialist intervention’ as well as self-interest of corporations and their development support, concluding with encouraging future research to engage more with underlying motivations behind international development (ibid.). Although his focus is more related to development policies (ibid.), I argue that this is an important indication of how new, innovative research approaches that simultaneously consider questions of

9 economics/business, ethics, and development or humanitarianism are needed across the ComDev field of study.

3.1 Celebrity Humanitarianism

The research on celebrities has been diverse and cutting across multiple disciplines. A significant step in the study of celebrities was the establishment of the journal of ‘Celebrity Studies’ in 2010. Celebrities have enticed interest among scholars of cultural studies (Stewart 2020), business (Qamar et al. 2020), retail (Teng et al. 2020), psychology (Goldberg & Flett 2020), political psychology (Elliot 1998), and popular music and society (Olutola 2019), to name a few. Increasingly, it seems that with a literature search of global stars, almost any established ‘household name’ celebrity has elicited academic analysis. This study conceptualizes the term ‘celebrity’ following the guidance of Richey (2016), and Boltanski and Thévenot (1991). They treat the concept as “a state of superiority in a world where opinion is the defining instrument for measuring different orders of “greatness” (Boltanski and Thévenot 1991, pp. 222-30). Richey (2016, p. 9) however, shifts the focus from analyzing celebrities as actors towards a broader understanding of celebrity actions in the scope of North-South relations. When thinking back to the first instances of what could be described as ‘celebrity humanitarianism’, the 1983-1985 Ethiopian famine provides a prime example. Although the establishment of Bob Geldof and Midge Are’s ‘Band Aid’ charity supergroup took place in London at the time, the initiative was not exactly the first of its kind. A concert to benefit the victims of the war in East Pakistan was organized over a decade earlier in 1971 by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison (de Waal 2008). It has, however, been noted that the events ‘inspired’ by the Ethiopian famine can be seen as ‘a watershed with respect to humanitarian action’, as a significant increase in celebrity humanitarianism emerged after Band Aid (Müller 2013). The study of celebrities and politics on the other hand can be seen as dating back to 1940’s Germany, when a sociologist Leo Lowenthal raised critiques of ‘idols of consumption’ (for example actors) replacing ‘idols of production’ (referring to politicians) (Lowenthal 1944, Wheeler 2013, p.1). De Waal (2008, p. 53) argues that while the concept of ‘celebrity humanitarianism’ may not date back longer than a generation, “philanthropists with celebrity standing have been with us for over a century”. Lisa Ann Richey, who has

10 written extensively on the topic, explains that celebrities have increasingly become a topic of study ‘on their own terms’ (2016, p. 5). However, she also argues that the nature of celebrity studies often are “limited to theoretical critique or normative name-calling” and suffer from a lack of “grounded research into what it is that celebrities are doing, the same or differently throughout the world” (Richey 2016, p. iii). Richey’s statements also support the argument that a large majority of studies regarding celebrities and development take an overtly negative stance. The subject of celebrity humanitarianism continues to divide scholars, but rather than a ‘for’ versus ‘against’ divide regarding celebrity engagement in aid, differences arise rather from theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and different aspects by which celebrities are criticized. This chapter aims to organize these critiques thematically, however, as is demonstrated in the following discussion, many are intertwined and difficult to be completely separated.

3.1.1 ‘Distant others’, Power, and Postcolonialism

Continuing with Richey, her point of departure consists of the idea that celebrity humanitarians function as ‘proxy philanthropists’ for the public (2016, p.4). She views the act of celebrity humanitarianism potentially as a “performance between the celebrity as benefactor and the public” (ibid.). In her findings, celebrity humanitarianism is described as a method through which the public can “vicariously participate in the caring activities of our favorite celebrities” without wading into the complexities of international development or functioning of humanitarian work on the field (ibid.). Notions regarding the distance between a ‘savior’ and the recipients of aid is one of the most notable branches of criticism towards celebrity humanitarian action. This critique is recognized also by Richey and Ponte (2011), as they highlight the aspect of ‘helping distant others’. A similar argument is present also in de Waal’s work (2008, p. 44). De Waal’s criticism is largely targeted at the perceived ‘heroism’ of white Hollywood stars; a notion widely highlighted and criticized in- and outside of academia which extends to ‘regular Westerners’ beyond Hollywood (de Waal 2008, Higgins 2018, Mirror 2019, Badshah 2019, Bandyopadhyay 2019). This study uses the term ‘heroism’ nearly interchangeable with ‘saviorism’, which to a large extent has been studied under the concept of ‘white saviorism’. Kathrine Bell (2013, p. 22), who restrains from making overtly

11 critical conclusions about an inherently self-serving nature of celebrity philanthropy, instead argues for thinking about these actions as a ‘double-edged sword’. She does however support the notion that discourses relating to many philanthropic efforts of Hollywood stars (in her study George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, and Madonna) include an “underlying rhetoric of the White Saviour'' (ibid.). One practical example of the interlinkages between academia and the current public discourse of aid (in addition to the popular news items presented above among scholarly articles) is an Instagram account directly dedicated to battling ‘white saviorism’, which currently has over 800 000 followers (@NoWhiteSaviors, 15 January 2020). This growing critique of public aid is also the premise in O’Loughlin’s (2020) extremely interesting case on ‘aid exposé’ documentaries, where he argues that the genre is a significant part of popularizing ongoing debates regarding aid. O’Loughlin also views it as a tool for contesting neoliberal conditions (ibid.). Biccum (2007) places blame for reproducing ‘neoliberal subjectivity’ on celebrity activism, while Müller (2013, p. 470) argues that it has created “a hegemonic culture of humanitarianism in which moral responsibility is based on pity rather than the demand for justice”. Following along these lines, Bergman Rosamond (2020) approaches the discussion from an ethical point of view. She argues that the literature on celebrity humanitarianism has been heavy on cosmopolitanism and communitarian theory, leaving often little space for individual level analysis (ibid.). Littler (2008), in turn, emphasizes the lack of attention paid to the Global South in academia, and argues that the Global South has not been seen as a sphere where celebrities would engage in social processes and existing politics. The Global South has also been ignored as a ‘generator’ of original celebrities that might emerge in the field of humanitarianism as well (ibid.). This is particularly interesting when discussing Rihanna, which I return to later. Littler (2008) generally suspects the genuine impact of celebrity humanitarianism while recognizing the ‘hype’ and PR power it can generate. Hilde Van Den Bulck (2018) puts forth questions regarding the kind of power that celebrity humanitarianism and related efforts hold. Her work is mainly concerned with understanding the functioning of the powers that celebrities (and ‘mediated communications’ about them) hold in defining development, aid, and actors at play (ibid.). She hypothesized that celebrity humanitarians and what they communicate to the public play a crucial role in creating understandings of specific issues, who should be blamed, and what are the ethical and moral considerations required (ibid.). Like many others, Van Den Bulck (2018) also analyzes these questions through a postcolonial lens, being vary of

12 ‘postcolonial power relations’ being enforced and studying the authoritative role of celebrities in humanitarianism. Her research is conducted through a framing analysis where the research takes a look at celebrity philanthropy documentaries (ibid.). A type of framing analysis is also utilized by Hopkins in her 2017 article, where she conducts qualitative research which combines a framing analysis with a critical textual one. Hopkins uses an array of articles from Australian women’s magazines for developing an understanding of how ‘transnational celebrity activism’ is framed (Hopkins 2017).

3.1.2 Privatization of Development, Agency of Aid Recipients, and Neoliberal Critique

In addition to postcolonial considerations, other scholars take on the task of pinpointing issues through a neoliberal critique. One of the aspects often surfacing in discussions of celebrity humanitarianism is privatization of development. One example, that I argue, defines a set of issues regarding privatization of development excellently, comes from Wilkins and Enghel’s (2013, p. 168) description of The Gates Foundation. It provides an opportunity for the writers to link ‘a broader agenda of neoliberalism’ into the discussion, as they argue that as private aid initiatives (such as the Gates Foundation) emphasize ‘individual empowerment’, they are in fact supporting said agenda. The main problem in this for Wilkins and Enghel (ibid.) seems to be that while doing so, social change is reduced to ‘entrepreneurship in a market-based system’ and ‘civic involvement and voice to clicktivism’ (ibid.). When linking celebrity humanitarianism with a wider business perspective, such critiques may provide additional value to the analysis. Enghel’s later work (with Noske-Turner 2018, p.14) expands these findings to consider the tensions between ‘doing good’ and ‘looking good’ in development communication, and argues for further investigation of international development cooperation audiences and reconsideration of methodologies and theoretical frameworks in the emergence of a ‘post- aid system’ and in the broader scope of ‘neoliberal digital capitalism’. In the same collection, Lauren Kogen (2018, p. 119) discusses aspects that are somewhat similar to Van Den Bulck (2018), as she presents arguments for further investigation of how “development efforts are explained to the general public through the media”. Kogen explains that the formulation of attitudes about aid and ways of addressing

13 development are both founded in “how and what the public learns about development” (Kogen 2018, p. 118). Her discourse analysis on UN spokespersons Angelina Jolie and George Clooney’s ‘mass communication efforts’ leads to her argument that “particular stereotypes that place the US and by extension the Global North as the unquestionable ‘heroes’ of development work, and development beneficiaries as the less developed, less capable, and less comprehensible civilisations forever in need of rescuing” are reinforced in the celebrities’ efforts (Kogen 2018, p.119). Connecting to the idea of privatization of aid, Waisbord (2018, p. 171) concludes the collection by arguing that the “looking good’ mindset is not unique to the aid industry”, but instead it is prevalent across “every corner of contemporary societies – branding, packaging, and messaging”. Waisbord’s argument is one that supports the more holistic approach proposed in this thesis. However, this thesis goes further than Waisbord (2018) to hypothesize that there are additional deficiencies in what current prominent theoretical approaches are able to help us understand about celebrity philanthropy. Kapoor (2013) follows a path of discussing neoliberalism in relation to celebrity humanitarianism. According to Kapoor, the concept of celebrity is to blame for promoting and legitimizing global inequality and neoliberal capitalism (ibid.). Kapoor’s concerns regard celebrity brands that gain benefits from their involvement with international development and that shift political landscapes qualify as being ‘post-democratic’ and actively provide managing positions to ‘unaccountable elites’ (ibid.). According to Chouliaraki (2013, p. 187), society has reached a “post-humanitarian” age, which describes solidarity as being “driven by neoliberal logics of consumption and where utilitarianism and doing good for ‘others’ depends on doing well for yourself”. De Waal (2008, p. 55) argued that Western audiences were quick to exchange any empirics (or the lack thereof) of benefits of celebrity aid for ‘a good story’. Chouliaraki (2013) joins the choir of critics by arguing that celebrity communication efforts do not always lead to lasting commitments to the cause. Dan Brockington (2016, pp. 210-211) also provides an extremely concerned account on celebrity humanitarianism, describing it to be “flawed from the start, because it will be unable to propose any foundational change”. He believes in celebrities’ ability to bring public attention to locations where it is needed, but not in their ability to “speak out on important political matters, and particularly not on some of the root structures” (ibid.). While recognizing the need for a constructive critique of celebrity engagement and Brockington’s widely cited contributions to the field, this thesis challenges his approach as too counterproductive in attempting to undermine

14 celebrity humanitarianism altogether. Furthermore, this thesis does however recognize his concerns that celebrity advocacy may “signal a new aspect of elite rule” (Richey 2016, p.6). Finally, Paul Allatson (2015) provides a rare analysis of global stars originating outside of the U.S. or Europe, who critiques the wider field of celebrity philanthropy studies for its limited view on the origins of celebrity philanthropists. His research on Colombian singer Shakira and Puerto Rican Ricky Martin argues against the notion that celebrity philanthropic activities would only originate and function in the Global North and calls for wider perspectives. Another rare example that researches beyond white Hollywood stars, is Sarah Olutola’s analysis on the singer Beyoncé (2019). Olutola (ibid.) examined the politics of Beyoncé’s branding in the so-called ‘Lemonade-era’, and explored further the ideological tensions between the ‘white patriarchal music industry’, and a ‘Eurocentric framework of neoliberal competition’ in which her work and success. In summary, ‘celebrity humanitarians’ have been defined as enforcers of colonial cultural powers, unable to propose any foundational change (Brockington 2016, pp. 210-211), unaccountable elites (Kapoor 2013), ‘celebrity colonialists’ (Van Krieken 2016), ‘white saviors’ (Bell 2013), proxies for Western/Northern audiences, and agents perpetually in need of a ‘distant other’ to help (Richey 2016). As clarified above, the notions of postcolonialism and critiques of neoliberalism are nearly unavoidable in the scholarly discussions regarding celebrity humanitarianism. They are also often complimenting each other and I argue that together they can be seen as a dominating ComDev approach to the topic. As mentioned above, this study will take postcolonial and neoliberal critiques as an overarching approach to celebrity humanitarianism and therefore, does not necessarily make continuous distinctions between the two. The following analysis returns to these concepts presented above in a discussion testing the ability of neoliberal and postcolonial critiques to understand celebrity humanitarians.

3.2 Communication for Development and Corporate Social Responsibility

Another early thought in the writing process of this thesis was to look beyond the popular discourse of Rihanna ‘doing good’ and all the praise that her business endeavors have

15 gained over the recent years. While the original aim was to examine how her public image and the ‘behind the scenes’ realities of Fenty Beauty would align, this too has been developed further to hold a stronger connection to the field of ComDev. Although some may be surprised by the decision to connect a field traditionally connected with management and business to ComDev, as I provide in this section, the connection between the two is already acknowledged by some authors. This link is drawn even to the extent of connecting CSR and celebrities doing good (Richey and Ponte 2011). Arguably one of the most significant works of CSR in ComDev - and more specifically in celebrity humanitarianism - is Lisa Richey and Stefano Ponte’s (2011) investigation into the relationship between the concept of ‘saving the world’ and shopping. They expanded the literature on celebrities and philanthropy to illuminate the more commercial aspects of this topic and, in doing so, illustrated how the “the mechanism of celebrity has become increasingly important in international development, as celebrities are called upon to play ‘expert’ roles, while experts perform as celebrities” (ibid., p. 26). Their case study focuses on Product RED, a (then) new business model launched by U2 singer Bono, which funds AIDS treatment “through the purchasing power of Western consumers” and via collaborations with world leading brands (ibid., p,1). They argue that the ‘genesis’ of RED and philanthropy in general lies within “early Christian charities’ questioning of the ability of market mechanisms to ameliorate human misery caused by unchecked capitalist growth” (ibid., p.55). Ultimately, they contrast the specific case study of RED against different aspects of CSR (ibid., p.121). Richey and Ponte explain their approach to CSR as being “a broad, comprehensive, umbrella term to include aspects such as corporate philanthropy and cause-related marketing” (ibid., p. 127). They also recognize it being a ‘contentious approach’, that some other ComDev scholars do not see in a similar light (ibid.). Additionally, they combine several different aspects of ‘doing good’ in the business world and apply this framework to the case study of RED, acknowledging that only some of those aspects might be manifested in that particular case (ibid.). Two of the main critical takeaways from their review of CSR and development literature are: first, that there continues to be a profound lack of knowledge on “the actual impact of CSR activities in developing countries” and second, that CSR can actually be a distraction from “the root causes of poverty and environmental destruction” (ibid., p.122). The case of RED is shown as an example of CSR based on ‘hard commerce’, which places the ‘core objective of profit maximization’ ahead of concerning with the ‘three P’s

16 (People, Planet, Profits) on an equal basis’ (ibid.). The CSR model, presented here, shifts the focus from simply improving the supply chain to what the authors describe as “solving the problems of ‘distant others’” (ibid., p.124). Despite the ‘contentious’ nature of Richey and Ponte’s decade-old approach, I find it refreshing and a welcome expansion to a field that often contains a heavy focus solely on discourses and policy-impact. One particular concept of relevance to CSR is that of ‘Brand Aid’ which is explained by Cosima Budabin (2020, p.61) as being “a recent practice fronted by celebrity humanitarians”. Continuing with Cosima Budabin’s definition; “the concept is built around three pillars—a branded product, celebrity and a cause”(ibid.). Very briefly summarized, Brand Aid initiatives are “brands that provide aid”(ibid.). She also argues that Brand Aid initiatives work along the lines of cause-related marketing, and while being brands that provide aid, their business model also bring aid to the brands themselves. According to Richey and Ponte (2011, pp. 10-11), this also allows the companies to “fulfill corporate social responsibilities in a more public fashion than simply making donations”. For some reason very few case studies connecting aid, celebrities, and CSR have been developed, while Richey and Ponte’s (2011) groundbreaking work has been cited extensively after its publication. Instead of celebrity focused research combining ComDev and CSR, much of the existing literature has focused on ‘supply-chain humanitarianism’ (Pascucci 2020), tropical deforestation and ‘Brand-Focused activism’ (Dauvergne 2017), cause-related marketing campaigns (Hawkins & Kipp 2015), and relationship of humanitarianism, consumption and philanthropy (Jones, A. 2017). Richey and Ponte (2020) also recently published a case study on Starbucks, in which they analyzed ‘Brand Aid and coffee value chain development interventions’. While I argue that Richey and Ponte’s earlier work (2011) provides a solid foundation for conducting studies that combine celebrities, aid, and CSR, further contributions that follow their methodology are still needed. This gap in the literature can be explained for the following two reasons. Firstly, much of the literature focuses heavily on a single case study, and while it is examined from various perspectives, these studies should be tested and repeated using different examples, especially celebrities of color and with more diverse backgrounds. Secondly, many researchers, including Richey and Ponte (2011), do not fully grasp the integral role of conventional business perspectives (not solely aid-related) in current celebrity brands, as in the case of Rihanna and Fenty Beauty, but instead focus exclusively on celebrity product brands directly linked to aid, such as the Product RED business model.

17 Due to the limited availability of ComDev and CSR literature and in order to enrich the study, literature more directly focused on CSR will now be explored. To begin this exploration, Thacker (2019) provides a clear explanation of the core of CSR: “the relevance and importance of CSR is highly significant today in this capitalist economy, to ensure the sustainability of life and business in the future”. This introductory sentence by Thacker, details the essence of CSR and illustrates how relevant it is to the world of ComDev. While some have struggled with, and argued for, universal definitions of CSR, which have concluded that it indicates “international private business self-regulation”, and have reminded the reader of calls for nationalizing CSR regulation (Sheehy 2014). Others have proceeded towards more practical approaches to CSR by considering consumer perceptions, and offering a more grounded theory of CSR through a qualitative analysis (Öberseder et al. 2012). In doing so, more practical approaches are also present, for example in the work of Liao et al. (2017), who conducted a content analysis regarding CSR communication. Research has also been conducted on comparing CSR reporting and performance between different countries (Thorne et al. 2015). According to Garriga and Melé (2004), different CSR theories present different “dimensions relating to profits, political performance, social demands and ethical values”. In essence, CSR can be used as a highway to companies ‘looking good’. Moving beyond the above literature, I built a more profound and practical understanding of CSR reporting by examining guidelines for writing such reports. While not necessarily adding theoretical depth, checklists of ‘How to Write a Great CSR Report’ brings wider understanding of where the writer of the reports might desire the reader to look - or on the contrary, not pay so much attention. Gutman’s (2013) guidelines made a highly relevant point even in regard to an academic thesis when it illustrated the separation between CSR and philanthropy. The advice was to keep the focus on business practices and workplace conditions rather than on philanthropy, as “corporate social responsibility is more about how a company makes a profit than what it does with its profit” (Gutman 2013). Acknowledging philanthropy’s role in a company’s CSR capacity, CSR reports are more meant to be shining light on how cleanly the profits are made (Gutman 2013). This advice is inherently opposed to the business model of RED as described by Richey and Ponte (2011). However, in the upcoming analysis on CSR material relating to the Fenty empire, concepts highlighted by Richey and Ponte (2011) are given specific focus, given the lack of wider ComDev and CSR-related literature.

18 4. Methodology

During a thorough reading of studies on celebrities and doing good, I encountered a selection of divergent research designs. Although different tools are utilized, a large majority of celebrity studies (in general and in the field of ComDev) as well as CSR analyses are conducted as case studies. The literature review of both; celebrity studies relating to the field of ComDev and scholarship focusing on businesses and CSR, while revealing a wide range of research tools being used, also revealed that a majority maintained a mainly qualitative approach. In analyses of celebrity humanitarians in ComDev, different variations of ethnographic research take precedence. For example, Mostafanezhad and Mubanda Rasmussen’s contributions in Richey’s 2016 book take an ethnographic approach, while Hood (2016) built her research into a case study, utilizing a combination of personal observations and an analysis of articles written about the subject. On the other hand, CSR analyses are often utilizing tools that are able to examine different types of textual sources. As the aim of the thesis is to test the extent to which the current literature is able to understand celebrity humanitarianism, while employing a more holistic approach, it is relevant to build upon the methodologies of previous examples but to also make some unique adjustments. Returning first to the main research question of the study, “to what extent can the postcolonial and neoliberal critiques guide us in understanding celebrity humanitarianism?”, it becomes clear that case studies with a single focus on political effects of celebrity humanitarianism do not suffice. This chapter explains the methodological choices further.

4.1 Case study

This research is constructed as a case study aiming to understand the ‘ecosystem’ of Rihanna in a more comprehensive manner, and challenge the prominent theoretical frameworks utilizing this example. As the world, and the ecosystem of Rihanna, function increasingly in a digital setting, adequate data is readily made available online, while more traditional tools were used in the analysis. Although the design of testing theory with the help of a case study can be perceived with ambivalence, some researchers such as Løkke and Dissing Sørensen (2014) strongly support this approach. Especially since the study of celebrities and celebrity humanitarians is in its adolescence, and consists largely of

19 inductive studies, this paper proposes that there is space for this type of design. In Løkke and Dissing Sørensen’s (2014, p. 73) words; “theory testing using case studies evaluates the explanatory power of theories and their boundaries, thus assessing external validity”. Despite the fact that an independent research goal could be the testing of competing theories, in this case study, the postcolonial and neoliberal critiques are rather tested together as an interlinked ‘representative’ of prominent ideas of celebrity humanitarianism scholarship. The main aim of the case study is to examine how well can these theories understand celebrity humanitarians as holistic, comprehensive entities when a business angle is included.

4.1.1 Textual and Discourse Analysis

The first part of the research is conducted with the help of discourse and textual analyses on a set of video material (sources: I.-VI.). This part of the study aims to understand Rihanna as a celebrity humanitarian. Textual analysis is one of the most widely used methods in social science research and it covers a variety of predominantly qualitative methodologies (Lockyer 2012). As this case study takes on a strongly qualitative approach, the textual analysis is also of qualitative nature focusing on the content of the data. Complementing the textual analysis, features of discourse analysis are brought in, as the contents of the videos will be linked to a wider context provided by news items introduced throughout the thesis. The video material that is analyzed includes speeches and interviews by Rihanna, as well as impact material from her Clara Lionel Foundation. A detailed explanation for which videos are selected, and how they are collected, is provided in the upcoming data collection sub-section. Analysis on videos, particularly the ones that attempt to show the impact of one’s work - such as CLF impact and introductory videos - could easily provide material for a visual analysis with a different focus. Tools of visual analysis could, for example, be utilized in studying visual representations of power relations. Analyzing choices of visual art directory in such videos, could also enrich this study by contributing to the ‘image’ of Rihanna, if the scope of the study would not pose limitations. Another potential method in the study of celebrities is a rhetorical analysis. Such an analysis could be employed, as a ‘persuasive discourse’ may arise in some of the data for this study (Leach 2000). However, as the focus is rather on material where Rihanna discusses her own work, values, and motivations for philanthropy instead of for example direct

20 fundraising content, this thesis proposes that the discourse and textual analyses offer better assistance in complementing the overall research design at hand.

4.1.2 Qualitative Document Analysis

Different forms of qualitative research have been widely used in conducting CSR analyses. Qualitative data was utilized in some of the examples previously mentioned, such as in Öberseder et al. (2012). Two prominent CSR scholars, Garriga and Melé (2004), on the other hand go into explaining the four categories which different approaches to CSR can be divided into. The four categories, which may provide to be relevant in the upcoming analysis are defined as:

“(1) instrumental theories, (corporation is only an instrument for wealth creation), (2) political theories, (power of corporations in society and a responsible use of this power in the political arena); (3) integrative theories, (corporation is focused on the satisfaction of social demands); and (4) ethical theories, (ethical responsibilities of corporations to society).”

Connecting the CSR analysis to the field of ComDev again, researchers Richey and Ponte (2011, p. 127) were reviewed, who previously defined their CSR approach to be ‘broad and comprehensive’. This method provides the most space for attempting to analyze the Fenty empire and its CSR material. When assessing Fenty Beauty, this thesis must also take into consideration the legal framework under which it works, what kind of official requirements do they have to fulfill, and additionally how they might go beyond the minimum requirements or not. Although the selected CSR reports would provide detailed sources for different types of quantitative textual analysis, including coding and calculating words, the second part of this study also follows the previously determined and supported qualitative approach. Therefore, the method used for assessing CSR materials in this study is a qualitative document analysis.

4.2 Data Collection

The specific aspect of the ‘Fenty empire’ that this study focuses on, is one of Rihanna’s prominent business efforts - Fenty Beauty. Despite most of Rihanna’s businesses

21 presumably being driven by a strong message of inclusivity and providing space for all different kinds of bodies (both in products and marketing), Fenty Beauty is still celebrated as the most significant ‘breakthrough’ (to date) with its cosmetics industry standard- shattering release in 2017, that included a foundation in 40 shades (Fetto 2020), which makes it an interesting point of departure. The data for this study is collected in two parts. Firstly, a set of videos is collected for analysis regarding Rihanna’s philanthropic efforts. Using YouTube as a platform, searches with the terms ‘Rihanna philanthropy’ and ‘Rihanna humanitarianism’ were conducted. The search was done with both sets of search terms as they are largely used interchangeably in this study. The search results then required some further filtering to find content that included a) statements directly from Rihanna herself, b) content limited to the past six years (to ensure compatibility with the CSR data set) and c) content that represented speeches, interviews and impact material from charitable projects equally. The final data set ended up including two speeches (acceptance speeches for receiving the Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year award and the NAACP President’s Award for philanthropic efforts), two short interviews discussing philanthropy (Interview with Rihanna at the Savage x Fenty launch 2019 and Interview with Rihanna at the 2019 Diamond Ball), and two impact videos of her humanitarian work ('Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation’ and ‘Malawi Trip 2017’). Second, I collected the social responsibility reports of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods conglomerate under which Fenty Beauty (as well as Rihanna’s fashion line FENTY) operates. In addition to a general ‘Annual report’ and financial reports, LVMH publishes separate reports on ‘Environmental Responsibility’ and ‘Social Responsibility’ on an annual basis (LVMH). Due to the strong focus on social aspects and inclusivity seen in both Rihanna’s philanthropic and business image, it was decided that the data be limited to the ‘Social Responsibility Reports’. The data for this study consists of reports from the years 2016-2019. The report form 2016 represents the responsibility efforts of a company that Rihanna decided to do business with, and the reports from 2017-2019 represent the company that she in one way or the other was involved with and tied to. Additionally, statements on Global Impact and Supply Chain Transparency from the Fenty Beauty website are included for analysis.

22 Image II.

Empirical Data: video materials and CSR material.

4.3 Validity, reliability, and generalizability

With the high level of triangulation of methods and a mixed set of research tools, as well as a very specific data set, it would be challenging to recreate an identical research design to study for example another celebrity. However, the general idea of this research design, namely evaluating one’s image as a philanthropist and the aspects of responsibility in one’s business efforts, could be repeated in the context of many other celebrities. Triangulation, which refers to relating multiple methods and/or different types of data to strengthen the results of the study (Atkinson & Hammersley 2007), was included for that particular reason. The data collection process is laid out here as clearly and systematically as possible. However, despite an initially systematic approach to collecting data, some case specific intelligence had to be included as a purely numeric way of choosing material would not have provided for a coherent data set. Therefore, attempts of reproducing this study on Rihanna or other celebrities would require the same considerations stemming from what the researcher would find relevant and what the results of a Google or YouTube search at a given time would turn out to provide. Utilizing a mix of textual content and discourse analyses, building on publicly available data, this study also avoids challenges regarding

23 anonymity or bias that would arise from the data being specifically created for the purposes of this study (Lockyer 2012).

4.4 Limitations and delimitations

One of the main limitations of this study lies with the aspect of all the data utilized, which represents material that has to some extent been approved by Rihanna and/or her affiliates. Despite the fact that she may not have been directly involved in producing all of the data, it comes from the ‘same side’ with her. Despite being scrutinized through critical analysis, the aim of CSR documents and reports published by the company itself is naturally to present the company’s sustainability efforts in as positive of a light as possible. This same limitation is common in previous academic literature as well, demonstrated for example by Richey (2016, p. 127), as she recounts the reliance on public availability of information. She continues with acknowledging that “CSR activities are diverse, and companies clearly have strong incentives toward selective reporting of their CSR portfolio” (ibid.). The same ‘power relation’ applies to Rihanna’s interviews and not least the fundraising and impact materials published by the Clara Lionel Foundation. When considering delimitations of this study, one must note that the topic of the research is the ecosystem of a person whose name provides over 168 000 000 results in a Google search (4th January 2021), and remains in the hundreds of thousands even with limiting the search to relate to Fenty Beauty or CLF. Subsequently, the data collection process must be limited in such ways to make the research feasible and these choices remain subject to personal bias as the limitations are made by the researcher.

24 5. Results

In this chapter, after employing the methodology on the data set, the relevant findings are presented. After a brief exploration of the results here, they are further discussed and connected to the theoretical framework of the thesis in the following chapter.

5.1 Rihanna the Celebrity Humanitarian

5.1.1 Award Acceptance Speeches

Rihanna’s acceptance speeches at both Harvard University and NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) were widely reported in media (i.e. Mettler 2017, Bailey 2017, Shamsian 2017, Blistein 2017). The NAACP acceptance speech (source II.) was widely acclaimed as ‘powerful’ (Garrand 2020, Elassar 2020, Allaire 2020, Lavin 2020), while the Harvard award acceptance speech (source I.) was reported in a less descriptive manner. Out of all the data analyzed in this study, it was these speeches that reflected on and emphasized her background the most, going beyond the brief recounts of family history present elsewhere. In her Harvard speech (I.), Rihanna gave a humanizing approach to helping and being helped. She stated that: “we’re all just human, and we all just want a chance”. She repeatedly provided examples of how easy it is to ‘be a humanitarian’ and how anyone can help with whatever they might have, challenging the audience to help one person or an organization. She ended her speech with a quote from her late grandmother, whose battle with cancer is the ‘very reason’ behind the Clara Lionel Foundation, saying: “if you got a dollar, there’s plenty to share”. The NAACP speech (II.) emphasized the collective power of the people, as Rihanna declared that the award was not about her individually and how she only plays a very small role in the fight against injustices. She explained how issues of injustice and inequality cannot be disregarded as a ‘women’s problem’, a ‘black people problem’, or a ‘poor people problem’, and called for people of different ethnicities and religions to ‘pull up’ for people of color.

25 5.1.2 Interviews

More than other video data, the two short interviews of Rihanna, one from the 2019 launch of Savage x Fenty and one from the annual benefit for CLF - the Diamond Ball (sources III. & IV.), illustrate a connection between different sections of the Rihanna ‘ecosystem’. In these interview, she speaks of values that are also mentioned in the CLF impact video, and how the same values translate from business to philanthropy and back again. The content of the interview also transitions from speaking about business to speaking about philanthropy effortlessly. She first says: ”inclusion has always been something that has resonated with me in all my brands. Not intentionally, but for the most part subconsciously” (source III.). Soon after she explains the need to be more proactive with catastrophe funding and to meet people’s concerns about “where their money is going” when they donate to charity and how the CLF is making these details clear to supporters. Rihanna spreads a message of inclusiveness by stating that charitable contributions, no matter the amount, are always welcome (ibid.). The interview from the 2019 Diamond Ball (source IV.) highlights Rihanna’s connection to her Barbadian roots, as she expresses her gratitude towards anyone from her home country, in particular Barbados’ first female Prime Minister acknowledging her achievements. Rihanna says that: “there’s nothing more important than saving lives, helping lives and making lives better. That is the most important thing I do in my life.”

5.1.3 Impact Videos

The impact videos representing Rihanna and CLF’s humanitarian work, were not widely reported or commented on in mainstream media, and this finding resulted in the analysis regarding these videos being more strongly conducted as a content rather than discourse analysis. The videos about Rihanna’s trip to Malawi in 2017 and an introductory/impact video of the work conducted by CLF (sources VI. & V. respectively) provide no evidence opposing the general discourse regarding Rihanna as an effective and heartfelt celebrity humanitarian. Rihanna is rather shown as a warm, easily approachable figure, who is connected to her roots, as she hugs a cancer patient in a Barbadian hospital and refers back to her own family’s experiences (V.). In Malawi, more agency and focus is given

26 especially to a Malawian child who speaks about their experiences and education, and to some extent to Malawian officials as well, although in conversations between government and NGO representatives, the focus is divided between Malawians and Rihanna and other aid actors (VI.).

5.2 CSR in the Fenty Empire

5.2.1 Supply Chain Transparency and Global Impact at Fenty Beauty

The Fenty Beauty website only provides brief statements on matters of responsibility, which in itself calls for a level of criticism. Accordingly, the analysis is forced to include considerations on the existence of documents, in addition to analyzing the contents of the ‘documents’. The statement on Supply Chain Transparency (VIII.) clearly states the company’s compliance with the laws of the State of California and, as required by The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010, discloses that all ‘direct product suppliers’ are expected to follow the company’s Supplier’s Code of Conduct. However, the actions of the company are extremely limited and do not extend further from this aforementioned ‘expectation’. On the contrary, the company states that it does not “currently engage in audits of our suppliers in this respect” (ibid.). An audit will only be considered in case of a “significant risk of violating” the Code of Conduct (ibid.). It should also be noted that the Code of Conduct is at the time of writing not publicly available. The Global Impact statement (VII.), seemingly aimed at the general public, declares three very brief steps towards a more environmentally friendly business and rolls the responsibility for further ‘global impact’ over to a partnership with the Clara Lionel Foundation.

5.2.2 Social Responsibility Reports by LVMH

The Social Responsibility Reports from LVMH (source IX.), which as the parent company of Fenty Beauty are considered as representing the latter mentioned, provided interesting findings. They describe the conglomerate’s social responsibility efforts in a ‘little bit of something for everyone’ type of approach. Every year LVMH has had nearly 100 pages of

27 social responsibility efforts to report. However, the actual text found in these reports would require approximately half of the space used, as individualistic awards and charity contributions are introduced amongst pages of beautiful pictures without conferring much additional meaning. The reports do however provide actual data on gender equality, and detail further explanations on efforts to ‘support talented women’. The timeframe from 2016 to 2019 did not show any significant changes in the availability, format, or contents of the reports. Therefore, the time frame rather strengthens the validity of the data, instead of consuming space in the analysis as a variable.

6. Analysis The analysis chapter follows a familiar structure with discussing Rihanna the celebrity humanitarian first, followed by linking Fenty Beauty to the analysis. Thirdly the chapter discusses a potential clash between philanthropy and business and concludes with a theory testing exploration answering the main research question.

6.1 Rihanna the Celebrity Humanitarian Unveiled

The different materials used for the first part of the analysis provided distinctive, but not particularly surprising results. The interviews (III. & IV.) especially highlight the intertwined nature of the Fenty empire, which becomes evident both in the content of the interviews, but also in related reporting. The discourse that is developed consistently identifies strong links between the inseparable roles of Rihanna as artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. The discourse also builds itself upon strong values that originate from her mother’s childhood home. In her speeches, Rihanna also builds upon her personal philosophy that helping others is easy and that anyone can do it. However, not much detail is paid to the agency of the aid recipients, or the core reasons for why aid is needed. This is clearly something that is repeatedly mentioned in scholarly critique, varying from i.e. Boltanski (1999) to Brockington (2016). What is not necessarily addressed directly by Rihanna is that the inherent nature of her decision-making process, on where to shift the audience’s attention and who deserves help, such as suggested by Kogen (2018), could be problematic and fit well into Noske-Turner and Enghel’s (2018) ideas of a ‘post-aid system’ and functioning within a ‘neoliberal digital capitalism’. Alternatively, Rihanna’s identity as a philanthropist resonates with Kapoor’s (2013) idea of aid becoming ‘post-democratic’ when

28 power is shifted to individuals, or ‘unaccountable elites’. This analysis does not, however, show that Rihanna would suffer from an ‘inability’ to speak out about root causes, nor that such would be ‘inherent by nature’ to celebrity humanitarians. Like in the case of Beyoncé by Olutola (2019), the different roles taken upon by Rihanna require careful consideration. Much like the former, Rihanna’s success exists in the same “Eurocentric framework of neoliberal competition”. Being a ‘product’ of the American music industry could have easily placed Rihanna in the Western ‘savior’ category, considering the majority of examples provided in academic literature critiquing celebrity humanitarianism. Additionally, as she visits Malawi or speaks of her philanthropic projects that provide help globally, across country borders and for different causes, it must be stated that she cannot be an ‘authentic’ spokesperson for all of them. Therefore, to some extent, Rihanna is ‘helping distant others’ as defined by Richey and Ponte (2011) and bridges a Western audience to a 'faraway tragedy’, as argued by de Waal (2008). However, Rihanna does originate from the Global South (World Population Review 2020) and her connectedness to the recipients of help becomes especially clear in the Clara Lionel Foundation video (V.). This video begins with Rihanna’s mother describing the humble background her family comes from, followed by Rihanna herself discussing her grandmother’s battle with cancer which inspired her to help fight the disease. Most parts of the video are reflected against a backdrop of views of Barbados and its people, with local kids sharing their educational dreams and the obstacles they face on the island. As the discussion moves to providing help globally, the first example of providing clean water is aimed towards Haiti, which maintains the focus on the Caribbean region. Firstly, as Littler (2008) points out, the Global South is not acknowledged for producing celebrities. This has led to a problematically strong focus on white Hollywood stars. If one would then compare this with an example of a ‘truly local’ celebrity humanitarian, such as Muhammad Yunus (Schwittay 2016), in whose case ‘masterful authentication’ of his work and ‘insider status as a homegrown Bangladeshi development practitioner’ seemed to have greatly benefitted him at the time, some questions can certainly be raised. This thesis does not aim to subtract from the value of development practitioners, as opposed to being an entertainer-turned-philanthropist. But if the authenticity and homegrown-ness were deemed as great benefits for Yunus, it should then apply to Rihanna as well. Additionally, if authenticity, in this sense, is often seen as a prerequisite for doing ‘academia approved’ development or humanitarian work, one could presume that Rihanna and CLF would only meet the standards of acceptance with their efforts that target Barbados. This could be

29 taken a step further by suggesting that her personal experiences with domestic violence somehow justify her support of organizations that address domestic violence during the Covid-19 pandemic, and qualify her advocacy as better than support from some other advocate without personal experiences of domestic violence (Robinson 2015, Young 2020). Kaufman carries this reasoning, suggesting that perhaps only the artists with close family members having passed away from cancer would have been acceptable participants in the ‘Just Stand Up!’ collaboration collecting funds for cancer research (Kaufman 2008). This logic would also increase the validity or acceptability of the parts shown on the CLF video that address support to Barbadians’ cancer treatment and education as opposed to the other parts that discuss providing clean water in Haiti, Cambodia, and Ethiopia. Out of the two impact video examples, the video of Rihanna’s trip to Malawi would resonate slightly more with the dominant scholarly critique discussed previously. It presents a more conventional humanitarian aid story of traveling to help and teach ‘distant others’ in a place that Rihanna holds no special connection with as far as the viewer can be concerned. While representing her own foundation on the trip, the overall structure, as well as her personal actions, for example thanking other participants for letting her be there, can be interpreted as immediately generating a less ‘authentically engaged’ image of her. Thus, many of de Waal’s (2008) and Richey and Ponte’s (2011) arguments become easier to acknowledge. In her recent study of Hollywood stars, Kogen (2018) brought up discourses of ‘heroic’ Global North agents as aid providers and argues that the conversation often turns into one about white saviorism (Bell 2013). This critique in heroism/saviorism certainly is important however, there is a lack of adequate terminology when addressing a celebrity from the Global South whose possible offenses do not relate to whiteness or colonialism. Perhaps the case of Rihanna could open a door for a broader investigation into neoliberal saviorism in general. This example relates to the question above on how celebrities such as Rihanna should be addressed in studies such as this. To a certain extent, Rihanna is a ‘product’ of a Western, colonial-based, capitalist system and therefore comparable to any other Hollywood star. However, her experience building a career in the U.S. does not automatically diminish the research value of her distinctive background. Therefore, the current theoretical concepts do not quite grasp the realities of Rihanna.

30 6.1.1 Understanding the discourse of Rihanna the Philanthropist

After being subjected to examination through a textual content analysis and a discourse analysis, it can be argued that a high level of coherency surrounds Rihanna’s philanthropic persona. She maintains a consistent message throughout the years regarding her personal values, and explains that they are easily translatable between her philanthropic and business activities. The consistency of her messaging through different platforms (formal speech, interview and organizational impact material) brings to mind Brockington’s (2014) fundamental rejection of celebrity humanitarianism as ‘careful PR work’. However, it stands to reason that even thoroughly practiced public messaging over a period of years, while difficult, is not impossible, and this thesis does acknowledge that. Authentic messages too can be well-rehearsed and communicated with the help of ‘careful PR work'. Although Brockington’s views on bringing “highly visible mediagenic people to places which need attention, but then requires them not to speak out on important political matters” (ibid.) could be true in some cases, this thesis proposes that it is not an ‘inherent’ characteristic of celebrity humanitarianism. Brockington’s argument is especially weak in the case of celebrities hailing from the Global South, such as Rihanna, who despite employing development professionals to manage her foundation and naturally having to abide by certain universal standards of diplomacy, she is still assumed to hold a level of authority over how deep into ‘root structures’ or ‘politics that underpin injustice’ her foundation will go. While Rihanna repeatedly expresses a consistent message of ‘every little bit helps’ and emphasizes transparency at CLF, after a closer consideration, this model rather makes her a ‘proxy philanthropist’ for her audience. In addition to employing consistent content throughout all of the analyzed material, the discourse constructed through Rihanna’s words aligns quite closely with everything that has been written about her in the media as well. This could be due to ‘careful PR work’ that media outlets across the globe have joined in on, but it does not automatically make it any less real or relevant. This thesis contends that the vast majority of the ComDev literature on celebrity humanitarianism is strongly skewed away from the higher goals of the field; that is, towards improving communication in development. It can be argued that the purpose behind academia's analysis on existing organizations, persons, and practices is to identify challenges and propose further development that enhances the field. Ultimately, as shown

31 with Brockington (2014 a & b, 2016) and other scholars, it becomes redundant only to recount failed stories or altogether deny the possibility of celebrity humanitarianism ‘doing any good’.

6.2 Corporate Social Responsibility at Fenty Beauty

While the research conducted here does not extend to a further analysis of Fenty Beauty’s customer base, nor does it find any existing comprehensive analysis of it (specific to the company), it does make some remarks regarding it. As the brand carries Rihanna’s last name and uses her images heavily on their online and in-store designs, it can be expected that the majority of the customer base sees it as an extension of herself, and a part of her global Fenty empire. Marketing and customer inclusivity analyses frequently recount her and her social media presence’s significant role in the marketing of Fenty Beauty as well as the power of connecting with fans and customers through social media (Wingard 2019, Brown 2020, Christiansen 2021). These analyses also acknowledge the power of catering to an underserved audience: people of color in the makeup industry (ibid.). The consensus seems to be that Fenty Beauty’s global success is deeply rooted in these aspects, which identifies strongly with its target customer base. While it has been argued that celebrity entrepreneurship, and the process of mobilizing a fan-base into purchasing intentions, is not always as influential and straightforward as expected, Rihanna’s decision to expand her brand to include cosmetics is compatible with her ‘trendsetting style icon’ image, which is beneficial in generating appeal with fans and non-fans alike (Teng et al. 2020). Within her target audience, there are clearly individuals who purchase Fenty Beauty products because of their affection for Rihanna. Secondly, there are individuals for whom the makeup industry has not provided solutions for, namely people of color, and who Rihanna’s Fenty brand has fulfilled a need for. Thirdly, one can presume there are customers who have been influenced by the strong and successful social media presence of the brand without holding significant feelings towards Rihanna or having been affected by the limited selections available previously. Additionally, the global reach of the makeup line enables orders from 140 countries around the world, in addition to being sold at physical retail chains like Sephora stores, in 36 countries. However, it must be noted that despite these inclusionary aspects of the brand, in practice it is only available to people who can and are willing to spend US$ 36 on a foundation (Fenty Beauty 2021).

32 The qualitative document analysis on CSR sources from Fenty Beauty and LVMH allowed me to look for contact points with Richey and Ponte’s (2011) research. While Fenty Beauty’s own offering of data merely pointed out that the company meets minimum requirements and shifts CSR onto collaboration with CLF, the LVMH Social Responsibility Reports provided a more in-depth look (IX.). The contents of the reports pointed towards many internal initiatives and processes that aimed at ensuring greater equality and diversity within the company, while also pointing out many local and global collaborations to do good in the immediate surrounding community, as well as ‘helping the distant others’. The LVMH reports therefore prevented Fenty Beauty from being perceived solely seen as a ‘hard commerce’ entity that only utilizes cause-related marketing with CLF campaigns. These results suggest that the discourse surrounding Rihanna and the Fenty empire is also consistent throughout her entrepreneurial activities. However, these results could have reflected quite differently in another case study, or perhaps even with a deeper look behind the scenes, and for this reason, this thesis argues that this inherently important aspect should no longer be ignored in future studies.

6.3 The Clash of Philanthropy and Business?

Despite understanding the business structure of Fenty Beauty being a part of LVMH and therefore allowing researchers to analyze the Social Responsibility Reports from the conglomerate, the lack of further accounts on responsibility directly from Fenty Beauty is a shortcoming. As was argued previously regarding the consistency of discourse around Rihanna’s philanthropic efforts as strongly driven by values of humanity, there is a certain disparity between the business reality and the ‘hype’. This further strengthens the argument that celebrities as humanitarian actors are not just their persona, but more complicated entities heavily influenced by business, and therefore they should be studied as such also in the field of ComDev. Without more information about how the frequently declared values of inclusiveness and diversity come to life ‘behind the scenes’ at Fenty Beauty, this analysis suggests that the company leans towards a ‘hard commerce’ approach as introduced by Richey and Ponte (2011). With the sale of certain Fenty Beauty products promising 100% of every purchase going to the Clara Lionel Foundation, one can see a confluence with the ‘hard commerce’ model that was present in the case study of RED (ibid.). However, as this finding is

33 Image III.

Options for ‘doing good’ on Fenty Beauty.com connected to other aspects of Fenty Beauty’s business model or CSR efforts, this thesis argues that it shows the limitations of the RED case study, as multiple approaches can be true at once. It must be noted that while connections to the Clara Lionel Foundation are highly visible, the foundation is only supported through limited edition products, usually the 'Killawatt’ highlighter (image III), which might drive the consumer’s choices. The type of dynamic at play between Rihanna the philanthropist and Rihanna the entrepreneur, represented mainly by the Clara Lionel Foundation and Fenty Beauty respectively, is undeniably tight-knit. This symbiotic relationship can surely be applauded for its stability and longevity, in respect to Fenty Beauty’s longevity. Such an implicit cooperation between a business and a charity foundation is much more than most other companies do. However, the aspects of social responsibility are almost completely outsourced from Fenty Beauty to the Clara Lionel Foundation. There is also very little room to argue against what a transformative force Fenty Beauty has been in the cosmetics industry, and how it continues to embrace inclusiveness and diversity in its product range, both of which are recognized to be extremely important factors. Nonetheless, they do not completely compensate for the lack of CSR data from the company. Instead, the positive characteristics of Fenty Beauty perhaps preclude everyone from even doubting that such values would not extend to all aspects of the business, including the supply chain. These characteristics play perfectly into the wider image and discourses of Rihanna as a type of ‘saint’ for diversity. This structure of cooperation further complicates the separation of the different roles of Rihanna and supports one of the central arguments of this thesis, namely that celebrities

34 offer much more than merely their artistry, entrepreneurial assets, or their philanthropic efforts, and that the other aspects require acknowledgement when exploring one of them individually. Rihanna is an excellent case strengthening the image of what could be described as a celebrity ecosystem, such as the Fenty empire. This finding will also allow me to suggest that a lack of CSR knowledge on Rihanna the entrepreneur reflects upon the image of ‘philanthropist Rihanna’, and has the potential of risking the seemingly ‘perfect’ discourse of an inclusive, do-gooder celebrity. Because the ComDev literature that grasps the concept of CSR is very limited, it is difficult to place Rihanna as an ecosystem into the existing theoretical frameworks. However, she does exist as a celebrity humanitarian and entrepreneur, and this case study strongly suggests that further theorizing with a more holistic approach is very much needed in future scholarship. Additionally, this thesis argues that despite Fenty Beauty being branded directly as a form of social entrepreneurship, which may catch ComDev scholars’ attention more easily, in this exploration of the Fenty empire, it has become clear that it is no less relevant to studies of celebrity humanitarianism. Currently, the neoliberal and postcolonial theories are incapable of truly analyzing such entities and limited to suggesting a clash between business and philanthropy.

35 7. Conclusion

It has become evident throughout this study that, in addition to many development and humanitarian aid concepts and practices being contested and complex within academia, the subjects of these studies, such as celebrities as humanitarian actors, are complex by nature. This case study rejects approaches that are too narrow in their criticism and often fail to acknowledge that most empirical cases do not fit within very specific academic molds. The Fenty empire has shown here that despite utilizing a conventional business model, instead of a model specially framed as social entrepreneurship like Product RED, celebrity businesses are a highly intertwined part of each celebrity, whom scholars often adopt the singular persona as their research focus, and it is crucial therefore that these business elements be included in the research. While some concepts posed by the dominant celebrity study scholars remain relevant in the case of Rihanna, this thesis concludes that an all encompassing theory and/or guidelines for celebrity humanitarianism are yet to be discovered. One of my central findings is that many things can be true at once, even in case studies of seemingly very similar celebrities or different events involving the same celebrity. This is demonstrated through the similarities expressed about values driving Rihanna’s philanthropic and business efforts. The undeniability of Fenty Beauty’s inclusiveness and diversity in products and representation does not vanish merely because of lacking information about CSR efforts at the company. However, the public discourse of Fenty Beauty being strongly in line with the positive discourse of Rihanna as a philanthropist, does not remove the disappointment caused by limited availability of CSR material. It also does not remove the possibility of perhaps some of the company functions or parts of the supply chain going against this widely established discourse. The possibility remains until further data would be disclosed and the Rihanna ecosystem, or the Fenty empire, carries that doubt on its shoulders until then. Placing the case of Rihanna as a celebrity humanitarian against a wider academic discussion about the topic, this thesis has maintained what has been written previously ; academics of development-related fields are often overly critical of celebrity contributions to humanitarian work, which hinders them from providing a more universally plausible theory. One can assume that with successful or at least ‘good looking’ humanitarian work celebrities improve their overall brands, which is a matter often heavily criticized by scholars. The case study that has been provided here did not address all the possible criticism towards celebrity humanitarianism, nor did it focus on measuring the impact of

36 Rihanna’s philanthropic efforts. It did however provide enough evidence to support my original argument that this specific branch of ComDev could benefit from broadening its horizon’s from merely critiquing everything celebrities are doing as humanitarian actors and only showing interest in business if branded as social entrepreneurship or otherwise directly aid-related. Most importantly, this thesis has provided here that evidence that multiple notions can be true at once. A celebrity humanitarian can partially belong to a ‘saviors produced by the American entertainment industry’-category while simultaneously being an authentic representative of the Global South and of the ‘distant other’ being helped. Therefore, it can be argued that by critiquing development aid and celebrities engaging in humanitarian activities, most critiques should be addressed on a case by case basis after individual evaluation, rather than a generally negative approach to celebrity humanitarianism altogether - especially when the field continues to require more universally applicable theory or standards for celebrity activism, and theory-testing studies. The research presented here has diversified the use of methodological tools and challenged approaches of some of the most notable scholars on the topic - both; of the neoliberal and postcolonial branches. The importance of this thesis partially lies within the original research design, as it has highlighted the need to understand celebrity humanitarians in a more comprehensive manner and argued for the current inability of dominant theories to do so. A more well-rounded understanding of how the ecosystems of celebrities function should prepare us to construct more up to date critique that recognizes the inseparability of celebrities and different commercial functions. Rihanna possesses some unique features regarding how entangled her business and philanthropic efforts are, which should guide future research not to ignore the complexities of celebrity humanitarians and their respective ‘ecosystems’. Future research would benefit from moving even further in depth with data collection, gaining access to details about supply chains if possible, or perhaps alternatively collaborating with business analysts with alternative methods of conducting CSR analysis. What one can propose as future goals for scholarship regarding celebrity humanitarianism is that case studies and ethnographies should continue, but that the field would benefit from including comparisons between cases to increase the generalizability of the findings. While more in detail ethnographic case studies may provide value especially in discovering new sub-topics that may need closer examination, this cannot be the sole focus and research design of celebrity studies. Studies aiming to measure organizations’ impact should, however, should be made separate or complimentary to the former. After

37 further research into celebrities as humanitarian actors, perhaps the creation of universal standards and best practices, with the help of multifaceted and generalizable theory,would provide more useful insight into the ComDev field, that is, after all, intricately connected to development practice.

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Empirical data:

I.) Rihanna’s Acceptance Speech of the Harvard Humanitarian of the Year, 2017, .

II.) Rihanna’s Acceptance Speech of the NAACP President’s Award for Philanthropic Efforts, 2020, .

III.) Interview with Rihanna at the Savage x Fenty launch, 2019, .

IV.) Interview with Rihanna at the Diamond Ball, 2019,

51 .

V.) Clara Lionel Foundation impact video, 2015, .

VI.) Rihanna’s Malawi Trip 2017, .

VII.) Fenty Beauty A, ‘Global Impact’, .

VIII.) Fenty Beauty B, ‘Supply Chain Transparency’, .

IX.) LVMH Social Responsibility Reports 2016-2019, .

52