By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23
Staff Writer
Today, we live in a largely online society with most of our communications nurtured by the blue glares of our smartphone and tablet screens. In this ecosystem, the internet has influenced the way we interact with various forms of activism. A blue profile picture for Sudan, a red #StandwithKashmir Instagram story and a recent surge of black boxes and #BlackLivesMatter posts sum up our solidarities.
We must pause to evaluate how this internet culture often echoes incomplete solidarity and hypocritical actions, and the first target of this scrutiny is celebrities. Many celebrities are performative in their activism, taking up topics as they are “trending” or selectively choosing topics that do not harm their privileged positions. They choose this over actually getting their feet wet and undertaking meaningful actions and dialogues. With the awareness of these public figures’ power and influence, we must call them out when they lack the responsibility to engage in certain discussions.
Indian actress Priyanka Chopra is the embodiment of this selective and privileged activism. In June, Chopra expressed her solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, posting a “Please, I Can’t Breathe” image on Instagram. However, there is a dark side of her activism, or rather, her lack thereof.
For starters, Chopra has been the brand ambassador of skin lightening creams and products that promote and reinforce colorism and its thriving industry in India. She endorsed Ponds lightening cream in 2008 and Garnier lightening cream in 2012. When influential figures like Chopra endorse such products, it sanctions discrimination and prejudice and is the opposite of the “responsibility to end hate” that she posts about. As Bhawna Jaimini noted in a LiveWire article, “Nothing like earning those big bucks from endorsements and still earning those brownie-woke points.”
Additionally, Chopra, who claims to be concerned about systemic oppression and police brutality, solely talks about occurrences in the U.S. What about incidents taking place in India? The anti-Citizenship Amendment Act student protests at the end of 2019 in India were met with state-sanctioned police brutality. During one such incident at Jawaharlal Nehru University, a masked mob entered and attacked, injured and arrested students. These government-backed atrocities have continued in communal riots leading to injuries, deaths and the arrest of activists with no word from Chopra, who was otherwise preoccupied with galas and events and, according to Jamini, “celebrating the amassing of 50 million followers.”
Additionally, the Black Lives Matter movement also sparked a Dalit Lives Matter movement in India protesting the caste order and its systemic oppression against the Dalit community. Chopra was silent.
Despite being an ambassador of UNICEF and a proclaimed feminist, Chopra’s activism remains narrow. An explanation of her performative action versus her actual activism is that Priyanka Chopra’s Black Lives Matter post is simply a move to establish herself as a part of the West, speaking up on social and political movements here, while neglecting those back home. This idea is supported by the fact that her solidarity for BLM was a mere performative post with no active involvement otherwise.
Another reason for shying away from Indian matters could be Chopra’s allegiance with the Modi government. In her privileged position as Modi’s ally (he was even invited to her wedding), Chopra’s activism in India is absent, and she keeps quiet on the bigotry that his government carries out. While she implicitly endorses his atrocities as acceptable, she simultaneously speaks up about the dangers of bigotry, racism and hate in the West. Chopra’s selective activism comes from a privileged position of securing her Modi friendship while at the same time securing her place as an ally in the West.
Chopra is not the only celebrity guilty of selective and hypocritical activism. Many other celebrities speak out about specific topics, but their actions say otherwise. One such example is Chrissy Teigen and husband John Legend. Both have repeatedly spoken about climate change, urging followers to support the environment. Recently, Teigen and Legend took a private jet to get dinner at an exclusive French restaurant 500 miles from their residence, a sign of their elitist actions not bearing congruence with their earlier tweets.
Other celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, have been called out for using private jets and yachts while campaigning for the environment. The Kardashians are notorious for their baseless solidarities. Kylie Jenner took to Instagram in January to talk about donating to wildlife rescues and helping animals, but she was also caught wearing animal fur coats this year. Where is the consistency?
Celebrities, seemingly offering solidarity, need to be rechecked for underlying bigotry and the incomplete activism they endorse and profit from. No matter how much we love a celebrity, we must bring to light their hypocrisies and injustices to meaningful causes and not let their icon status obscure their discrimination and tone-deaf, selective solidarities.