Leonardo DiCaprio: Messenger of Peace or Sender of Mixed Messages?
Source: thestar.com
Hollywood savioursBetween the private jet-setting and the luxury properties, DiCaprio has a bigger carbon footprint than most of the middle class blocks he sees while glancing out the window of a Gulfstream IV.
Leonardo DiCaprio flew to New York this week to save the planet.
The actor addressed world leaders on Tuesday during the Climate Summit at the United Nations. He was introduced to the general assembly as a “Messenger of Peace.”
He certainly looked the part, with a Lennon beard and hair scooped into a bun worthy of Susan B. Anthony.
“We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions and eliminate government subsidies for oil, coal and gas companies,” said DiCaprio, whose message of doom ended in about four minutes, or roughly the same amount of time it would take to watch trailers for The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street.
More cash under his pillow than some developing nations have in their bamboo treasuries. But when he takes a break from conspicuous consumption and shifts into inconspicuous proselytization, there is an obvious double standard at play, one that taints his crusading like a tanker gushing crude into the ocean depths.
Messaging depends on credibility. Much in the way you wouldn’t take investment advice from Bernie Madoff or paint your living room a new shade of crimson based on a hot tip from Stevie Wonder, it’s become impossible to stomach DiCaprio’s climate admonitions, however sincere.
This Messenger of Peace has become a Sender of Mixed Messages. And it’s even more of a problem in places where the economy is booming, environmental controls are lax and Hollywood embodies an envied spirit of material excess.
Are aspiring millionaires in India more likely to focus on DiCaprio’s grave warnings about fossil fuels or dream about one day owning a 1.4-acre manse in Palm Springs? Are industrialists in China more likely to clean up greenhouse gases after getting lectured by someone whose idea of mass transit is tooling around the Hollywood Hills in a stretch limo? And what did the young people in Brazil think when DiCaprio and his half-soused entourage arrived for the World Cup on a 490-foot yacht owned by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a politician and businessman in Abu Dhabi who did not earn his estimated $5 billion by selling solar garden lights?
Part of the problem for celebrities like DiCaprio is that corporations have hijacked environmentalism. It’s become a commodity, with a range of market segments to allow the super rich to feel like they are doing super fine.
I mean, if one of you would be kind enough to spot me $150,000, I’d be happy to buy a hybrid BMW i8. If you could chip in another $10,000 per year for family vacations, I promise to visit only eco-resorts in places like the Swiss Alps and Australian Outback. If you can spare only 50 bucks, I’ll switch to fair trade vodka: the quinoa is supposed to be sustainable.
Hollywood’s embrace of charity and advocacy has spiked dramatically over the past decade with some talent agencies now offering “philanthropy branding” services. At the UN alone, the list of celebrity ambassadors now includes Michael Douglas, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, David Beckham, Orlando Bloom, Jackie Chan, Liam Neeson, Annie Lennox, Naomi Watts and many more.
But for every celebrity who appears to be making a difference by directing micro-resources to tangible projects run by experts on the ground — Matt Damon comes to mind — there are others content to hector the cowering masses, hoping they’ll ignore studies that show the richest 5 per cent of the global population creates about half of our carbon emissions.
The inconvenient truth? Al Gore does not sort his recycling by candlelight.
It’s great celebrities want to make the world a better place. But someone like DiCaprio should first realize that such a place includes his world.
Source: thestar.com
