Jane Arthurs

Celebrity capital in the political field: Russell Brand’s migration from stand-up comedy to Newsnight

Our case study of charismatic celebrity comedian Russell Brand’s turn to political activism uses Bourdieu’s field theory to understand the process of celebrity migration across social fields. We investigate how Brand’s capital as a celebrity performer, storyteller and self-publicist translated from comedy to politics. To judge how this worked in practice, we analysed the comedic strategies used in his stand-up show Messiah Complex and undertook a conversational analysis of his notorious interview with Jeremy Paxman on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. We argue that Brand was able to secure political legitimacy by creatively constituting himself as an authentic anti-austerity spokesperson for the disenfranchised left in United Kingdom. In order to do so, he repurposed his celebrity capital to political ends and successfully deployed the cultural and social capitals he had developed as a celebrity comedian to secure widespread engagement with his media performances.

Distant Suffering, Proper Distance: Cosmopolitan Ethics in the Film Portrayal of Trafficked Women

This article contributes to a developing body of critical work on the ethical and political issues raised by anti-trafficking films and campaigns through a focus on two films, Lilya 4-ever (Luke Moodysson, Sweden/Denmark 2002) and Sex Traffic (David Yates, UK/Canada 2004), which are about young women trafficked to work in the sex industry in Europe. It evaluates the degree to which these films meet the criteria for ‘proper distance’ that are required for a ‘cosmopolitan’ aesthetics of spectatorship as proposed by Lilie Chouliarki (2006) in which our philanthropic compassion for ‘distant suffering’ is accompanied by a reflexive engagement with political questions about causes and solutions. It also argues for a ‘proper distance’ for film analysis that includes how texts are circulated and interpreted within particular discursive contexts, in this case NGO and government anti-trafficking campaigns in the United Kingdom and Sweden. Finally, a move outside trafficking as a discursive frame draws attention to critical perspectives on the ideological assumptions embedded in these campaigns and to alternative conceptions of our ethical relation to migrant labour that are obscured as a consequence. In line with Rosi Braidotti’s (2006) critique of humanist conceptions of cosmopolitanism, it argues for a ‘nomadic ethics’ that avoids voyeuristic ways of seeing these women as objects of our compassion, and takes into account their point of view, agency and right to mobility rather than imposing our own, more powerful, perspective, however sincerely held.

Hybrid Media Celebrity

This chapter traces Brand’s self-fashioning into a cross-media celebrity and film star and his move from digital television and radio presenting to Hollywood acting, then into political journalism and the creation of his YouTube channel The Trews. It uses this account of Brand’s career trajectory to identify the contradictory elements of his celebrity brand, its differentiation across the hybrid media system and the strongly divided responses it provokes. It identifies how he successfully adapts to new genres and cultural contexts despite periods of crisis such as ‘Sachsgate’ that threaten his public reputation. A close analysis of his notorious interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight leads into an account of how he repurposes his celebrity and skills as a comedian and entertainer to seek influence in the political field.

Stand-up Comedy

This chapter explores how Brand is positioned in the history of British comedy and by the distinctions in taste that structure this cultural field. It identifies his ‘signature practices’ through analyses of his major stand-up performances placing particular emphasis on the way he uses self-reflexive autobiography, language and wit, bodily expression and therapeutic discourses to develop a distinctive style of comedy that crosses class boundaries. It culminates with a detailed analysis of the Messiah Complex show in which he marshals these comedic techniques to create a quasi-shamanic ritual of spiritual and political transformation. Whether his comedy should be condemned as exploitative entertainment or admired as an audacious form of truth-telling divides the judgements made about Brand’s cultural value as a performer, thereby creating an unstable assemblage with diverse effects.