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LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

COMPASSIONATE CONSUMERISM: MASS MOVEMENTS,
YOUTH MARKETS, AND THE EVOLUTION OF AN ETHIC FROM
BAND AID TO IDOL AID

presented by

HELEN LOUISE DAVIS

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

PhD. degree in American Studies

 

 

//«/»

 

Major Professor’s Signature

Adlbus‘i’ 29- : 2008

 

Date

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COMPASSIONATE CONSUMERISM: MASS MOVEMENTS, YOUTH MARKETS,
AND THE EVOLUTION OF AN ETHIC FROM BAND AID TO IDOL AID

By

Helen Louise Davis

A DISSERTATION"

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
American Studies

2008

ABSTRACT

COMPASSIONATE CONSUMERISM: MASS MOVEMENTS, YOUTH MARKETS,
AND THE EVOLUTION OF AN ETHIC FROM BAND AID TO IDOL AID

By
Helen Louise Davis

The 1983-85 Ethiopian famine was one of the most specularized scenes of
suffering in the history of the moving image. As a result of the production of and public
response to famine representations, a new ethic of compassionate consumerism emerged.
This ethic altered the ways that coverage of famine and charitable calls to provide famine
relief were produced, disseminated, interpreted, and received by diverse viewing
audiences. It evolved and spread as more news reports of famine and famine relief texts
were produced and disseminated. And, as a result of its emergence and evolution, a new
type of philanthropic, consumer based social movement was born.

Through an analysis of the production and reception of the first compassionate
consumer media texts—~speciﬁcally the 1984 Buerk/Amin famine footage; the famine
relief Ethiopia singles “Do They Know Its Christmas,” “We Are the World,” and their
accompanying videos; and the globally disseminated Live Aid beneﬁt concert—I
determine how and why the ethic of compassionate consumerism inspired the 1984-85
famine relief movement, the context and climate in which the ethic and the movement
evolved, and the multiple effects of both upon existing hegemony in the United States
and Great Britain.

In tracing the emergence, evolution, and diffusion of the movement in both
nations, I identify the multiple economic, cultural, and material beneﬁts that participation

in famine relief had for consumers, donors, celebrity participants, and multinational

 

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corporate sponsors. I illustrate how the movement provided a voice to the new generation
and constructed new sites in which consumers could enact socio—cultural subversion.
And, I argue that the production of new socio-cultural sites not only altered the ways
media and charity organizations constructed and organized around Third World
catastrophes, but also allowed for a politicization of compassion and consumerism that

empowered innumerable famine relief participants.

To Ryan, for all your support.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

lam grateful to Ken Harrow, Ann Larabee, David Stowe, and especially Colleen
Tremonte for the care with which they reviewed this project and for conversations that
clariﬁed my thinking on this and other matters. Their support and professional
collaboration meant a great deal to me. Jeff Johnson and Julie O’Connor, and my
husband Ryan T. Gaffke, also provided material and spiritual support at critical and
opportune times: I cannot thank them enough. Thanks also to Lauren C. Mason and Kelly

Rae Meyers for their thought-provoking insights.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vii

Introduction
Compassionate Consumerism and the 1984-85 Famine Relief Movement ........................ 1

Chapter One
Compassionate Consumerism and Youth Markets: The Emergence and Cultural
Signiﬁcance of a New Ethic in an Era of Nationalism ...................................................... 34

Chapter Two
Compassionate Consumerism and the Famine Logo: The Ethiopian Madonna with Child
as Iconic Advertisement ..................................................................................................... 64

Chapter Three
Compassionate Consumerism and Generic Entertainment: The Sensationalism of
Televised Images of Famine .............................................................................................. 87

Chapter Four

Compassionate Consumerism and Celebrity Outreach: The Evolution of Famine Relief
Texts and Merchandise .................................................................................................... 116
Chapter Five

Compassionate Consumerism and Commodity Synergy: The Relocation of Suffering in
Famine Relief Music Videos ........................................................................................... 143
Chapter Six

Compassionate Consumerism and Global Enterprise: The Multiple Beneﬁts of Live
Aid.. ................................................................................................................................. 170

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 195

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 210

vi

 

 

Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.

Fig.

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Jacob Riis, “Italian Mother and Baby, Ragpicker”

77

77

 

2. Lewis Hine, “Ellis Island Madonna”

3. Lewis Hine, “Italian Madonna”

78

 

4. Lewis Hine, “Madonna of the Tenements”

78

 

5. Duccio Di Buoninsegna, “Madonna and Child”

79

 

6. Andrea Solario, “Madonna with Green Cushion”

79

 

7. Cover Photo for “Famine in Ethiopia”

 

8. Accompanying photo to “Ethiopia, Voting of 3 Sort”

 

9. Cover art for the single release of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

10. Cover art for the 12-inch single release of “We Are the World”

vii

104

104

139

1139

 

Introduction
Compassionate Consumerism and the 1984-85 Famine Relief Movement

You can be absolutely sure, on the day you die, somebody is alive in
Africa because one day you bought a record or a book or watched a pop
concert. And that, at once, is a compliment and a triumph, and on the
other hand, it is the ultimate indictment of us all (Bob Geldof).

In the early 19803, less than ten years after drought had devastated regions

 

throughout the Horn of Africa, millions were once again faced with the prospect of
starvation.1 By the summer of 1983, as a result of civil war, government mismanagement
of resources, changes in US and UK foreign aid policy, and environmental degradation,
food and water had become scarce commodities in both Ethiopia and The Sudan.2
Consequently, hoards of desperate refugees left their isolated villages in the provinces
and migrated toward feeding centers and refugee camps. The camps, not being designed
either to house or help so many, were quickly overrun by refugees needing food,
clothing, shelter, and protection from disease.3 Due to the limited resources available at

such camps, alongside the unpredictability of food shipments, many refugees were denied

 

lThe Ethiopian famine of l983-86 was the worst in recorded history according to the ﬁndings published in
Stanley Siegel, Harvey Gutman, Tania Romashko, Louis Connick, The US. Response to the African
Famine, 1984-1986: An Analysis of Policy Formation and Program Management. vol. 2. Aid Program
Evaluation Report 17 (Washington, DC: US. Agency for International Development, 1986) 1.

2For more information on the complex causes of famine see Freedom House, Ethiopia: The Politics of
Famine (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990) 45. For detailed discussions regarding the
economic factors (national and global) that led to the famine see both Alexander DeWaal, Famine That
Kills: Darﬁir, Sudan 1984-89 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) & Kurt Jansson, Michael Harris,
and Angela Penrose, The Ethiopian Famine (London: Zed Books, 1987) l l3-26. For further information on
the idea of famine as genocide in Ethiopia, see Michael Maren, The Road T 0 Hell: The Ravaging Effects Of
Foreign Aid And International Charity (New York: Free Press, 1997) 116; & Gebre-Ab Barnabas, The
Trek: An Ethiopian Family ’s Struggle Against Famine (Manchester: Manchester Free Press, 1989) 15.

3 In “What the Media Saw,” Surrender or Starve: The Wars Behind the Famine (Boulder: Westview Press,
1988), 5. Robert D Kaplan describes how diseases such as dysentery were a major contributing factor to
deaths in the camps. In Brealdast in Hell: A Doctor ’3 Eyewitness Account of the Politics of Hunger in
Ethiopia (New York: Poseidon Press, 1987), Myles F. Harris describes the ramiﬁcations of such as disease
when he points out how the price of one pint of blood was equal to feeding a whole shed of children (10-
I3).

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the aid they required.4 By the time the famine had reached its height in the summer of
1984, the daily death toll in almost every camp was in the hundreds.

Despite numerous stories printed in the press,5 the disaster in the Horn was for the
most part ignored by Westerners. In an era of compassionate conservatismf’ US and UK
governments, in particular, enforced foreign aid policies that only exacerbated an already
dire situation there. In July 1984, almost by accident, BBC foreign correspondent
Michael Buerk suddenly realized the enormity of the famine upon a visit to a refugee
center in Northern Ethiopia. Three months later, he returned to Korem with ﬁlm-maker
Mohammed Amin to produce what can now be described as an expose of the famine that

shocked the world and led to the ﬁrst global aid movement.

 

4ln Kurt Jannson, Michael Harris, and Angela Penrose, The Ethiopian Famine (London: Zed Books, 1987),
Angela Penrose provides a stunning example of the inadequacies of the camps when she states that by
October 1984 nearly 100 people were dying daily in Korem. She also states that, “2,612 out of 7,200 died
between 29 October 1984 and the end of January 1985” (157). Arguably, these rates improve once, as a
result of the Buerk/Amin documentary and the ensuing public response, aid starts to pour into the worst
affected regions. Pleas for aid had been ignored up until the BBC took measures: see Richard W. Solberg,
Miracle in Ethiopia: A Partnership Response to Famine (New York: Friendship Press, 1991) 5; and
Barnabas, The Trek 13, for references to denied requests. For further explanation detailing why and how the
US and the EEC denied aid to Ethiopia see David A Korn, Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine (Lanham, MD.
& London: University Press of America, 1990). See Penrose in The Ethiopian Famine for further
information regarding conservative US policies on Ethiopia and how US refused to provide aid to a Soviet
regime (149-50) but provided support to Somalian guerillas opposing the Ethiopian Marxist government
(213) and reference to the EEC ’5 claim that, despite surpluses, there was no grain to spare for Ethiopia
(151).

5F or more detailed information on reactions to the famine in the print media see Kaplan, “What the Media
Saw” 31-54; & Susan Moeller, Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sells Disease, War, Famine and
Death (New York, Routledge, 1999) 112.

6In her introduction to Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004),
Lauren Berlant describes how, in the United States, compassion—more than any other emotion such as
“pleasure, fascination, hopelessness, or resentment”—is the emotional “response to suffering’s scene” (7).
But, as Berlant explains, in the US (and I would argue, also the UK) during the late capitalist era,
compassion has undergone a process of conservativization. In societies that validate individualism, laissez
faire attitudes, and “pull yourself up by you bootstraps” logic, compassion has deteriorated into pity, an
emotion that elicits contempt for ﬁgures of suffering. This pity-compassion can be described as an emotion,
according to Berlant, inﬂuenced by right-wing notions of social obligation and conservative morality. It is
an emotion of the privileged who determine the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor
without acknowledgement of how structural inequalities affect those suffering from economic deprivation.
According to this paradigm, only a minority of sufferers are deserving of compassion. This is because
suffering, at least according to the logic of compassionate conservatism, is a condition that most oﬁen
occurs, not as a result of structural inequities, but due to bad personal choices made by the one suffering.

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Viewers in the West in the 805 were not strangers to such images of suffering and
atrocity. Since the invention of the moving image, philanthropic organizations had been
utilizing shocking images to raise funds and awareness. American Studies scholar Kevin
Rozan'o describes in “’Delicious Horrors’”: Mass Culture, The Red Cross, And The
Appeal Of Modern American Humanitarianism,” as early as the 19208, charities such as
the Red Cross were disseminating and displaying horriﬁc moving images to movie
audiences in order to raise awareness and funds for those in need. News accounts of the
horrors of mass starvation in Volga (1929),7 the Spanish Civil War,8 Nazi death camps,9 \
and the Vietnam War (to name but a few, signiﬁcant examples) were often graphic.10
Western audiences were even familiar with suffering in the Horn of Africa because, in
1974, British journalist Jonathon Dimbleby had produced a similar documentary to Buerk
and Amin’s that highlighted the plight of starving peoples in Ethiopia during the
Ethiopian revolution and the overthrow of dictator Haile Selassie.11 Dimbleby’s ﬁlm
exposed the horrors of famine, the emaciated walking corpses of starving people and the

devastation to the over-burdened land.

 

7Arthur Ransome, “Famine on the Volga,” The Guardian 11 Oct. 1921, Guardian Century: 1920-1929,
2008, Guardian News and Media Ltd., 5 Jan. 2008 <http://century.guardian.co.uk/l920-
l929/Story/0,6051,126591,00.html>.

8For a detailed discussion of Woolf’s response to contemporary representations of the Spanish Civil War,
see Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador, 2003) 9.

9Cornelia Brink, “Secular Icons: Looking at Photographs from Nazi Concentration Camps,” History &
Memory 12.1 (2000): 135-50.

10R. Hamilton, “Shooting from the Hip: Representations of the Photojournalist of the Vietnam Era.”
Oxford Art Journal 9.1 (1986): 49-55.

11For further information on and descriptions of Dimbleby’s “The Unknown Famine” see Paul Harrison &
Robin Palmer, News Out of Africa: Biafra to Band Aid (London: Hilary Shipman, 1986) 40-51; & Peter
Gill, A Year In The Death Of Africa: Politics, Bureaucracy And The Famine (London: Paladin Grafton
Books, 1986) 4-5; see Solberg Miracle 6-7 for discussion of apathetic public response to “Unknown” in the
US and Penrose The Ethiopian Famine for information regarding Canadian generosity in response to
“Unknown” (100).

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Despite the fact that viewers were so familiar with representations of suffering,
and, as a result, knew how to read and respond to images of suffering, the coverage of the
1983-85 Ethiopian famine can be described as unprecedented and unique.12 What was so
different about coverage of the famine? First, the images of suffering presented primarily
by news coverage in the mid 19805 and, later, as part of famine relief texts/commercials
differed from previously aired famine footage because they were read through what
Kevin Rozario describes as the ‘hyperreal imagination’,l3 they inspired the ethic of
compassionate consumerism which in turn led to the famine relief movement. Second,
the images were more excessive and graphic—partially because they were televised.
And, third, famine images of the mid 19803 were produced by, disseminated among, and
received by more diverse global markets than ever before.

By the mid 1980s, the means by which such scenes were produced and
disseminated had also altered dramatically as a result of advancements in the ﬁelds of
visual and other communications technologies and the evolution of new markets
interested in witnessing suffering.14 The new visual, communication, and transportation
technologies available in the 19805 made the Ethiopian and Sudanese famine one of the
most specularized scenes of suffering in the history of the moving image. The
Buerk/Amin report alone was disseminated via television to almost ﬁve hundred million
people worldwide and had a huge global impact. Like previous footage of suffering, the

coverage of the famine was simultaneously horrifying and fascinating. It seemed to evoke

 

les a result of Western apathy to the famine and a lack of famine coverage on the television prior to the
Buerk/Amin report, the dates of the famine (1983-86) differ to those of movement dates (1984-86).

13Rozario, Calamity 178-9.

14For information regarding the implementation of new technologies in news coverage of Africa see
Christopher Paterson, “Who Owns TV Images from Africa?” Issue: A Journal of Opinion 22.] (1994): 15-
18.

4

conﬂicting emotions within audiences who, upon viewing images of the dying, both
expressed a sense of compassion for the victims and a desire to consume more famine
texts.15 But, in response to the Buerk/Amin report, encouraged by celebrities and the
media, UK and the US audiences for the ﬁrst time rallied together, en masse, to help feed
starving in Africa.

Through both the production and consumption of famine relief texts, celebrities
and members of the general public alike raised millions to provide food and clothing to
the needy. Out of the famine coverage, and as a result of viewer responses to images of
suffering, a new ethic emerged: an ethic of compassionate consumerism. This ethic
evolved and spread as more news reports of famine and famine relief texts were produced
and disseminated. And, as a result of its emergence and evolution—the desires the ethic
fulﬁlled and the actions it inspired—a new type of philanthropic, consumer based social
movement also emerged and evolved.

Compassionate consumerism can be described as a new social logic that
challenged the compassionate conservatism of the Thatcher-Reagan era.16 The ethic,
inspired by a mix of both compassionate emotions and consumer impulses, changed the
ways that both coverage of famine and charitable calls to provide famine relief were
produced, disseminated, interpreted, and responded to by members of a viewing

audience. The ethic originally emerged as a result of depictions of suffering presented in

 

15After the Buerk/Amin report, a number of exposes were produced by various media producers. For
example PBS produced “Cry, Ethiopia, Cry,” Frontline, Prod. Nicholas Claxton and Andre Liebman, 27
Nov. 1984, the Times funded David Blundy and Paul Vallely, With Geldof in Africa (London: Times
Books, 1985), the BBC produced “Live Aid’s Desert Gamble,” Panorama, 2 Sept. 1985, a special on
famine and aid in the Sudan.

16As I illustrate in detail in chapter 1, the Thatcher-Reagan era was more conservative than previous years

as both leaders preached a return to a golden age of family values, traditional morality, and laissez-faire
attitudes towards labor, industry, and charity.

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famine texts, and evolved as a result of the production and dissemination of subsequent
famine relief texts that relocated and re-inscribed the loci of suffering (subsequent texts
that are produced as part of a compassionate response to the footage and that encouraged
further consumption of famine as well as relief texts). The unique mix of emotions and
impulses evoked by the footage, the timing of the Buerk/Amin report, and the social-
political milieu in which the footage was received, allowed the ethic of compassionate
consumerism to take hold in the hearts and minds of the British and US public. The ethic
not only resulted in changing the ways the famine was constructed and received in
Western societies, but also continually perpetuated and intensiﬁed both compassion and
consumerism (thus the ethic endlessly reproduces itself).

The feelings of compassion evoked by representations of suffering, and the
consumer impulses inspired by a philanthropic call, were by no means new emotions and
impulses for 803 audiences.l7 What was new in the 803, however, was the ways in which
emotion and impulse inspired by images of suffering were combined to create the ethic of
compassionate consumerism, the intensity and potential for self perpetuation that resulted
from this combination of emotion and impulse, and the existence in the 803 of a potential
philanthropic oriented market that, trained in the art of consumerism, was looking for
new modes of feeling and expression.

This project, and indeed this introductory chapter, begins with an attempt to
identify the emergence, evolution, and eventual diffusion of the ethic of compassionate
consumerism in Britain and the United States during the mid-19803. While recognizing

how compassion was not an emotion unique to the 19803 and philanthropy had been a

 

l7Kevin Rozario, “‘Delicious Horrors’: Mass Culture, The Red Cross, And The Appeal Of Modern
American Humanitarianism,” American Quarterly 55.3 (2003): 417-55.

6

 

market venture since the invention of the moving image,18 I illustrate how and why, when
in combination, compassion and consumerism created a new social logic that not only
affected immense change in a number of cultural sites, but informed the emergence of a
new type of philanthropic social movement. Through an analysis of compassionate
consumer texts———speciﬁcally the Buerk-Amin famine footage that precipitated an
immense public response to the Ethiopian famine, the Ethiopia singles and accompanying
videos produced by concerned celebrities, and the global Live Aid beneﬁt concert that
raised millions of dollars for the starving—I demonstrate how compassionate
consumerism inspired the famine relief movement, why the organization of aid and
public and/or celebrity support of famine aid can be deﬁned as a social movement, and
the reasons why the famine relief movement was both unique and speciﬁc to its time and
location.

In tracing the emergence, evolution, and diffusion of the movement—which is
inﬂuenced but does not necessarily coincide with the emergence, evolution, and diffusion
of compassionate consumerism—I aim to determine how both the movement and the
ethic that inspired it provided a voice to the new generation and constructed new sites in
which youth could enact socio-cultural subversion.19 In addition, I argue that the
production of new socio-cultural sites not only affected changes in the ways that the

media and charity organizations constructed and organized around Third World

 

18ibid.

19In The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel De C erteau describes the possible ways to subvert the “rituals,
representations, and laws imposed upon them” simply by using them (xiii). He argues that, through
everyday acts, in borrowing or using that which is produced by (and for) others, the human subject can
become an agent in the sense of both time and space. Throughout this project my use of the term
subversion is intended to mirror Certeau’s. when I use ‘subversion’ I am referring to the small yet
signiﬁcant socio-cultural changes that occur when new cultural sites for everyday activity and expression
are created.

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catastrophes, but also allowed for the development of new, complex relationships
between multinational corporations, governments, celebrities, media producers, charities,
and—most signiﬁcantly—communities of youths.

My examination of the content, appeal, and address of famine relief texts—in
particular the charity rock texts and events produced by Band Aid, USA for Africa, and
Live Aid—shows how, through the gratuitous and excessive commodiﬁcation of
suffering and the constant promise of scopophilic and fetishistic pleasures, famine and
famine relief texts produced different multi-faceted forms of ‘compassionate
consumerism’ that ultimately offered young people (the group most affected by the New
Right’s exclusionary policies) with multiple opportunities to negotiate alternate
deﬁnitions of identity and community at a time when traditional modes of youth protest
were disintegrating.

Consuming Compassionately

To feel compassion is to feel humility and empathy, to acknowledge a shared
vulnerability with the object of compassion. Texts that evoke compassion do so by
exposing images of excessive human suffering so that viewers are not only able to
sympathize and empathize with the victims, but also borrow (and perhaps even
appropriate) the trauma of the experience of suffering. The famine images produced by
Buerk and Amin evoked mass concern among audiences in both the US and the UK. This
is arguably because viewers did not only feel compassion for the desperate ﬁgures on
screen, but because—through the act of viewing—viewers were also able to borrow from

and share (no matter how vicariously or prosthetically) in the famine experience.

 

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Compassion is connected to altruism, as it is often a stimulus for altruistic
expression and behavior. As a result of the evocation of compassionate emotions,
consumers of famine and famine relief texts are often incited to perform good acts of
compassion. These acts were most often related to ﬁnancial transactions: they involved
performing services in order to raise awareness and funds for famine relief, donating
money to the cause, and/or purchasing famine related texts, products, and merchandise.
The images of famine that inspired viewers in the mid 19803 to consume more famine
coverage (by early 1985 even local news stations and newspapers in both the US and the
UK were producing reports on the famine), also encouraged them to purchase celebrity
endorsed famine relief texts, the proceeds of which were to be donated to the aid
movement.

The famine relief texts from which compassionate consumerism emerged,
commodiﬁed suffering.20 Primarily this suffering was that of the Other, located
elsewhere. However, as viewers paradoxically and simultaneously expressed an interest
in the suffering of the Other and a sense of fatigue due to the over-saturation of suffering
in popular culture texts, the media shifted its focus away from famine toward the relief
effort.21 Originally (in late October of 1984) the images of suffering tended to depict
desperate and dying Ethiopians, mainly women and children. As public and celebrity
interest in the famine grew, such images gave way to representations of compassionate

celebrity ﬁgures that ‘suffered’ on behalf of famine victims and coverage of concerned

 

20For further discussion on the commodiﬁcation of suffering see Michael Maren, The Road To Hell: The
Ravaging Effects Of Foreign Aid And International Charity (New York: Free Press, 1997) 213; Arthur
Kleinman and Joan Kleinman, “The Appeal of Experience; The Dismay of Images: Cultural Appropriations
of Suffering in Our Times,” Social Suffering, ed. Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock
(Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1997).

21For detailed explanation regarding the shift in focus see Moeller (9, 35-6).
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consumers mimicking celebrity behavior and purchasing celebrity endorsed famine relief
merchandise.

The more images and texts evolved, shifting focus from famine victims to
celebrities performing compassionate acts on screen, the more concerned US and UK
citizens purchased famine related texts and merchandise, and the more compassion
inspiring texts were produced for consumption. Each act of purchase or donation seemed
to inspire further acts as, through ‘acting’ in a compassionate manner, compassionate
emotions could be momentarily intensiﬁed. This intensiﬁcation became intoxifying,
particularly when it occurred en mass, among groups of like-minded consumers (e. g.
news viewers or MTV audiences) and crowds of many who were similarly stimulated (as
is the case with beneﬁt concerts).

The fact that consumers of famine images and famine relief texts experienced and
openly expressed their compassion in an era of compassionate conservatism makes the
ethic of compassionate consumerism a resistant ethic. In fact, the active shift away from
compassionate conservatism toward compassion can be described as a subversive socio-
cultural shift. This shift coincided with shifts in the socio-cultural and political role of the
consumer and consumerism in advanced technological societies. Not only were there
more commodities (i.e. experiences, images, distant locations) made available to Western
consumers as a result of advances in visual, communication, and transportation
technologies by the 19803,22 but, arguably, throughout this period and as a result of their

access to information, consumers were also gaining more awareness of their potential

 

22For a discussion of the ways in which the African body has been of interest to Westerners and presented
in still photography as a commodity since the invention of the camera, see Paul S. Landau, “Empires of the
Visual: Photography and Colonial Imagination in Africa,” Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and
Postcolonial Africa, ed. Paul S. Landau and Deborah D. Kaspin, (Berkeley: University of California, 2002).

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power and rights as consumers. The increased production and reception of texts and
commodities within the West resulted in the creation of more socio-cultural sites for
consumer activity and expression that, in turn, allowed for an increased mobility between
sites.

These shifts in consumer roles and consumerism had numerous beneﬁts for US
and British youths. In the Thatcher-Reagan era any expression of compassionate
sentiments could be read as a resistant act of expression. Similarly, for many
disenfranchised groups, consumer activity could be said to be an attempt to gain agency
or to express resistance. The role of the consumer became a politicized role of potential
subversion because, as consumers, youths could affect socio—cultural change within and
through the creation of new cultural sites of production and reception.

In Changing Cultures: Feminism, Youth and Consumerism youth studies scholar
and activist Mica Nava provides a most effective deﬁnition of consumerism. She states:
“[c]onsumerism is far more than just economic activity: it is also about dreams and
consolation, communication and confrontation, image and identity. Like sexuality, it
consists of a multiplicity of fragmented and contradictory discourses” (167). Here Nava
links consumerism to desire, expression, and identity formation. She succinctly intimates
how, like the sexual object and sexual act, the consumer object and act of consumption
have the potential to not only to provide the consumer pleasure, but also with a sense of
self. Nava argues that in their capacity as consumers, as a market force, youth are not
only provided with modes of expression and agency, but with the power to affect change
on the individual, communal, and global levels. I assert that, by consuming famine and

famine relief texts, by donating time and money to the famine relief effort, youth not only

11

showed their propensity for compassion for the Other, but they also elicited pleasure, and
carved out for themselves the new socio-cultural role of compassionate consumer, of self-
reliant philanthropist, of worthy citizen.23 By embracing the ethic of compassionate
consumerism, through their good deeds and consumer habits, youth challenge their
governments’ rationale for reducing the rights of youth as well common, negative
representations of youths as delinquents or victims.24 In essence, as a result of
compassionate consumerism, they became both worthy citizens and consumers.25

In challenging cultural theorists and economic commentators as diverse as
Herbert Marcuse and Betty Freidan, by arguing not only against the notion of the
“passive victim” and the mainstreaming of the idea of “‘brainwashing’—by communists
and advertisers alike” (163), Nava indicates how the status and power of marginalized
groups has been “enhanced by consumer society” (166) and thus empowers the
consumer. With speciﬁc reference to women, Nava notes that consumption offers “new
areas of authority and expertise, new sources of income, a new sense of consumer rights:
and one consequences of these developments has been a heightened awareness of
entitlement outside of the sphere of consumption” (166).

As Nava herself indicates, youths—like women—are also potentially empowered
within consumer society and in their role as consumers. This becomes most apparent

when looking at the ways in which their consumption of famine and famine related texts

 

23In the next chapter 1 illustrate in detail how youth in the US and UK were denied their rights in the
Reagan-Thatcher era.

24For information regarding ways in which youths dealt with as victims or delinquents see Christine
Grifﬁn, Representations Of Youth: The Study Of Youth And Adolescence In
Britain And America (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1993) 3.
25For a discussion of the ways in which young people in the UK saw themselves as neither ‘legitimate
citizens or consumers’ see Hilary Nunn, Thatcher Politics and Fantasy, Thatcher Politics and Fantasy: The
Political Culture of Gender and Nation (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2002) ”7.

12

 

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and merchandise empowered and educated youth consumers. Through consuming famine
text youths gained experience and expertise in the ﬁeld of suffering. Their compassionate
reception and responses to such texts led to the production and consumption of more
famine and famine related texts that not only diversiﬁed and extended the suffering
experience, but inﬁnitely altered and expanded the number of famine related texts. The
increase in texts did not necessarily increase youth income or job opportunities but it did
(as I explain in detail) lead to economic growth in various private and public sectors that
beneﬁted youth. As the backlash against famine relief agencies originally supported by
youths indicate, many involved in acts of compassionate consumerism on behalf of the
starving in Ethiopia quickly became aware of both their consumer rights,26 as well as the
often ineffectual policies and methods of aid organizations and charities.27 But, most

importantly, as a consequence of all of the above, many youths in the US and the UK

 

26The following comment was made by a young man attending the Live Aid concert in London. His
statement, made during an interview aired on the Band Aid documentary, “Food, Trucks, and Rock ‘n’
Roll: The Band Aid Story,” dir. Ian McMillan, St. Pancras Films, 1985, indicates an awareness of
consumer rights. The man states: “I ﬁnd it incredible that the mass of people probably feel something
should be done and yet their own government just don’t do anything... [the] very fact that it has to be done
by people giving their own money is ridiculous. We’ve given enough money into government, why can’t
they spend some of that money giving it back?” On the one hand this comment shows how youth saw
participation in Live-Aid as the right thing to do: the urgency in the speaker’s voice, the imperative that
“something should be done” is clear. And yet, the young man quoted above does not specify exactly what
the problem is, what it is that should be done, and to whom. That which is to be done is deﬁned as “it,” an
“it” that should be funded by the government to which common people pay taxes, not out of the common
man’s pocket. What is most signiﬁcant about the quote is not the young man’s sense of outrage at the
famine in Ethiopia, but the fact that, in order for the famine crisis to be avoided or halted, the British public
have to spend money; it is not the fact that children are starving in the latter part of the Twentieth century
that he considers ridiculous, but the fact that he is footing the bill. Of course, the speaker’s notion that the
government is “doing nothing” is inherently ﬂawed, and is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the
ways in which Western governments interact, interfere, or exacerbate political and social situations
(oftentimes leading to catastrophe) in foreign nations. Not only was the British and American government
not “doing nothing,” in relation to the Horn of Africa; their actions can be read as detrimental to the
problem. However, the quote serves as one example of how young British and Americans were able to see
their contributions to the Band Aid projects purely in consumerist terms (while being incapable of
articulating what it is their exactly donating money and time for), that is, to understand their roles and
rights as consumers.

27According to Robert D. Kaplan news reports in late 1985 started to focus on the public backlash against
aid agencies and public anger at being ‘duped’ by both the media and newly emerged aid organizations
such as Band Aid. (7,11).

13

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were provided the opportunity to heighten their “awareness of entitlement outside of the
sphere of consumption” and to alter the system by which many youths had lost their
rights.

In their capacity as both consumers and producers of cultural texts and products,
youths had the opportunity to make political statements. Consumer impulses lead to
actions that not only intensiﬁed compassion (that is because many of the consumables
represented, on some level, a new or intensiﬁed aspect of suffering), but also encouraged
further consumer acts. As Nava suggests, consumer impulses and actions were, by the
mid 19803, politicized impulses and actions (197). And, because compassion was also
politicized emotion in its very resistance, it is possible to assert that compassionate
consumerism was a politicized ethic. As such, it is no surprise that the ethic inspired a
politicized social movement.

According to social movement theorist T.V. Reed in The Art of Protest: Culture
and Activism ﬁom the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle, social movements
can be deﬁned as “sites for the production and reception of cultural texts” (xvii). Reed
locates social movements within what Pierre Bourdieu coins as the cultural ﬁeld, arguing
that social movements are part of and encompass “the social space where cultural texts
exist in relation to each other and in relation to texts in other social, political, and
economic ﬁelds” (xvii). For Reed, dramatic action—“repeated public displays”—occur
within the site of each social movement, and this dramatic action has the power to affect
not only political, but also cultural, change (xvi).

Arguably, it is through this repetitive dramatic action and display that both the

frame of each social movement becomes apparent and evolves, and a multitude of

14

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interrelated cultural texts that allude to the movement’s frame are produced,
disseminated, and received. I suggest that the underlying frame for what I describe as the
famine relief movement, that is, the sentiment expressed through and as a result of the
cultural texts produced and received in the famine relief site, was heavily inﬂuenced if
not deﬁned by the ethic of compassionate consumerism. T.V. Reed argues that social
movements emerge, evolve, and then go through a process of difﬁrsion (296)—1 assert
that the ethics that paradoxically and simultaneously inspire and are born out of mass
movements go through the same processes of metamorphosis, but not necessarily at the
same rate of growth or in the same ways as within the movement. In the case of famine
relief, the ethic of compassionate consumerism was integral in shaping the movement,
but was not necessarily deﬁned or limited by it.

The organization of food aid for the starving in Ethiopia did not begin as a mass
movement (no movement ever begins en masse). Rather, food aid was organized in
response to the same horriﬁc images of the starving disseminated in the US and the UK
that inspired the ethic of compassionate consumerism. As a result of compassionate
consumerism, consumers rallied behind celebrity ﬁgure heads and media messages that
called them to help “feed the world.” Images of both celebrities and the media that
presented them alongside images of starving children were repeatedly produced,
disseminated, and received by millions in both nations. As more celebrities, members of
the public, media producers, and aid organizations became united under the banner of
Band Aid in the UK and, later, USA (United Support of Artists) for Aﬁica in the US, the
more repeated dramatic actions were performed and the more cultural texts were

produced and received en masse for mass consumption.

15

 

The organization of food aid became a famine relief movement because, within
the site of famine relief (as with all the social movements Reed describes) participants
produced and received cultural texts inﬂuenced by a uniﬁed yet evolving frame of
compassionate consumerism, because participants repeatedly responded to texts produced
within the famine relief site by participating in dramatic action and display, and because
the mass organization famine relief affected mass socio-cultural change and proved to be
a transforrnative experience for both individuals and communities of participants.28

What makes the famine relief movement distinct, however, is not simply the ethic
of compassionate consumerism that inspired it, or the ways in which the ethic evolved
and diffused over time as more texts were produced. The movement was unique because
it was a philanthropic social movement that tapped into the needs, desires, and social
motivations of a newly emerged, available youth market. Arguably, the famine relief
movement was the ﬁrst philanthropic, consumer movement of its kind. And the manner
in which it, and the ethic that inspired and guided it, evolved forever altered the social
purposes of consumer-based philanthropy.

In the introduction to What Makes Charity Work Myron Magnet describes how
methods and philosophies of charity have changed in the United States and Britain over
the past seven hundred years. He identiﬁes a speciﬁc shift in attitudes towards those in
need of charity in the 19603: “Philanthropy. . .became wholesale rather than a retail
enterprise, concentrating not on individuals but on an abstract Mankind and on the all-
embracing systems that purportedly misshaped so many lives. Charity projects became

gigantic in scale and ambition” (vii-x). This shift in emphasis from individual suffering to

 

28T.V. Reed, The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of
Seattle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) xvi.

16

 

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structural inequity becomes evident when considering the youth movements of the 603,
the Civil Rights movement, and women’s movements.29 While none of these movements
were centered around philanthropic issues, they all, in some way, attempted to expose
and ﬁght to rectify structural inequities and turned away from antiquated notions that
distinguish between deserving and undeserving recipients of charity or representation.
The sentiments expressed by Boomer radicals in the 603 were challenged in the 19803 by
individualist rhetoric and compassionate conservatism, but were upheld by the famine
relief movement.

The philanthropic focus of the movement made it distinct from prior social
movements in a number of ways. First, no prior mass movement had focused speciﬁcally
upon rectifying the problems of a group of people who were neither involved in nor
aware that a movement had been organized in their aid. As the movement progressed, the
distance between the movement participants and the intended recipients of famine aid
grew larger until, at the point just before the movement diffused and dissipated, most
references to famine victims were minimal or confused.

Second, while other movements and philanthropic calls relied on the location of
an Other elsewhere, no prior mass movement either organized solely around an external
locus of suffering, nor shifted the loci of suffering to such an extreme. Third, as a result
of the externalization and constant shifts in the location of suffering, both organizers and
participants in the movement had to rely upon the media and second hand accounts in

order to experience and understand the famine. This led to numerous, unforeseen

 

29While the mdvements to which I refer here are not philanthropic movements, Myron’s recognition of the
shift in charity (from individual to structural) coincides with a similar recognition among social and civil
rights movement activists of the effect of structural inequities and systems of power upon the marginalized.

17

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problems, but most speciﬁcally resulted in a complete misunderstanding of the causes of
famine (not to mention the potential solutions) and in the constant reaffrrmation of
ethnocentric stereotypes (often exacerbated by sensationalized and generalized media
coverage) by texts produced and received within the famine relief site. The potential for
such misunderstanding in other movement is, arguably, less as suffering is not located
elsewhere in other types of movements.

Fourth, because the suffering of both the famine victims and the compassionate
consumers attempting to help the victims was mediated by the media—by the television
screen—the movement can be deﬁned as a media movement. The movement’s frame, its
guiding ethic, its emergence, evolution, and diffusion were all captured on ﬁlm and
disseminated around the world. As a result, the famine relief movement expanded beyond
the borders of the US and the UK, becoming the ﬁrst globally televised movement.

And, ﬁfth, the famine relief movement differed from previous movements
because it was a consumer movement that required participants to organize around and
communicate through consumption, to donate via acts of consumption, to perform
compassionate good acts of consumption, and to develop a consumer based philanthropic
community. While the early famine and famine relief texts did not necessarily show an
awareness or speak to any speciﬁc, organizing community; the more the movement
evolved, the more evolved and specialized the movement’s community became. This is
reﬂected in the fact that early appeals for aid were disseminated via televised news texts
to mass populations, whereas later appeals for aid typically came in a televised musical
format that appealed to speciﬁed rock communities and youth markets. The fact that the

movement tobk musical and televised form explains why it was so easily marketed not

18

only to diverse groups of youths in the US and the UK, but to youth consumers
worldwide.

Music has always been a valuable part of social movement. It has been used as a
tool of protest, a way to rally moral among like-minded communities, and to help provide
deﬁnition and identity to speciﬁc movements. Music has become so ingrained that for
some movements certain lyrical phrases have become synonymous with the repeated
public display and dramatic acts of the movement. One of the most prevalent example of
this in the late Twentieth Century is the civil rights chant, “we shall overcome.”
Similarly, as a result of their use as protest songs during the Vietnam War or as media
sound tracks on ﬁctional representations of the conﬂict, certain rock songs such as
“Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Fortunate Son” have become synonymous with the anti-
Vietnam War protests. In the same way, the Ethiopia singles and videos—“Do They
Know Its Christmas” and “We Are the World”—have become a signiﬁcant part of the
cultural memory of the famine relief movement in both the US and the UK.

Despite the similar uses of music as both a theme and motivator in movements of
the 603 and the famine relief movement of the 19803, many Boomer theorists and critics
(particularly left-wing writers and journalists) condemn the famine relief movement for
its commercialism, pursuits of pleasure, and excessiveness. While many criticisms are
valid to some extent, critics such as Will Straw, Marcus Greil, and Stan Rijven (to name
but a few)30 neither acknowledge that the famine relief movement was, by necessity, a
media mediated consumer movement, nor recognize the importance of pleasure as a

motivating component and consequence in all social movements.

 

30See Marcus Greil, “Rock for Ethiopia,” Third lntemational Conference on Popular Music Studies,
Montreal, Canada, July 1985.

19

For Reed, part of the function of social movements is to provide participants
pleasure. The last of Reed’s ten primary functions refer to the fact that movements
“[m]ake room for pleasure. Provide respite from the rigors of the movement through
aesthetic joy” (300). It would seem that in the case of famine relief, movement texts and
activities that provide pleasure do so in order to provide participants with respite from the
horror of mass famine and starvation.

The respite provided by aesthetically pleasing famine relief texts, and by the
pleasure garnered from being a member of a compassionate consumer community, also
provides a form of relief from the rigors of daily life in Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s
America.31 For Reed, other signiﬁcant functions of social movements are to “empower”
participants and “set a new emotional tone” (299-300). In afﬁrming the ethic of
compassionate consumerism, the famine relief functioned as Reed would assume. And
this empowerment and new tone served to provide individuals and communities in the
UK and the US with alternatives to the disempowering narratives of exclusion and non-
compassion endorsed and espoused by right wing governments and institutions in both
countries.

Challenging Hegemony

In challenging dominant, conservative narratives of exclusion and individualism,
in providing the marginalized with new modes of expression and new ways to
demonstrate a disapproving reaction to conservatism, and in stimulating consumer

activism compassionate consumerism paved the way for the construction of new modes

 

3 1 For a discussion of the potential subversive powers of ‘pleasure’ see Neal Ullestad, “Rock Rebellion:
Subversive Effects of Live Aid and ‘Sun City,”’ Popular Music 6.1 (1987): 67-76.

20

of resistance, community building, and allowed for atypical alliances to develop between
markets and corporations, sectors, individuals and celebrities.

While challenging certain arenas of social conservatism, however, compassionate
consumerism and the famine relief movement it helped stimulate national economies in
the US and the UK. According to James Douglas in Why Charity? The Case for a Third
Sector, the late capitalist era saw the emergence of “voluntary and philanthropic
organization as the Third Sector” (1 1). By the 19803, charity had not only become
business throughout the West, but a growth industry in numerous parts of the world, and
a sector that inﬂuences the compassionate nature of Westerners. Douglas states:

US and American societies are shaped by non-proﬁt. . .quite apart from the

quantity of resources distributed without either the compulsion of law or

incentive of proﬁt, the qualitative contribution of the Third Sector has

been and remains signiﬁcant and... distinctive of what we call a free

society (13).32
Signiﬁcantly, while having an effect upon the ‘shape’ of Western societies, the Third
Sector was integral in affecting change in the Third world, both through the
supplementation and distribution of non-governmental and government aid, and by
sharing the experience of Third World catastrophe with concerned Westerners. Such

charities have as much effect upon Western assumptions of the Third World as the media

 

32Douglas refers speciﬁcally to the American continent, however, it is possible to argue that charities such
as Oxfam—now not only one of the most active UK based charities in the Third World but also a
signiﬁcant chain of charity shops in Britain (stimulating on a large scale both economic exchange and the
exchange of goods)—have had on British culture as the Third sector has had upon US and Canadian
cultures. In The Road to Hell former aid worker Michael Maren describes how NGOs have become big
business throughout Third World nations as well. Using Somalia as a prime example, Maren states that
“relief and development are the most dynamic growth industries” (I66).

21

and are as integral to commodiﬁcation of Third World bodies and experiences as media
texts.”

The ethic of compassionate consumerism and the movement it inspired had a
resounding effect upon the ways in which the media not only represented catastrophe in
the Third World (Aﬁica in particular), but it also resulted in the creation of a new socio-
cultural role for the media in the UK and the US. As the famine relief movement
illustrates, the media became a most convenient tool for socio-cultural subversion.
Despite the motives of media producers, or the obvious biases exhibited by media texts, it
is possible to identify the media (at least in the context of the famine relief movement) as
a vehicle that precipitated, mediated, and perpetuated a mass social movement that—in
tum—altered public perceptions and roles of US and British youths.

In a world full of visual images, full of consumable images and products, the line
between image and product is no longer clear. And, as Mica Nava argues, there is often
no distinction between the cultural product and the commercial that advertises it.34 What
this means for the famine relief movement the commodities to be consumed in support of
the movement, be they images of famine victims or a celebrities in the Ethiopia videos,
are indistinguishable from the text that advertises the movement (i.e. the news footage
and music videos simultaneously function as both adverts for movement consumables
and consumables). There is almost little or no way to distinguish between actual scenes
and representations of suffering, between the famine footage and the commercials that

advertise the relief merchandise, and between the commodiﬁed celebrities performing

 

33For a discussion of the ways in which NGOs perpetuate media constructions of Third World catastrophe
see Maren’s enlightening critique of sponsorship campaigns such as Save the Children in The Road to Hell
(137-158).
34Nava, Changing Cultures I74.

22

suffering on screen and the similarly commodiﬁed intended aid recipients. In effect all
experiences connected with famine relief—from experiences of famine to experiences of
participation in a global social movement—are prosthetic, mediated by media texts, and
commodiﬁed. In effect, to experience famine relief is to contribute to and participate
within what Kevin Rozario describes as a “hyperreal imagination.”35
To perceive of famine relief in this way may appear to be cynical, however, I
suggest that the hyperreality of famine relief opens up a realm of possibilities for
potential participants. Primarily, in being able to contribute to the hyperreal imagination,
participants prove themselves to be active in the production and reception of texts and,
simply as result of their activeness, affect socio-cultural change. Secondly, the fact that
the movement was mediated by the media and read through the hyperreal imagination
meant that the movement could be experience vicariously, at a distance, by potential
participants located outside of the movement’s epicenters (these epicenters being
Ethiopia in the famine footage, London and Burbank CA when the Ethiopia singles were
produced, and London and Philadelphia during the Live Aid concert). The dissolution of
barriers between the real and the simulated meant, most signiﬁcantly, that members of
the public could participate fully in the famine relief movement simply by viewing events
and consuming consumables/commercials. If there are no distinction between the actual
and the represented, then the famine relief movement activities and gatherings, the
producing and receiving of famine relief texts and consumables, could all be
accomplished vicariously. The famine relief movement was, in effect, as much a virtual

movement as it was a hands-on affair.

 

35Rozario, Calamity 178.
23

In The Culture of Calamity, Kevin Rozario points out that the “idea of the
hyperreal, in particular, can help us to understand the emotional and political responses”
to catastrophe and mass, cultural devastation. While in this particular comment Rozario is
referring speciﬁcally to responses to terrorist attacks such as 9/11, he argues that—much
like in DeLiIlo’s White Noise—calamity is read through a ‘“‘postmodern” imagination of
disaster” or a “hyperreal” imagination (178). Rozario states:

...we in the West have been programmed by unrelenting exposure to

media sights and sounds to become sensation-seeking consumers, we have

been conditioned to respond to actual events in the same ways we respond

to simulated ones, as passive and disoriented spectators, and we have

exchanged critical awareness for an unthinking... trust in technology,

experts, and heroes—in those authorities whose job it is to keep us safe, to

“set the world right” (178).

While I would argue that there is a difference in the level at which consumers were
sensation-seeking in the 803 consumer exposure to disaster (actual or simulated) and by
9/11, Rozario’s point remains valuable when considering the ways in which consumers
responded to media texts of mass starvation in the Horn of Africa and borrowed the
experience of suffering depicted on their television screens. The hyperreal imagination
also accounts for what might seem to be the excesses and the artiﬁce presented in famine
and famine relief texts. However, as I show throughout the dissertation, such excess and
artiﬁce is exactly what makes the famine relief consumables and texts so accessible and
appealing.

The fact that the famine and famine relief is experienced as part of the hyperreal
imagination might imply that there is no longer a need for famine relief participants to

undergo any form of visceral experience. However, I would argue that the visceral aspect

of the famine experience is the compassionate emotions that are both evoked and

24

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intensiﬁed by famine media texts and as a result of the consumption of famine
commodities. Arguably, the fact that the commodities are produced and received in the
name of philanthropy, only promises to further intensify the feelings of elation and self-
worth that accompany compassionate emotions and compassionate good acts. The
visceral is once again intensiﬁed by the representation of excess in a number of the
famine relief texts and by the fact that famine relief commodities (that is, the experience
of famine and famine relief, the images depicting starving children and famine relief
participants, and the imagined suffering of all involved) are converted into merchandise.
This conversion occurs when, for example, a depiction of famine is isolated, digitally,
reformatted as cover art, printed, and transformed into a tangible piece of merchandise
that, like the black vinyl single it covers, is possessible, touchable—visceral.

As is evidenced by the famine relief movement, the media’s new role (speciﬁcally
television’s) as advocate for social and global change was extremely complex and multi-
faceted and, at times, even contradictory and self-defeating. While on one hand media
texts raised consciousness and funds to alleviate the suffering of famine victims, on the
other hand they simply played to the desires and fears of Western audiences. Rarely did
popular media texts indict Westerners for their roles in the suffering of the starving in
Africa, nor did they shy away from ethnocentric stereotypes or the gloriﬁcation of the
capitalist enterprise.36 Unfortunately, because the screen mediated the nature of the
famine relief movement, the media’s reliance on stereotypes and generalizations served

to undermine the famine relief cause (its goals and its efﬁcacy), to misinforrn members of

 

36For further discussion on exceptions to this rule, particularly regarding the ways in which broadsheets
did attempt to indict governments and/or show larger structural inequities see Kaplan, Surrender or Starve.

25

the public involved in the famine relief movement, and to reinforce neo-imperialist
attitudes towards Africa in the West.

The television screen mediated the ways in which famine and famine relief was
experienced (prosthetically and through the wonders of new technology), disseminated,
and received. Yet, despite its inﬂuences and mediation, the media cannot be said to be
completely responsible for the failings or short-comings of the famine relief movement.
Despite all appearances, the media did not control the famine relief movement nor the
meanings and connotations produced either by famine texts or the ethic of compassionate
consumerism. This lack of control over the representations and meaning produced and
received within the site that was the famine relief movement result from the fact that such
representations and meaning were open to interpretation, ﬂuid, and available for
incorporation by any dominant or subordinate group (to argue that the media has the
power to dominate all actions and meanings is not only to undermine the role and
efﬁcacy of social movements, but to disempower the viewer who—no matter how
manipulated—has the potential to read and react to texts as she sees ﬁt).37

The change in the media’s role and the emergence of compassionate consumerism
out of famine relief texts had a major effect upon a number of political, social, cultural,
and economic institutions in the UK and the US. Media coverage of famine and famine
relief not only inspired the US and the UK governments to revise their policies regarding

aid in the Horn of Africa,38 but it also altered the marketing strategies and fundraising

 

37As Baudrillard argues, media texts “carry meaning and countermeaning, they manipulate in all directions
at once, nothing can control this process, they are the vehicle for the simulation internal to the system and
the simulation that destroys the system. . . .” See Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila
Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006) 84.

38Jansson, et. al., The Ethiopian Famine 154.
26

techniques of NGOs (many of which became synonymous with multi-national
corporations in the 19803),39 as well as the role of youth markets and the cultural value of
celebrity.

The ethic of compassionate consumerism also had an immense effect upon the
strategies, campaigns, and products of both non-governmental organizations (such as
CARE and OXF AM) working with catastrophe in the Third World and mass social
movements. Seemingly inﬂuenced by the media’s success in both ‘advertising’ famine
and building alliances between impoverished famine sufferers and multinational
corporate sponsors of famine relief (such as Pepsi, AT&T and Kodak Eastman), many
NGOs became more savvy about their own marketing techniques. At the same time,
borrowing strategies and models from multinational corporations resulted in many NGOs
becoming multinational corporations themselves.40

The emergence, evolution, and diffusion of global social movements also
provided new roles and new means to make proﬁt for celebrities concerned with national
and global issues. As activists or ambassadors on behalf of Third World ‘victims’,
celebrities inspired youth to become involved in famine relief.41 In essence, such
celebrities inspired the famine relief movement. However, through their involvement
celebrities not only furthered the cause of the movement and thus change among youth
communities and within youth cultures; they also gained free advertising and, perhaps
more signiﬁcantly, were able to enhance the appeal of what they were advertising and

selling. If celebrities rely on the commodiﬁcation of their own images—their images

 

39Maren, Road to Hell I66.
40Consider the international reach of Save the Children and Oxfam.

4lFor a detailed discussion on the changing role of celebrity see Mark D. Alleyne, “The United Nations’
Celebrity Diplomacy,” SAIS Review 25.1 (2005): 175-85.

27

often being their only commodities for sale—then producing images of themselves as
compassionate and altruistic only served to make the celebrity commodity more desirable
to youths interested in altruism and guided by the ethic of compassionate consumerism.
Numerous celebrities proﬁted even further by capitalizing on their connections to the
famine relief movement by being paid to advertise non-famine relief related products at
various points throughout the famine relief movement.

Most signiﬁcant to this project is, however, the ways that the ethic of
compassionate consumerism and the famine relief movement also had considerable affect
on the lives of young people in the US and the UK Because subcultural resistance was
not as powerful a form of socio-cultural subversion for youths in the mid-19803 as it had
been in the 503, 603, and 703,42 young people in both the US and the UK were in search
of new ways to affect socio-cultural change and to re-deﬁne their generation. Arguably,
mass social movements provided new opportunities for youth expression and subversion
as social movements have a similar socio-cultural effect as subcultures.

Arguably, the famine relief movement provided the outlet that British and
American youth needed. In consuming famine and relief texts and products, feeling
compassion, and donating funds and time to the famine relief cause—in becoming a new,
compassionate consumer market—young people developed new (somewhat subversive)
social roles and new mutually beneﬁcial relationships with multinational corporations
and global market forces. Their involvement in famine relief challenged stereotypical
representations of youth as inactive or futile members of US and UK society. In their

capacity as compassionate consumers and donors young people developed new ways to

 

42F or detailed discussions of the evolution and semiotics of subcultures, see Dick Hebdige Subculture: The
Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 2002).

28

conceive of youth identities, communities, and sites—and allowed for profusion of new
ones. Ironically, in embracing hyperreality and the multiple and diverse nature of signs,
young people were integral in the disintegration of youth subcultures. If signs no longer
had any ﬁxed meaning, and if youth markets, multinational corporations, governments,
and NGOs alike could appropriate any sign or symbol and imbue it with a speciﬁcally
individualized meaning, then the very grounds upon which subcultures were built are
undermined. Subcultures, as Hebdige so eloquently argues, rely on the construction of
certain symbols and signs that have a ﬁxed meaning for subcultural participants (1-3).
The famine relief movement showed that such ﬁxity in popular signs was destabilizing.
Chapter Outlines

Chapter one identiﬁes how the rights, activities, and mobility of UK and US
youths in the Thatcher-Reagan era became undermined and regulated by leaders that
perceived youth as little more than potential threats to social and moral order. In this
chapter I determine why, when the possibilities for socio-cultural resistance or protest are
greatly diminished, youths in both nations search for alternative sites of expression and
activity. I argue that, while the famine relief movement provided youths multiple new
sites, the activities performed and texts produced and received in said sites did not
threaten to destroy hegemony. Rather, the famine relief movement allowed youths to
subtlely challenge common social assumptions about the nature of youth, while
contributing to the grand narratives espoused by their leaders and to their nations as both
rightful citizens and compassionate consumers.

Chapter two pinpoints the emergence of the ethic of compassionate consumerism

in October'1984, with the release of the Buerk/Amin documentary. The chapter examines

29

the conditions that led to the production of the news report that inspired a global relief
movement, and focuses on the ways in which Buerk and Amin construct Aﬁica and
Africans using the trope of the Ethiopian Madonna with Child. I argue that the Madonna
is an extremely effective icon as it is a ﬁgure of suffering that is, on the one hand, located
elsewhere, but, on the other hand, evokes empathy among the viewing public that shares
the famine experience prosthetically through technological apparatus. I determine how
these images, as both horrifying and fascinating, evoke compassion and inspire further
consumption of famine texts. In chapter three I expand on my analysis of the
constructions of famine, Aﬁica, and the famine body by analyzing the appeal of televised
scenes of suffering. I argue that one of the main attractions to such scenes comes from the
fact that, through the act of consuming images via the television medium, Western
viewers can both borrow and appropriate the famine experience, suffering in their own
rights as witnesses of the horror. In other words, I show how the images of suffering are
attractive because they evoke extreme and volatile emotional responses and consumer
impulses.

Public response to the Buerk/Amin footage was immense. Outraged, numerous
British celebrities gathered under the name of Band Aid to raise further awareness of the
suffering in Ethiopia. With the production of the Ethiopia single, “Do They Know Its
Christmas,” and its accompanying video, the famine relief movement emerged in the UK.
Four months later, celebrities in the US (USA for Africa) released a similar Ethiopia
single, precipitating the emergence of an aid movement in the States. Following the
change in media representations, chapters four and ﬁve shift focus away from the

starving in the Horn to the celebrities that became integral in the emergence of the famine

30

relief movement. Through an analysis of the Ethiopia singles and their videos as both
visual and audio texts, I illustrate how famine celebrities simultaneously reinforce the
ethnocentrism inherent in news coverage of famine and relocate the loci of suffering,
away from the bodies of famine sufferers onto the bodies and voices of compassionate
celebrities.

These chapters identify why the famine relief movement appealed to US and UK
youth in search of alternate ways to deﬁne and represent themselves, express themselves,
and construct positively deﬁned youth-centered communities. They also demonstrate how
the ethic of compassionate consumerism evolves as more famine related commodities are
produced and received, and as more sites are created for the further production and
reception of texts and commodities. But they also illustrate the distinct ability of both
audio recording and the music video to tap into the desires of youth markets and
construct speciﬁc compassionate consumer audiences. Through a discussion of the use of
the music video format at the Live Aid concert and the merchandising of Band Aid, USA
for Africa, and Live Aid products, I also determine how music video allows for the easy
translation of commodities into material capital.

Chapter six continues discussions regarding commodities and capital presented in
chapter ﬁve. With speciﬁc focus on the climax of the famine relief movement, the beneﬁt
concert Live Aid, the chapter identiﬁes the multiple beneﬁts and beneﬁciaries of the
mega-event. Live Aid, in creating an inﬁnite number of intersecting cultural sites and
presenting a multitude of commodities, marks both the evolution of the famine relief
movement and the diffusion of the ethic of compassionate consumerism. The chapter

identiﬁes the speciﬁc beneﬁts of the creation of such sites and commodities for youth

31

markets, as well as for the celebrities and corporate sponsors involved in the event, the
organizers such as Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith, and the cities and nations that hosted
the event.

While this project recognizes both the problematic and beneﬁcial aspects of aid
for Ethiopian and Sudanese famine sufferers, aid workers, and aid sponsors, its main
focus is to determine why the aid movement and the ethics and ideologies it affirmed had
such an immense impact, speciﬁcally upon youth cultures in the UK and the US (the
epicenters of famine relief and, arguably, of the global community).

My identiﬁcation of the ways in which compassionate consumerism consistently
replicated and reinvented itself in order to continuously elicit compassion and encourage
audience expenditure and consumption, allows me to hypothesize how the famine relief
movement and its impulses of charity precipitated immense change within the United
States and Britain that was extremely beneﬁcial for youths (those that identify as youth
and young people), as well as for the celebrities, media industries, and corporate sponsors
that encouraged the movements’ global expansion.

While failing the intended recipients of aid to a large extent,43 the famine relief
movement continued to perpetuate and evolve to the point that compassionate
consumerism is clearly ingrained in contemporary US and UK consciousness. Because
the famine relief movement became the blueprint for all future aid movements situated in
the West, my analysis of said movement—its practices, experiences, discourses, and

identities—is highly transferable. I provide a model for the theorization of more

 

43F or further discussion of the supposed failures of Band Aid see Michael Scott and Mutombo Mpanya,
We are the World: An Evaluation Of Pop Aid For Africa (Washington, DC: Interaction, 1994); “Food and
Trucks and Rock ‘n’ Roll;” and “Live Aid’s Desert Gamble.”

32

contemporaneous or spin off movements, for the ways compassionate consumerism now
informs a number of new texts and traditions in the West.

The famine relief movement has shown how young people can become agents and
part of compassionate communities through their involvement in media driven and
corporate sponsored mass movements. Rather than simply criticizing such movements for
the ways in which they provide pleasure for consumers without concern for the
‘authentic’,44 we need to show consumers how representation function while, at the same
time, allowing them to enjoy that which they consume. Rather than simply dismissing
mass movements, those of us on the left need to get involved. Only then, as participants,
can we provide a more accurate, “better description of the gestures, practices, and
statements of contemporary youth” (Grossberg, “Rockin’ with Reagan,”124) and help
those who suffer as a result of global inequities. Only, as participants, can we help avoid

the mistakes made by participants and organizers of previous relief movements.

 

44Greil “Rock for Ethiopia.”
33

Chapter One
Compassionate Consumerism and Youth Markets: The Emergence and Cultural
Signiﬁcance of a New Ethic in an Era of Nationalism

A hungry child knows no politics (Peter McPherson).

At the end of the politically tumultuous 19703 the New Right took power in both
the UK and the US. Promising to bring peace and prosperity on the domestic front, to re-
establish a sense of national identity and pride, both new leaders challenged the principles
of social democracy espoused by their left-leaning predecessors and argued for a return to
more conservative deﬁnitions of national identity.45 Through the rhetoric of family values
and self-reliance, using narratives and slogans that dichotomized good and evil, both
Thatcher and Reagan attempted to win the “battle of ideas” and reunite their nations
under one leader and one God.46

The deﬁnitions of nation and goodness espoused by both leaders were both
exclusionary and restrictive. However, as the choices of the voting populace indicate,
they were also highly attractive to citizens of nations suffering not only from an identity
crisis, but economic hardships. 47 Both the national identity crises and economic
recessions had arisen in the UK and the US in the 703 as a result of a number of socio-
economic and cultural shifts. The processes of globalization that resulted in shifts in the

location of ﬁnancial power had an immense effect on British and American economies

 

45F or a more detailed analysis of Thatcher’s attempts to deal with “the trauma of instability that
characterises contemporary British times” (22), see Nunn, Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy. For a
comparative discussion of the ways in which Thatcher and Reagan together, as ‘right-wing crusaders’,
“attacked the pervasive sense of national decline” in both their campaign speeches and upon coming to
power see Geoffrey Smith, Reagan and Thatcher (London: Bodley Head Ltd, 1990) 23-6.

46The phrase “battle of ideas” is apparently common usage among Tories according to Dixon (161, 174).
For a discussion of Thatcher’s “endorsement of social authoritarianism, morality, and the ‘traditional’
nuclear family” (21) see Nunn, Thatcher Politics and Fantasy. For a comparative discussion of the
similarities between Thatcher and Reagan’s views on morality, family, and tradition with regards to
domestic policy, see Smith, Reagan and Thatcher 19.

47For a summary of the concerns of the electorate that voted Thatcher and Reagan into ofﬁce, see Smith,
Reagan and Thatcher 26-28.

34

(as well as upon previously colonizing/imperialist nations.)48 The emergence of
postmodernism within the cultural sphere— in particular the death of omniscience and
absolutes—contributed to the fragmentation of identity and community on local and
national levels.49 Arguably, the New Right appealed because it provided a strong sense of
nation and nationhood (albeit illusory) in a postmodern world where literal boundaries of
nations and the more constructed boundaries of identity and community disintegrating.

Thatcher’s government and the Reagan administration both promised a return to a
past where, once again, the United Kingdom and the United States would function as the
world’s most stable, ﬁnancial and cultural epicenters. To achieve their goals, each leader
implemented a series of conservative foreign policies, imposed limitations on
immigration, reformulated (legally and culturally) deﬁnitions of citizenship, and
employed measures to guarantee law and order. The effects of the New Right’s policies
upon both Westerners and famine victims in the Horn were monumental.

To establish identity and community, and to re-establish the convenient, old
boundaries, the New Right in both nations employed narratives of exclusion that relied on
nostalgic visions of Britain and America’s past, and reinforced a neo-imperialism speciﬁc

to Reagan’s America and Thatcher’s Britain.50 The effect of nostalgic, exclusionist, neo-

 

48F or a detailed discussion of the ways in which all national identities come under attack and how local
and national cultures are diluted by the processes of globalization, see Harry Redner, Conserving Cultures:
Technology, Globalization, and the Future of Local Cultures (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littleﬁeld, 2004).

49For a discussion of the relationship between postmodernism and globalization see Stuart Hall, “The
Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity,” Culture, Globalizaton and the World Svstem:
Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, ed. Anthony D. King (London: Macmillan
Education Ltd, 1991).

50The most dramatic example of Thatcher’s attempt to reclaim an imperialist past is the British military’s
retaliation to the invasion of the Falkland islands by Argentine soldiers in 1982. Despite advice to remain
neutral, Reagan eventually ended up supporting Thatcher’s campaign both through rhetoric and by
supplying military equipment to the British. For a more detailed discussion see Geoffrey Smith, “The
Falklands,” Reagan and Thatcher, 76-94. Nunn also provides an enlightening analysis of Thatcher’s use of
imperialist metaphor and imagery during the conﬂict.

35

imperialism was to deny millions of citizens within the US and the UK the right to a
national identity. 5 ' Immigrants, single mothers, young people, leftists all were denied the
right to consider themselves members of a national community as, according to Reagan
and Thatcher, they were the reason for the disintegration of national identity and
community. The New Right’s tight grip upon the nation’s psyche, and their denial of the
actual causes of national disintegration (globalization making power more diffuse) proves
that the destabilization of national power and nationhood was of grave concern.52 Both
Reagan and Thatcher established numerous Others against which they deﬁned national
subject-hood; the disenfranchised and marginalized became easy targets in nations
comfortable with the racist, misogynist, and age-ist ideologies of colonialism and
isolationist nationalism. Arguably, youth became one of the many convenient targets.53 In
being positioned, however, as nothing more than the hope for the future or the locus for
anxiety in the present, young people had little room to develop a sense of self or

community.54

 

5 1 For a discussion of the widening gap between adult populations and youth in the US, and the subsequent
denial of youths’ rights as citizens see Lawrence Grossberg, “Rockin’,” 126-7. See Nunn for a discussion
of the ways in which young people in the UK saw themselves as neither ‘legitimate citizens or consumers’

(117).

52According to David Dixon, Thatcher’s rhetoric re-legitimized racism, and nationalism, and the open
exclusion of marginalized groups. As Dixon states: “In this battle, the populist appeal to nation, people and
race has been a vital and effective weapon” (161). For a discussion of the ways in which the poor suffered
most signiﬁcantly under the Reagan administration see William Julius Wilson and Robert Aponte, “Urban
Poverty,” Annual Review of Sociology 11 (1985): 231-5 8; for the effects on one-parent families and people
of color, most signiﬁcantly in the education system, see F. J. Hunt, “US. Education and the Constrained
Economy: From the Melting Pot to the Excluder?” Comparative Education, 19.1 (1983): 5-19; for a
detailed account of racism and its use against youth in the US see Henry Giroux, Fugitive Cultures: Race,
Violence, and Youth (New York: Routledge, 1996).

53See Nunn (95-133), and Grossberg “Rockin’.”

54British youth as anxiety and hope, see Nunn (95-133); youths as anxiety and hope in the US and around
the globe, see Sunaina Maira and Elisabeth Soep, Youthscapes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2005) xv.

36

In this chapter I determine why, as a result of their marginalized positions in US
and UK societies (resultant of negative deﬁnitions of youth and anxieties arising from the
destabilization of the nation state) youths in both nations were looking for ways to both
re-deﬁne and empower themselves. I identify how and why youth were marginalized as a
result of decisions made and policies implemented by Thatcher’s government and the
Reagan administration, and I determine that, in their capacity as a compassionate
consumer market, they developed alternative identities, discourses, experiences, and
communities that allowed for a redeﬁnition and socio-cultural empowerment (all within
the conﬁnes of already existent social systems). I argue that these youth alternatives
became possible not only because the emergence and evolution of the ethic of
compassionate consumerism and the famine relief movement provided youth with a new
site for action and expression, but also because the ethic and movement provided youth
with access to a global community of like-minded consumers.

Redeﬁning Nation

In May 1979, conservative party leader Margaret Thatcher became British prime
minister.55 Having won the election by a signiﬁcant majority, Thatcher promised to put
an end to what is now commonly referred to as Britain’s “Winter of Discontent.”56 In late
1978, a series of simultaneous strikes by petrol tanker and lorry drivers, sanitation
workers, hospital staff and ambulance operators brought Britain to a standstill.57 In the

aftermath of massive, nationwide industrial action, Thatcher promised—among other

 

55Thatcher’s rise to power and consequent negation of youth in Britain seems ironic considering that 1979
was the U.N.’s ‘year of the child’.

56Paul Wilenius, “Enemies Within: Thatcher and the Unions,” BBC News: International Version, 5 Mar.
2004, British Broadcasting Company, 13 July 2008,
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3067563.stm>.
57ibid.

37

things—a turn away from social democracy and the re-establishment of law and order
throughout the United Kingdom.58

Over the years she was in power (1979-1993), Thatcher not only passed numerous
laws restricting disruptive union activity and outlawing strikes among teachers, nurses,
and, miners; she also passed laws designed to curtail the activities and mobility of any
individual or group perceived as a threat to law, order, and British common decency.
Such domestic laws were designed to target youths, immigrants, the unemployed,
unmarried mothers, among others that Thatcher considered ‘undesirable’ or in need of
control. What Thatcher could not accomplish legally, she achieved through the
implementation of conservative economic policies and social programs. In the course of
her leadership, educational grants and scholarships were cut,59 unemployment beneﬁts
denied to 16-18 years old that refused to participate in the exploitative Youth Training
Schemes,60 and social welfare programs for children and youths were denied funding.
Thatcher’s foreign policies followed similar lines of logic. They were as unabashedly
racist and neo-imperialist as Thatcher’s domestic policies.

Thatcher’s government stood behind their election promise to restore law and order,
proposing a number of measures to reform the judicial system, to survey public space,
and to criminalize certain everyday activities. As Phil Scraton notes in “‘If You Want a
Riot, Change the Law’: The Implications of the 1.985 White Paper on Public

Order,” it was less than a month before “the then Home Secretary, William Whitelaw,

 

58Dixon 161.

59David Brian Robertson, “Mrs. Thatcher's Employment Prescription: An Active Neo-Liberal Labor
Market Policy,” Journal of Public Policy 6.3 (1986): 275-96.

60The Youth Training Scheme was introduced into Britain in 1983 after Thatcher’s government out
unemployment beneﬁts for 16-18 year olds. It was considered an alternative to welfare dependency for the
government, but as forced labor by many youths and critics. For more information regarding the nature of
the Scheme see Robertson (290).

38

announced a long-promised review of Public Order” (387). Whitelaw’s ﬁndings
culminated in the 1985 White Paper that proposed the prohibition of public gatherings or
marching of more the 12 people without prior police permission, and provisions that
allowed the police discretionary rights to disperse crowds and arrest anyone who may
potentially threaten violence (388). The paper explicitly proposed to criminalize all
manner of public behaviors. In a report compiled by the Police Committee Support Unit

in response to the White Paper, the following statement was made:

The end result of such a power would be to make high spiritedness a

criminal offence and further damage police-public relations, particularly

amongst black youth who are likely to be singled out in the enforcement of

it. It could also be used readily against demonstrators and pickets . . . The

effect of any extension of Sec.5. of the 1936 Act (which is already

disturbingly wide) by creating such an offence as ‘disorderly conduct’

would be to criminalise conduct merely because certain sections of society

may disapprove."l
The response above pertains speciﬁcally to White Paper recommendations restricting youth
mobility and action under the ‘disorderly conduct’ laws. Youths caught “pestering people
waiting to catch public transport or to enter a hall or a cinema” would be liable to

prosecution.62

If any organized protest is considered to be “against the interest of the wider
community” (the nature of this community being necessarily vague and undisclosed),
when any unsanctioned activity within public space can be deemed an act of
“hooliganism, thuggery, militancy and terrorism” (Scraton, 386), then it comes as no
surprise that youth had to look for alternate types of state sanctioned sites within which to

express themselves and enact both conforrnist behaviors or resistance. Arguably the

 

61 Stated by the Deputy Head, Police Committee Support Unit, 28 June 1985 (Scraton 389).

628cc Paul Corrigan, “Doing Nothing,” Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post- War
Britain, 1975, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson (London: Routledge, 2002), for an example of why
youths need outlets and how, for many, there is nothing to do.

39

famine relief movement provided Britain’s youths the outlet they needed.63 As part of a
sanctioned, organized group ﬁghting against problems beyond the border of the United
Kingdom, participants in famine relief were above reproach. As compassionate
consumers, famine relief participants proved to be model citizens who helped revitalize
the British economy and present the British public is a positive light.

The White Paper on Law and Order was neither the ﬁrst nor last limiting the
mobility and activities of young people, nor was it the ﬁrst or last measure proposed by
Thatcher’s government limiting the rights of people of color located within Britain’s
borders. In 1981, Thatcher’s cabinet passed the “Nationality Act” which repealed the
rights of citizenship to large groups of immigrants from previously colonized or
commonwealth nations. The act was openly racist and exposed the New Right’s
commitment to excluding all those that did not ﬁt into the ideal of a model citizen.

In “Thatcher’s People: The British Nationality Act 1981,” David Dixon argues
that “[t]he crucial irony of the 1981 Act is that it is designed to deﬁne a sense of
belonging and nationhood which is itself a manifestation of the sense of racial superiority
created along with the Empire, while simultaneously it cuts the ties of citizenship
established in that same historical process” (173). For Dixon, the act espouses
isolationist, supremacist, chauvanist, and racist ideologies that exclude any claim on
British nationality made by individuals from decolonized nations.

The act’s restrictions upon citizenship had as much effect upon British residents

as it did on potential immigrants. The language, once again relying on the rhetoric of

 

63Dixon discusses how the 1981 White Paper proposed an extension of regulations from the public to
private sphere: “The White Paper proposes that Sec.5. should be extended to include private as well as
public places and that 'breach of the peace' should be changed to, 'conduct intended or likely to cause fear
or provoke violence” (3 89).

40

family values, set the white Briton in opposition to non-whites and, as Dixon claimed,
scapegoated “ the welfare scrounger, the disruptive school child, the abuser of the N.H.S.
as well as, of course, the criminal” (174) as people that, as Stuart Hall suggests, are ‘of an
alien culture’ and do not share the ‘right’ values. 64

For Dixon, the argument outlined in “the British Nationality Act 1981 was no mere
peripheral modernization, but rather the formalized expression of a reconstructed national
identity which was a vital and central objective of the Thatcher programme's racial and
ideological politics” (175). This type of explicit racism, combined with Thatcher’s belief
in self-reliance may provide some explanation as to why the state funding of foreign aid
programs was out throughout Thatcher’s reign.

Like many of her counterparts in the EEC,65 Thatcher’s attitude toward the
provision of aid was conservative. As former head of the UN Relief Operation in
Ethiopia (1984—86) Kurt Jansson suggests, conservative policies toward aiding the
starving in Ethiopia did not change until the media frenzy took hold after the ﬁrst
Buerk/Amin report was aired in October 1984.66

It had not only been the Thatcherite principle of individualism, non-state
intervention, and self-reliance that affected the distribution of aid to Ethiopia. Both the
UK and US governments were wary of providing aid to communist nations in the Horn,

as they feared that the Ethiopia government would misappropriate both funds and food

 

643mm Hall, "The Empire Strikes Back," New Socialist July/Aug. 1982: 6.
65The European Economic Community.

66Note that the US and the UK each had a very different relationship with the Sudan concerning aid,
partially because the Sudan was a former British colony, but mainly because both the US and the UK
perceived of the Sudan as a potential ally against the Marxist Ethiopian government (the US funded the
Sudanese army). For more discussion on the relationship between the Sudan and the West see Berkeley,
The Graves. For an account of the relationship between Sudan and Ethiopia in the early to mid 19803, see
Nega Mezlekia, Notes from a Hyena ’s Belly (Toronto: Penguin, 2000).

41

aid sent from the West. Aid budgets were minimal and the aid that was sent was often
sent via other relief organizations (for instance, the British government sunk funds into
the Norwegian Church Aid and the US into the Catholic Relief Services).67 Attitudes and
policies changed, however, in November 1984 aﬁer the airing of the Buerk/Amin report.
The power of public opinion—and indeed of compassionate consumerism and the famine
relief movement—became evident at that point. Such conservative policies were
immediately overturned when, as a result of media pressure, “20 ﬁxed-wing aircraft and
30 helicopters form the UK, USA, USSR, F RG, and GDR, Italy and Libya were involved
in airliﬁing supplies” (Jansson, 154 ).

There are parallels between the British govemment’s treatment of famine victims
in the Horn and youths in the UK. Both famine sufferers and youths suffered as a result
of exclusionary nationalist and racist doctrine, conservative economic policies, and the
assumption that social problems arise from a lack of self-reliance. It is therefore not
surprising that youths in the United Kingdom (a group often represented negatively in the
media and by the government) would share empathy with the sufferers of famine in
Ethiopia and the Sudan. At the same time, however, it is also not surprising that youths
desiring access to deﬁnitions of citizenship proposed by Thatcher’s government would
join a consumer movement that did little to challenge racist and ethnocentric assumptions
considering the fact that, to be a good Briton, to fit into the limited deﬁnition of British
subject, one also had at least partially buy into racist ideologies, conventional morality,
and support the free market economy (even if buying into such ideologies and supporting

the free market meant going against ones’ own economic interests).

 

67Randolph C. Kent, Anatomy of Disaster Relief The International Network in Action (London: Pinter
Publishers Ltd, 1987) 70.

42

In November 1980, less than one year after Thatcher’s victory in Britain, Ronald
Reagan was elected as president of the United States. Like his British counterpart,
Reagan promised to bring his nation prosperity and to rid it of all undesirable elements.68
He preached family values, called for a return to a more traditional morality, and
reinforced binary logic that determined all that was not good to be evil. Like Thatcher,
Reagan perceived of the world in black and white terms, however, it seemed that on both
the domestic and foreign policy front, Reagan’s dichotomous logic was more extreme.
This reliance on binary logic was problematic because, as political scientist Betty Glad
argues in “Black-and-White Thinking: Ronald Reagan's Approach to Foreign Policy,”
Reagan's view of the Soviet Union show how “the black-and-white thinker is apt to
exaggerate the evil and power of his enemies, while at the same time inﬂating his own
virtue and capacity to defeat them if he is strong and so wills it” (33).

Throughout his presidency, Reagan used speeches, economic policy, and
legislation, to establish which groups of Americans were on the side and virtue and which
were not. Like Thatcher, be dealt in dichotomies, often alienating, denying, and/or scape-
goating those groups most negatively effected by structural inequities. As in Britain, all
potential delinquents—the unemployed and poor, people of color, unmarried mothers,
criminals, and youths—became targets for social and cultural control & surveillance.69
Like Thatcher, Reagan primarily used an incident of industrial action to illustrate his no-

tolerance policies regarding law and order. Reagan sent to the American people the

 

6831mm, 26.

69F or detailed examination of the types of surveillance used to contain ghettos in the US, see John Fiske,
Media Matters: Race and Gender in US. Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) 217-
255. For a detailed analysis of the ways in which children and youths in the US are restricted economically,
culturally, and legally, see Lawrence Grossberg, Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics and America 's
Future, Cultural Politics and the Promise of Democracy, ed. Henry A. Giroux (Boulder: Paradigm
Publishers, 2005)

43

message that social disorder and insubordination would not be tolerated within the ﬁrst
year of his presidency when he ordered air traffic controllers to return to work or risk
being ﬁred.70

In another move similar to that of his British counterpart, Reagan passed the
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981. Like Thatcher’s budgets cuts and law and
order policies, the act that had dire consequences for already marginalized groups of
people in the US resulted in numerous social welfare programs for the poor, students, and
women being under-funded and numerous programs, such as Job Corps, Head Start, and
women and children's feeding programs, being ‘zeroed-out’.71 Reagan had appealed to
voters because he had promised throughout his presidential campaign to substantially
decrease income tax. At the same time, however, Reagan promised to protect the nation
from the ‘evil’ empire, the USSR. His quandary was how to decrease taxes while
increasing the military budget. He assigned the difficult task of balancing the budget, that
is, of ﬁnding $40 billion to newly appointed Director of the Ofﬁce of Management and
Budget, David Stockman. Stockman’s solution was to reduce any number of federally
ﬁrnded programs but, as Reagan had promised not to touch “the main beneﬁt programs of
Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ checks, railroad retirement pensions, welfare for the
disabled—the so-called ‘social safety net’,”72 Stockman was forced to look for the
opportunity to budget elsewhere.

Stockman’s cuts ultimately had most effect upon welfare recipients. While Reagan

 

70F or a recording of the speech Reagan gave before ﬁring over one thousand striking workers. see “The
Life of Ronald Reagan: A Timeline,” npr.org, 2008, National Public Radio, 13 July 2008
<http://www.npr.org/news/specials/obits/reagan/timeline.html>.
71The term zeroed-out comes from Reagan’s Director of the Ofﬁce of Management and Budget, David
Stockman. See William Greider, “The Education of David Stockman,” theatlanticcom, 2007, The Atlantic
Monthly Group, 13 July 2008 <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/l98112/david-stockman/2>.
72ibid.

44

justiﬁed the cuts by arguing that it was necessary to reduce welfare dependency, evidence
suggests that the cuts harmed more people than they helped. According to journalist
David Whitman “OBRA cut off the wrong families. According to a 1984 study by The
Urban Institute, it removed from the welfare rolls “those at and near the margin-~those
most likely to leave anyway...Leaving behind a relatively ‘hard core’ group of
recipients.”73
At issue in among Reaganites hungry for budget cuts was the cost of dependent
“welfare deadbeats,” in particular teenage mothers, mothers of illegitimate children, and
welfare mothers.74 What neither account for, however, is the fact that during the ﬁrst few
years of his presidency unemployment among poor (particularly urban blacks)
skyrocketed leaving many youths, young mothers, and urban poor without any resources
or safety net (apparently, only the elderly, veterans, disabled people, and fetuses required
a safety net according to Reagan and his followers). As a result of Reagan’s black and
white logic, and the liberalist theories of self-reliance espoused by the Right throughout
the US, many affected by the cuts in welfare, food stamps, and social programs were
blamed for their position and, as political scientist Ronald King suggests, potentially
made “the poor in society the victims of their own vulnerability.”75

Reagan’s attitude toward famine sufferers in the Horn was a cutthroat and

merciless as his attitude toward America’s welfare recipients. Like welfare recipients, the

 

73David Whitman, “The Key to Welfare Reform,” The Atlantic Monthly, June 1987, The Atlantic Monthly
Online, 13 July 2008 <http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/ﬂashbks/
welfare/whitmaf.htm>.

74For more discussion of the ways in which mothers were under surveillance in the 19803 and the sudden
interest in the notion of ‘bad mothers’, see Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels, The Mommy Myth:
The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women (New York: Free Press, 2005).

75Ronald F. King, “Capping Entitlements: Budget Rules and the Food Stamp Program,” Journal of Public
Policy 18.2 (1998): 133-61.

45

Ethiopians were considered to be a scourge of the earth. This was because their
government was both Marxist and supposedly backed by Reagan’s archenemy the Soviet
Union.76Reagan had established himself as an anti-communist in the 19503 when he
collaborated with the House of Un-American Activities against his fellow actors. He
came to power promising to win the “war of ideas,” claiming that he would protect the
American people from both the ideological and nuclear threat posed by the USSR.77 The
Ethiopian government was on Reagan’s blacklist of evil—doers and Reagan, along with
his conservative followers in congress, feared that providing aid to famine victims would
be tantamount to supporting Mengistu’s Marxist regime. Up until the release of the
Buerk/Amin report in the United States, Reagan’s government had sanctioned a massive
reduction in aid to Ethiopia,78

With Thatcher in ofﬁce in the UK and Reagan in ofﬁce in the US, the future looked
grim not only for UK and US youths, but for any nation in need of UK or US aid. While
there appeared to be very little that youths could do to alter their situation, or that foreign
governments could do to persuade their potential benefactors to increase aid, change did
occur. This change was as a direct result of the emergence and evolution of both the ethic
of compassionate consumerism and the famine relief movement.

I believe that it is possible to argue that famine relief movement, despite certain

conservative elements, was one way for young people to both challenge absolutist

notions of nationhood and citizenship espoused and enforced by Thatcher’s government

 

7(’The fact that the Ethiopians starving tended to be rural, and not supporters of the Mengistu regime, rather
victims of it (Mengistu was found guilty of genocide by international courts in 2006) seemed an
unimportant fact to the Reagan administration.

77See Betty Glad, “Black-and-White Thinking: Ronald Reagan‘s Approach to Foreign Policy,” Political
Psychology 4.] (1983): 33-76.

78Jansson, et. al., 148.
46

and Reagan’s administration. As participants in famine relief, youths were not only able
to challenge the logic of compassionate conservatism that ultimately harmed them as
society’s most vulnerable members; their participation also allowed them to expand
national exclusions to allow for their own inclusion, and provided them the opportunity to
show themselves to be valuable members of society—to be compassionate not violent—
and to be actively productive consumers not scroungers relying on the state (fn exclusion
within this paradigm). Their actions supporting the famine relief movement also resulted
in signiﬁcant changes to UK and US foreign policies regarding famine in the Horn of
Africa.

Because youths’ compassion and consumerism led to both a change in socio-
cultural policies and in the conditions of famine sufferers in the Horn, it can be described
as a subversive movement. However, despite the successes of famine relief, oftentimes
the power of the movement has gone ignored by both cultural critics and youth studies
scholars. This is, in part, a result of the narrowness of youth studies as an academic ﬁeld
in the 19805. Since the 19703, youth studies had tended to be conﬁned to two speciﬁc
spheres: the ﬁrst examined youth in the contest of subcultures, the second were studies
performed in the 803 that served the agenda of the far right. This study offers an
alternative, not only calling into question Right-Wing youth scholarship, but also arguing
that subcultural theories cannot fully account for youths ‘subversive’ activities and for a
recognition of what T.V. Reed argues is a similarity between subcultural activity and
social movement activity.

While my study is somewhat distinct from its predecessors in the 805, it—like

many theories on both youth subcultures and youth delinquency—also deals with the

47

ways in which youths enact subversion through fashion, style, and music. However, at
the same time, my work recognizes how, through their subversive everyday activities
(such as listening to music or watching television), youth gain voice, power, and pleasure
by performing more mainstream activities such as consumerism. As I will show
momentarily, the new elements of socio-cultural youth subversion result from youth’s
relationship with the newly advancing media and the rise of the celebrity as social
ﬁgurehead as well as ﬁgure of entertainment.

However, before dealing with the manner in which youth emotions and impulses
affected socio-cultural change in Britain and the United States, it is necessary to
contextualize my work within the ﬁeld of youth studies and acknowledge the work of
prominent scholars (such as Lawrence Grossberg and Christine Griffin) without whom
this study would not have been possible. Before demonstrating how youths enact
subversion, it seems pertinent to determine both who the youths enacting socio-cultural
change in the 19803 were, and why such change was necessary.

Studying Youth

Youth Studies arises as a ﬁeld in the 1920s, around the same time that the notion
of youth as something distinct from adulthood began to emerge.79 Over the next 80 years,
the study of youth evolved into an interdisciplinary ﬁeld that borrows from sociology,
criminology, psychology, and various disciplines in the humanities. However, despite
this, and despite the ever changing deﬁnitions of both youth and culture, youth studies

tends to remain wedded to the limited and limiting deﬁnitions of youth as either victims

 

79Youth was non-existent category prior to the late 19th Century. See Neil Campbell, American Youth
Cultures (New York: Routledge, 2004) 4.

48

or deviants. This is, in part, a result of the fact that many academics and pop scholars
alike wish to deﬁne youth in terms of the now defunct theory of subcultures.

In his introduction to Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World Jonathon
Epstein suggests that there are three distinct periods of youth studies scholarship. The
ﬁrst is that of the Chicago School in the 19205. As a result of their sociology and
criminology studies of one particular youth gang in the Chicago slums the school became
the ﬁrst not only to consider youth in terms of subcultures, but to develop “a more
‘scientiﬁc’ approach to subculture complete with its own methodology” (Subcultures,
75).30

The second period of youth studies scholarship arose out of the Birmingham
School (the CCCS) in the 705. The school consisted of scholars trained in both sociology
and literary theory. While continuing to focus on subcultures, the CCCS attempted to
avoid the positivist assumptions of their predecessors in Chicago by taking class into
account. Informed by Gramscian theories of class dynamics, theorists such as Tony
Jefferson, Stuart Hall, and Angela McRobbie attempted to account for the ways in which
poverty and unemployment led to subcultural divisions.

Epstein deﬁnes the third period of youth studies by naming signiﬁcant ﬁgures
working in the ﬁeld since the 19805. In mentioning major ﬁgures in the ﬁeld, such as
Henry Giroux and Douglas Kellner (both contributors to his anthology) Epstein,
however, glosses over the tension between scholars that still attempt to identify youth and
youth culture in terms of subcultures by naming some of the few scholars to have moved

beyond limiting deﬁnitions of youth and a seeming obsession with subcultural activity.

 

80Dick Hebdige describes how these studies were positivist, had ﬂawed methods, and failed to consider
class (75-6). For a detailed explanation see Subcultures.

49

What Epstein also fails to mention is how, by the 19805, youth studies had become so
comfortable in its deﬁnition of young people as passive victims or nascent
revolutionaries, that, as a ﬁeld, it performed the work of the New Right.81 Youth studies
scholars Lawrence Grossberg and Christine Grifﬁn both point to how youth studies
scholars in the 805, mainly those working within the ﬁelds of sociology and psychology,
have not helped youth to ﬁnd more positive roles and deﬁnitions. On the contrary, many
studies worsened the situation for youths in both the US and the UK as they failed to see
or examine those structural inequities that disenfranchised large bodies of youth.
Grossberg and Grifﬁn argue that, throughout the 19805, scholar employed the ‘moral
panic’ model in the US (Grossberg, 82) and the ‘common sense’ model in the UK
(Grifﬁn, 4) both of which are aligned with the policies and ideologies of the New Right
and reinforce negative assumptions about youth by adopting. Grifﬁn goes as far as to say
that “[t]he ideological force of British and US youth research during the 19805 was also
strengthened by the political partnership between the Thatcher and Reagan
administration” (4) and thus insinuates that youth research and politics cannot be
separated during this era.

By the mid-19805, subcultures no longer functioned as the most efﬁcient or
effective form of social resistance because, as Lawrence Grossberg argues, “what might
have once been presented as subcultural or typical adolescent explorations of boundaries
is now taken to be the shocking norm” (Caught in the Crossﬁre, 17). And yet, scholars in

a number of ﬁelds continued to deﬁne youth in terms of subcultural activity or, more

 

8lSociologists and psychologists studying youth have been integral in deﬁning youth and, unfortunately,
such models have been employed worldwide. In fact, according to Tyyska and Grifﬁn, US and UK youth
models have and continue to dominate the ﬁeld globally.

50

speciﬁcally, as oppositional. In Representations of Youth: The Study of Youth and
Adolescents in Britain and America, Christine Griffin illustrates the ideological purpose
of deﬁning youth as oppositional when she argues that such studies, in the 19805, served
to justify the harsh socio-economic restrictions that the New Right in both the United
States and Britain placed upon young people.82

The bigger problem with subcultural theories is that, in attempting to deﬁne youth
in opposition and as marginalized, they construct problematic deﬁnitions of youth. While
this was seemingly possible up until the 19705, deﬁnitions of both youth and culture
become extremely slippery by the 19805. Studies that dichotomize youth, even in
attempts to recuperate deviancy or expose victimhood, not only rely on outmoded
assumptions (oﬁen setting themselves up in support of or opposition to the CCCS’s work
in the 705), but they fail to acknowledge how youth has—like culture—changed.
According to Hebdige, subcultures are not “independent organism[s] functioning outside
the larger, social, political and economic context” (76) because they rely on the parent
culture for both their existence and deﬁnition even though “subcultures express what is
by deﬁnition an imaginary set of relations” (81). However, it is no longer possible to
argue that a homogeneous parent culture exists and, therefore, the notion of subcultural
resistance that relies upon the parent culture for its deﬁnition falls apart. By the 19805,
subcultural resistance was no longer effectively possible nor, for the most part, was it
desirable.83

Despite scholars attempts to reclaim the notion of subcultures in the 19905 (and

re-deﬁne it using terms such as tribes), it is clearly evident that subcultural resistance had

 

82(3de 4.
83See Bennett and Kahn-Harris, After Subculture, for recent debates in subcultural theory.

51

lost its socio-cultural clout by the early 19805. Subcultural resistance (unless taken to the
extreme, as is the case of terrorism) was not necessarily a viable way for youth to contest
their socio-cultural and economic marginalization in either the US or the UK. David
Chaney explains this in “Fragmented Culture and Subculture” that subcultural difference
is lost among everyday differences because diffusion of culture removes almost all
meaning from subcultural resistance.“ He states that, “the idea of subculture is redundant
because the type of investment that the notion of subculture labeled [sic] is becoming
more general, and therefore the varieties of modes of symbolization and involvement are
more common in everyday life” (37).

In his aﬁerword to the anthology After Subculture: Critical Studies in
Contemporary Youth Culture, Simon F rith argues that, despite the decline of subcultures
and the inapplicability of subcultural theory to the study of youth in the late capitalist era,
“youth studies must continue to treat issues of power and inequality whatever the limits
of the subcultural concept of resistance” (176).

This study is designed to illuminate issues of power and inequality that affect
young people without relying on ﬂawed and dichotomous deﬁnitions of ‘youth’ that

simplistically position the young people as oppositional or resistant to mainstream

 

84This generalization of culture is a result of what John Tomlinson describes, in “Globalization and
Cultural Analysis,” Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies (Cambridge & Malden MA:
Polity Press) as the deterritoralization of culture. Deterritorialization is a process resultant of globalization’s
“complex connectedness across distance” (152) that, in Chaney’s mind, makes a “simple and unique
cultural identity no longer feasible” (46). In line with Chaney, Tomlinson argues that because they
cannot account for globalization’s “weakening of ties of culture to place”, subcultural theories, do “nothing
to disturb th[e] identiﬁcation of culture with territory” (152). Subcultural theories assume that there are
ﬁxed geographical boundaries, such as the physical borders of a nation-state, within which subcultural
activities have speciﬁc meanings. Such theories posit notions of resistance and rebellion that are no longer
applicable to youth cultures in the late capitalist era. This does not mean that subversion and change are no
longer possible, just that traditional categories no longer apply. Youth have avenues for rebellion, but these
ultimately are resultant of ties to consumer markets, the media, and multi-nationals. Consequently, such
avenues are not limited by national boundaries, and youth and youth cultures should not be conceived of as
limited or tied down to any speciﬁc local or national location.

52

culture. Rather, through an analysis of youth involvement in mass movements during the
19805—speciﬁcally the media motivated, consumer driven famine relief movement of
1984-85—1 illustrate how youth are integral in the construction and nature of mainstream
culture and how, through their involvements in mass social movements, young people
push the boundaries of hegemonic systems of control in a positive and inspirational
manner.

But, before attempting to analyze the ways in which youth, in their capacity as
consumers and donors, affect socio-cultural change, it is necessary to deﬁne exactly what
‘youth’ is. This is no easy task, as any deﬁnition must not only account for the slippery
nature of the term and the heterogeneous nature of young people in the US and the UK,
but also with the multiple ways in which youth scholars not bound by subcultural theory
(those to whom Epstein is referring in his description of the third period of youth studies)
have attempted to conceptualize of ‘youth’ as a sign, commodity, and site, as well as a
category occupied by actual people.

Deﬁning Youth

What most deﬁnitions of youth reveal is that ‘youth’ is more a useful concept than
a category occupied by young people. This is because, as Charles Acland illustrates, the
category is occupied by adults as well. In “Fresh Contacts and the Concept of
Generation,” Charles Acland argues that the category ‘youth’ is not exclusive to young
people. He argues that youth has expanded “well into adulthood”:

The manner in which a Baby Boomer generation has been able to occupy

the very idea of youth, with an associated set of styles and activities, even

as its members push well along in the life-cycle, is a striking example of

the non-essential articulation between age, ‘youth’ and cultural
expression... the increasingly ‘permanent’ quality of the supposedly

53

transitional stage of youth is partly explained by increasing youth
unemployment and lengthening periods of education (35).

Acland illustrates that, while the term youth is disintegrating, the idea of youth is
expanding to incorporate adults as well as young people. In “Rockin’ With Reagan, or the
Mainstreaming of Postmodernity” Lawrence Grossberg supports this notion of the
simultaneous expansion and disintegration of the category when he complicates the
chronological deﬁnition of the category ‘youth’. He argues that while there exists a
generation of ‘new youth’ that is “too young to believe in the counterculture and too old
to believe in the computer utopia,” the category youth chronologically “extends from the
baby-boomers to the younger generations of computer literate, MTV watching
politically naive youth” (125).

But if youth no longer refers to young people, then why does it remain a persistent
category? In “Rockin’” Grossberg explains why:

...we can’t take for granted the relations between the lived reality of

youths, its social identities, and particular cultural representations. This

leaves us with a paradox. Even in the diversity of audiences

determinations, and interpretations make a sociology of culture

impossible, we still want to understand the signiﬁcance of these cultural

texts and practices and their relation to the social body of youth (128).
While youth is impossible to deﬁne, while the category is either a useful social concept or
sign, it is still desirable to comprehend the culture of youth. However, as youth is a
category occupied by a range of peoples of different ages (adults and young people),
classes, and ethnicities, how is it possible to perceive of any coherent notion of youth
culture? Grossberg again provides the answer. In “Rockin’” he argues that “it may be

more appropriate. . .to think of youth as a ﬁeld of diverse and contradictory practices,

experiences, identities, and discourses” (126). Famine relief is one such site within the

54

ﬁeld of youth. Within this site “meanings and representations are produced and
expressed.”85 These meanings and representations have the potential to effectively affect
change within hegemonic systems of control in the sense that they “do not conform to the
imperatives of adult or mainstream culture,” but are not necessarily oppositional (Giroux
11).

While it is obviously not possible to make distinctions between the adults and the
young people participating in famine relief (that is, in the perpetuation of the culture of
charity) without performing expansive ethnographic studies, it is necessary to
acknowledge that there is still an imbalance of power within the cultural site that is
famine relief. This imbalance results from the fact that boomers are more likely to be
involved in the organizing and instrumentation of the famine relief movement—in the
production of discourses and control of experiences—than their younger counterparts.86

Even though all those occupying the category ‘youth’ (as described by Acland)
are subject to the socio-economic and psychic effects of Reagan and Thatcher’s
implementation of New Right policies, I assert that young people, on the whole, suffered
most.” I suggest that the positive consequences of involvement in mass movements are

therefore more important for young people (those under the age of 18) than for adults,

 

85Giroux 10.

86Boomers greatly involved include people such as Bob Geldof, Harvey Goldsmith, and Ken Kragen, all of
whom are established adults with enough resources, expertise, and connections to NGOs to make a
difference. As much as I would argue that youths become empowered through their involvement in Live
Aid, I confess that young people would not have been able to create such an effective global movement
without the guidance of Boomer activists, celebrities, and producers.

87F or a discussion of the ways in which young American people since the 805 have been marginalized and
controlled, see Lawrence Grossberg, Caught in the Crossﬁre. For a convincing discussion of the
distinctions between Baby Boomers and Generation X in the US, see Charles Acland, “Fresh Contacts:
Global Culture and the Concept of Generation,” American Youth Cultures, ed. Neil Campbell (New York:
Routledge, 2004): 31-52. And for a discussion of the ways in which young people were targeted as
potential delinquents in the UK, see Dixon; see also Scraton; and Clive Unsworth, “The Riots of 1981:
Popular Violence and the Politics of Law and Order,” Journal of Law and Society 9.] (1982): 63-85.

55

even when those adults participate in mass movements for the same reasons and in the
same way as their young counterparts. This is because young people (as opposed to
youth) are, simply as a result of their age and the era into which they were born, more
marginalized than their adult counterparts88 (the irony is that, even though the young
share so much with adults, it is adults that collude to disenfranchise the young).

Despite their shared condition, the young suffered more so than other ‘youths’
because of their disenfranchised social position, a position that both beneﬁted and was
oftentimes reinforced by the actions and assumptions of the baby boomers (proving that,
despite sharing in the construction and reproduction of certain sites, boomers beneﬁt
more from distinguishing themselves from the young than from identifying with them).

As Acland’s comparisons between UNESCO’s 1968 and 1981 report on global
youth indicates, conditions considerably worse for the young while they are young
(worldwide) than they had been when the boomers were emerging into adulthood. In his
description of the 1981 UNESCO report on global youth in Youth, Murder, Spectacle,
Charles distinguishes between Generation X and Thatcher’s Children and the previous
generation. He states that:

the 1981 report suggests that “the key words in the experience of young

people in the coming decade are going to be: ‘scarcity,’ ‘unemployment,’

‘underemployment,’ ‘ill-employment,’ ‘anxiety,’ ‘defensiveness,’

‘pragmatism,’ and even subsistence’ and ‘survival”’... The terms chosen

by UNESCO to characterize the youth of the then-approaching decade of

the 19805 demonstrate a striking prescience. UNESCO predicted correctly

that “if the 605 challenged certain categories of youth in certain parts of
the world with a crisis of culture, ideas and institutions, the 19805 will

 

88ibid.
56

confront a new generation with a concrete, structural crisis of chronic
. . . . 9
economic uncertainty and even deprivation” (3). 8

According to both Lawrence Grossberg and Christine Grifﬁn, it is the New Right that are
responsible for such a denial and positioning of youth. Grossberg describes implicates the
right when he states that during the 19805 and 905, “a highly politicized and largely
conservative agenda emphasized the threats to children and the ways the “system,”
having failed the children, was producing a generation of monsters” (37). But, as Grifﬁn
indicates, rarely is the ‘system’ implicated in the failure of youth. She argues that “[t]he
everyday operations of international capitalism or patriarchal power relations are seldom
represented as a source of the problem” (10). While Grossberg criticizes assumptions
about globalization, arguing that the ‘inevitable forces’ of the global are used as
convenient excuses for youth exploitation by the far right, his argument in Caught in the
Crossﬁre Kids, Politics and America ’s Future essentially supports Grifﬁn’s notion: he
illustrates how few solutions have been offered to remedy the system; instead, youth are
‘remedied’ by constant surveillance, monitoring, and discipline (25-36).

Due to unreasonable assumptions, representations, and stereotypes surrounding
the idea of both youth and young people, the young have been subjected to harsh social
and economic restrictions, institutional discrimination, and constant adult surveillance; in
addition, many were denied the right to national identity. In addition, as Grossberg

argues, young people are often blamed for their condition.90

 

89Acland indicates how the 1968 UNESCO study used keywords such as “confrontation-contestation,”
“counter power,” and “youth culture,” in Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics of Youth in
Crisis, ed. Janice Radway and Richard Johnson (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995).

90Grossberg 23.
57

In her essay “Conceptualizing and Theorizing Youth: Global Perspectives” global
youth researcher Vappu Tyyska provides a cogent and expansive explanation as to why
and when young people in the West became disenfranchised and disillusioned (7). She
states:

Employers and the state have created, over more than a century, a system
in which youth are deprived of full access to economic and political rights.
They are processed through an education system that creates credentials,
while the jobs in the labour [sic] market do not require the kind of
extensive education that young people are made to believe they need...
Rather than having access to economic institutions, youth are exploited as
an underpaid working mass, and form a convenient ‘target-market’ for
goods that are sold to them as part of a ready-made package of corporate
driven youth culture. This process has escalated since the 19705 with the
neo-conservative and neo-liberal state policies in Western industrialized
countries (7).”
Unlike many mainstream studies on the young that employ “the victim-blaming
thesis in the search for causes of speciﬁc phenomena” (Grifﬁn, 3),92 Tyyska’s
argument points out how youth are disenfranchised as a result of national structural
inequities. In essence, she explains how young people are tricked into believing in a
social and political system that negates and demonizes them for not being able to
fulﬁll the false hopes of adults. While she describes the problem as existent
throughout the century, her argument deﬁnes contemporary youth—those that have
been young since the 19705—as speciﬁc and located within a speciﬁc position.

Statistical evidence compiled in the US and the UK during the 19805 further

supports UNESCO’s ﬁndings, proving how during the late capitalist era, social, cultural,

 

91For further discussion of neo-conservative and neo-liberal state policies in the US and their effects on
youth see Grossberg, Caught in the Crossﬁre.

92Christine Grifﬁn distinguishes between mainstream youth studies that are conservative, positivist, and
apolitical, and “characterized by the tendency to investigate young people as both the source and the victim

of a series of ‘social problems , and radical youth studies that deconstruct youth as a category and the
‘social problem’ hypothesis (3).

58

and economic conditions for youth have worsened."3 For instance, unemployment ﬁgures
in the US show that, despite the decrease in youth population in the United States, in the
19705 unemployment stood at around 19% for 16-19 year olds, increasing to an all time
high of 23% by 1982 and a gradual decline to 15% by the end of the decade. As Christine
Grifﬁn argues, it is difﬁcult to establish unemployment rates for teens in Britain as the
data is not available, however, she does point to studies—such as Paul Osterman’s
Getting Started—that show how “the characteristics of the British and US youth labour
[sic] markets are remarkably similar” (36). Mica Nava points out, there were “widespread
cuts in most areas of the social services” (91) in the UK that led to a reduction of social
programs and amenities for youth, including unemployment beneﬁt. Hilary Nunn
describes education was reduced to a commodity (115). In the US poverty among
children and youths increased by 40% between 1979 and 1993, as access to healthcare
and adequate education declined (Grossberg 62).“

Tyyska argues that the ‘perpetuation’ and ‘disenfranchisement’ of young people
proven by such statistics prevents the young “from attaining full civil, political, and
social citizenship rights” (1 1). This is of central concern to my project because I
speculate that one of the reasons why young people are drawn to the famine relief
movements of both the 805 and today is that such movements allow them to renegotiate
the ways they are deﬁned and identify, and to prove themselves worthy of both the

responsibilities and rights that national subject-hood entails. However, I am also

 

93Like Christine Grifﬁn, I am wary of the use of statistical data as it cannot only be misleading, and like
youth studies and pedagogy scholar, Henry Giroux, I am also aware that statistics often appear ‘abstract’.
Nevertheless, in this instance they prove insightful for a number of reasons. Firstly, such statistics indicate
why young people during the 19805 needed to establish voice and agency. And, secondly, these statistics
show us, if only in a superﬁcial manner, how the US and the UK were so closely aligned in terms of
ideology and policy during this period.
94See Grossberg 62.

59

cognizant of the fact that global movements do not ‘provide’ for all young people and,
even those that gain through their participation still have time to wait until their efforts
are fully recognized by the nation state.

Youth scholar Susan Littwin’s study, The Postponed Generation: Why America 's
Grown Up Kids are Growing Up Later argues that “American adolescents now require
over 10 years after the onset of puberty (usually the early teens) to become adults”
(Shary, 22). In both the United States and Britain the possibility of maturing to
adulthood, of gaining the right to citizenship becomes less likely for many, especially the
poor, youth of color, and girls. John F iske in Media Matters and Henry Giroux in
Fugitive Cultures extensively illustrate that many African American youths never attain
equality or the rights to citizenship. Mica Nava explains in Changing Cultures:
Feminism, Youth and Consumerism that “most women never acquire ‘adult’ status and
the social power that accompanies it” because women’s “state of prolonged dependency
and infantalization——of femininity—may be disturbed in early adulthood only to be
recomposed at the moment of marriage” (82). And Grifﬁn indicates how non-
heterosexual youths are denied adult status (20).95

What these youth studies and statistics indicate is that youth throughout the
United States and Britain were in desperate need to ﬁnd new ways not only to express
and deﬁne themselves, but also to affect deﬁnitions of social responsibility and
citizenship to allow for their own inclusion. And, the unforeseen consequences of their

participation (in their capacity as a compassionate consumer marker) still have positive

 

95For instance, in the UK the 1988 Local Government Act forbade local authorities from “promoting
teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”
(the act was repealed by New Labour Parliament in November 2003). For further information regarding
this act see: http://www.dg.dial.pipex.com/history/timeline.shtrnl

6O

ramiﬁcations for both today’s youth and those experiencing hardships in the developing
World. As a result of philanthropic urges and compassionate consumer impulses, NGOs
worldwide raise considerable amounts of supports and funds for those in need, and do so
in a way that provides compassionate youth consumers with a sense of purpose and a
global role.
Benefiting Youths

The famine relief movement was a politicized movement that hailed participants
as compassionate consumers and allowed said participants to establish themselves as
active, functioning, social assets. As people that not only contributed to their national
economies, but also supported the notions of moral order and capitalist pursuits espoused
by their leaders, youths proved themselves worthy citizens. However, unlike their
leaders, such youths presented themselves as cosmopolitan as opposed to being
isolationist. This is because the famine relief movement offered youths the opportunity to
be a part of a global community while, at the same time, supporting their national
economies. Youths could perceive of themselves as active within a world scene because
they empathized with and shared experiences with famine victims in Ethiopia, because
they were integral in the alleviation of a shared suffering, and because—as a rock
community and market force—they were in part responsible for choosing which UK and
US popular culture texts were to be marketed around the globe.96 The illusion of a one-

world community (emphasized in the early 21St Century by campaigns like the One

 

96F or a discussion of the Anglo-American dominance of the ‘international’ music industry that challenges
outmoded notions of US and UK cultural imperialism—providing as much agencies to those foreign
markets that receive texts as the Anglo-American producers that create them and Anglo-American
audiences that inﬂuence the market—see Desmond Hesmondhalgh, “Globalisation and Cultural
Imperialism: A Case Study of the Music Industry,” Globalisation and the Third World (London & New
York: Routledge, 1998) 164-84.

61

campaign) was further solidiﬁed when, among others, the both the organizers and
sponsors of the famine relief movement (the main sponsors being Pepsi, AT&T, Kodak-
Eastrnan, and Chevrolet) used the promise of a global community to appeal to potential
consumers.

While the famine relief movement was commercialized, and the notion of a one-
world community proved as fruitful to multi-national corporations as it did to youthful
psyches in the US and the UK, it would be dismissive to either view the movement as
apolitical or to assume that famine relief had an impact only on a global level.

The famine relief movement can be described as a cultural site in which
compassionate consumer texts and commodities were produced and received. It was,
however, a postmodern site where multiple, contradictory ideologies intersected. The site
can be described as informed by and constructed by a combination of Christian and
colonial ideologies (hence the consumerism, the compassion, and the production of texts
that rely upon Christian imagery for meaning and use Africa as a convenient space in
which to play out Western fantasies), as well as by the left and right, but with no real
allegiance to any one in particular.

The consequence of these intersections was not only the creation of the new youth
site in which ideological contradictions and paradoxes were accepted, but also a shiﬁ in
nature of the ideologies that intersected there. For instance, practices, experiences,
discourses, and identities through which compassionate consumerism was inscribed,
enacted, and reproduced challenged Right-Wing notions of compassionate conservatism
to such an extent that led both Reagan himself, and Thatcher’s Trade and Industry

Secretary Norman Tebbitt, to commend the movement. Another example of the ways in

62

which established ideologies were altered by the famine relief movement would be the
fact that, as a result of the emergence and ethic of compassionate consumerism, British
and US youths had the ability to develop complex relationships the Ethiopian famine
victims, that is to experience a shared vulnerability with those positioned as Other,
instead of the simplistic hierarchial relationships advocated by traditional colonial
ideologies. While colonial ideology informed the ethnocentrism apparent in famine relief
texts such as “Do They Know Its Christmas” and “We Are the World,” such ideologies
do not remain static within the famine relief site.

In having an effect upon the ideologies that intersected throughout the movement,
both the ethic of compassionate consumerism and famine relief movement can be
described as politicized and subversive. The creation of the famine relief site and the
shifts in ideologies intersecting there not only affected change, but allowed youth a
renewed mobility and agency between sites and within the conﬁnes of changing
ideological positions. This mobility and activity allowed youths to become involved in

and empowered simultaneously within local, national, and the world scenes.97

 

97For example, when young Americans watched “We Are the World” on MTV, they not only had the
potential to belong to a local scene (as Jennifer Hurley explains in “Music Video and the Construction of
Gendered Subjectivity (Or How Being a Music Video Junkie Turned Me into a F eminist)” watching
music video provides youths with “a sense of belonging. . .and can even promote identiﬁcation within
particular subcultures” (332). Watching video also provides viewers the potential—as receivers,
producers, and consumers of commodities and merchandise—to act within their national scene by
contributing to their national economies and their national cultural repertoire of ‘borrowed’ memories,
and to act within the global sphere by helping to determine which US commodities are exported and
becoming part of a larger, global community of compassionate consumers.

63

Chapter Two
Compassionate Consumerism and the Famine Logo: The Ethiopian
Madonna with Child as Iconic Advertisement

“We shall control the forces of nature!” Ethiopian Govt.
slogan circa 1984

Although major newspapers throughout the West had predicted the Ethiopian
famine in 1983, it was not until BBC correspondent Michael Buerk accompanied
VisNews cameraman Mohammed Amin to a refugee camp in Korem (a northern province
of Ethiopia), in October 1984, that the extent of the famine was exposed to over 470
million television viewers worldwide.98 Aired in the fall of 1984, the ﬁlm became a
blueprint for all future representations of African famine, by beginning what was to
become a continuous stream of atrocious images of dying Africans within Western
popular culture texts. The report is seminal in the history of media famine coverage. It
not only precipitated a global famine relief movement and cemented images of
Ethiopians as frail and starving in the minds of Western viewers; but it also set the
precedent for future media coverage of African famines (among other “natural disasters”
in the Third World), by constructing appropriate symbolic victims and establishing
dichotomous logic that deﬁned and separated the good players from the evil-doers, as
well as the African ‘victims’ from the Western donors.

While images of emaciated and dying Third World bodies were not novel for
Western audiences, the ways in which the famine was constructed, even created, differed
from either previous news depictions or ﬁctional portrayals of Third World catastrophes.

This was in part due to the advances in visual, communication, and satellite technologies

 

98In The Ethiopian Famine Angela Penrose (administrator of the University Relief and Rehabilitation
organization) provides the viewing ﬁgures for the Buerk/Amin documentary; the report was seen by over
30 million viewers in the UK. and the US. in October and, according to the BBC, “was later shown by 425
of the world’s broadcasting organisations with a total audience of 470 million” (154).

64

during the 19805, advances that allowed for a wider dissemination of more instantaneous
news stories and images. Such technologies provoked a shift in media dominance away
from print media.

In this chapter, I examine the ﬁrst major television ‘exposé’ of the 1984-85
Ethiopian famine in an attempt to uncover the ways in which scenes of suffering were
commodiﬁed and famine victims were constructed in Western consciousness. I ask why
the television media chose to report on the famine in October 1984? What were the local
and global conditions that allowed for the famine to take precedence over news of other
Third World nations and peoples afﬂicted and suffering from natural and man-made
catastrophes at the same time? What made the Ethiopian famine images grab the hearts
and minds of the Western media and television viewers in late 1984 when, only a few
months before news and print news agencies in both the US. and the UK had turned
down pictures produced by photojoumalists such as Denver’s Tony Suau? And, why did
the ethic of compassionate consumerism, an ethic that helped to motivate the famine
relief movement, emerge out of the televised Buerk/Amin report?

I suggest that Ethiopia became a site of media interest for a multitude of reasons,
as a result of global politics and economics, local coincidences, and Western audience
needs and desires. And I show how, as a result of its mass appeal and impact, Buerk and
Amin’s treatment of the Ethiopian famine—like the ethic of compassionate consumerism
that emerged out of their ﬁlm—helped set the precedent for almost all future depictions
and coverage of famine in Africa, in the same way that aid organizations’ treatment of the
Ethiopian famine lay the groundwork for future Third World aid programs.

Through an analysis of one particular trope common in the Buerk/ Amin famine

65

documentary (and many later depictions of famine), the Madonna with Child icon, 1
illustrate how the individual, starving victim depicted in such coverage functions as a veil
that conceals, on one hand, the causes and conditions of famine, and on the other,
reinforced existing political ideologies and ethnocentric assumptions of the media and
media audiences. And, through an examination of the ways in which the footage was
disseminated and displayed—in particular the role of television news in the 19805 and the
practices of dominant news agencies—I attempt to account for the major impact that the
footage had upon viewers around the world; and identify how, like almost all major
human rights movements, the global famine relief movement spawned activism on
national levels (Tsutsui & Wotipka, 588).

Television became the primary media outlet that shouldered “the heavy
responsibility for deciding what is, and what is not ‘news’—in effect, for creating the
news” (Brauman, 153). Television functions in ways different than still photography and
cinema; its format, the fact that it could be accessed from almost every US. and UK.
home on a daily basis, and the speed at which news and images could be displayed and
disseminated, altered the ways in which famine was specularized and famine viewers
were interpellated. More diverse audiences could be reached more easily than, say, ten
years before, when British reporter Jonathan Dimbleby produced a documentary—“The
Unknown Famine”——exposing a prior famine in Ethiopia.

Television has the ability to present news items that appealed to many; as John
F iske argues, “the television text has to be read and enjoyed by a diversity of social
groups, so its meaning must be capable of being inﬂected in a number of different ways.

The text is therefore more polysemic” (Television Culture, 66). However, the polysemic

66

nature of television also allows for the ideological underpinnings of Western news items
to be veiled in new and more diverse ways. Although he does not refer speciﬁcally to
television, or the results of the shift toward television’s dominance, Edward Said provides
insight into how this particular veiling of ideology can be read as speciﬁc to the era of
late-capitalism. He argues that “in our age of media-produced attitudes, the ideological
insistence of a culture drawing attention to itself as superior has given way to a culture
whose canons and standards are invisible to the degree that they are ‘natural’, ‘objective’,
and ‘real’ (9). Arguably, television—the pace at which images are produced,
disseminated, and blur together—most effectively deﬂects attention away from the means
of production, the discourses that inform, and the ideologies that underpin the ‘news’.
Discovering Famine/Suffering

Under the rule of Haile Selassie (1930-36 & 1941-1974) Ethiopia established
itself as an empire, unhindered—for the most part—by the interference of European
imperial powers and thus by colonial rule.” Despite the brutality of his reign and his
willingness to use of famine as a tool to prevent peasant insurgence, the US. government
ﬁnancially and ideologically backed Selassie. According to writer Nega Mezlekia, in
Notes from a Hyena 's Belly, Ethiopia received more than one half of US. foreign aid to

black Africa during the 19705; US. military aid to the regime was over $270 million; and

 

99Italy occupied Ethiopia for a brief period, from 1936-41. For detailed discussion of Italian and British
maneuvers in the Horn see David A Korn, Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine (Lanham, MD. & London:
University Press of America, 1990) and Berkeley, Bill. The Graves are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and
Power in the Heart of Africa. (New York: Basic Books, 2001).

67

economic aid amounted to over $350 million, (121).100 The coup of 1974 felled Selassie.
He was replaced by a Marxist, Mengistu Haile Mariam, leader of the Workers Party.
Mengistu’s secession resulted in a shift in alliances. No longer in league with the US,
Mengistu turned to the Soviet for economic and ideological support.101 The shift from
US. to U.S.S.R’s inﬂuence, Ethiopia’s prime position as gas route to the Red Sea, and
Ethiopia’s ongoing conﬂict with US and UK backed regions of the Horn of Africa, made
the former empire a highly contested space.102 Western governments, whose support of
human right initiatives and aid distribution decisions were tied to “domestic politics”
(Tsutsui & Wotipka, 594), withdrew aid from Ethiopia in an attempt to show the public at
home that they were tough on communists. Ethiopia, as a newly formed Marxist state,

thus functioned as a pawn, always keenly observed and manipulated by both sides of the

 

looIn Notes From a Hyena ’s Belly Ethiopian writer, Nega Mezlekia, describes not only the amount of aid
Western governments (in particular the US) provided Ethiopia throughout the 705, but the inappropriate
ways in which much of the aid was channeled, and the insufﬁciencies of foreign aid distribution during the
19705 ( 122). He describes how, in 1974, international aid agencies in Ethiopia, like international
governments involved in Ethiopian politics, did little to help those in need, being faced, that is, with the
quandary: “whether to save lives or save face for the Emperor.” As Mezlekia states, “The decision was to
do nothing” (122). The aid community was not so reticent to react to the famine in 1984, although it is
questionable whether or not famine aid actually helped famine victims. Mezlekia explains how, during the
mid -I9805 famine, food supplies were either left to rot at ports or sent to support Ethiopian military
campaigns, not to people in need (347). However, according to Richard W. Solberg in his idealistic
narrative Miracle in Ethiopia, relief agencies were not apathetic to the famine, but suffered aid setbacks
due to the “ineffectiveness of the information networks that possessed the tragic facts and made diligent
efforts to report them (7). For a detailed discussion of the successes and failures of aid in Ethiopia, see
Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine. (Lanham, MD. & London: University Press of America, 1990).

101See David A Korn, Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine (Lanham, MD. & London: University Press of
America, 1990) for more detailed statistics and information pertaining to Soviet involvement in Ethiopia.

102In the introduction to Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine, David A. Korn implies that—as both Britain
and France abandoned their interests in Ethiopia, and Italy failed to maintain the colony, Ethiopia did not
suffer the same affects of colonialism as any other colonized African nation (2). Although Kom’s
assumption that there is, somehow, an ‘authentic’ African nation untouched by colonialism is somewhat
narrow and naive, his point is valid. The fact that Ethiopia was not a colony, except for its brief occupation
by Mussolini’s Italy (1936-41), but still suffers the long term effect of colonial rule proves that colonialism
is more than occupation; this either complicates tidy theories of First and Third World interactions, limited
distinctions between the colony and the postcolonial nation state (and simplistic dialectic theories that posit
the West as dominant, and the Third World as non-participant); or implies that Africa no longer under the
‘rule’ of former colonies, but, as a result of late capitalism, suffers under and participates within the
processes of globalization that affect all nations in the Hom—previously colonized or not—in similar ways.

68

Cold War conﬂict. As a contested political space, Ethiopia suffered from often made
headline news throughout the late 705 and early 805. However, this semi-politicized news
did not necessarily reach mass audiences in either the US. or the UK. as it was oﬁen
presented by less popular broadsheets such as The London Times, The New York Times,
The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal and not by the tabloid or television
news media.103
In The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and lntemational
Charity, aid worker turned journalist Michael Maren explains how media coverage of

104 The ﬁrst step, where brief news items are

famine typically progresses in ﬁve steps.
unaccompanied by images of famine, the “stories warn of huge populations in danger of
famine if something is not clone” (205), had already been reached prior to Buerk and
Amin’s trip to Ethiopia. The broadsheets had printed the predictions, but these
‘predictions’ of famine were of little interest or consequence to more popular news
producers. As pointed out by a number of critics—including Maren—predictions are not
really considered news. Journalist and media critic Susan Moeller indicates “the problem
with famine... is that they [starving people] just aren’t considered newsworthy until the
dying begins” (34). In Surrender or Starve travel writer and journalist Robert D. Kaplan
reinforces Moeller’s notion that famine footage must present dying in order to appeal to

Western audiences when he describes how the not-yet-dying people of Tug Wajale B (a

camp with 50,000 Oromo refugees) were not worth airtime:

 

103866 Robert Kaplan, Surrender or Starve: The Wars Behind the Famine. (Boulder: Westview Press,
1988) for speciﬁc examples.

104The coverage of the Ethiopian famine in the mid-805 does not accurately follow these steps; rather, it

acts as the blueprint for further famine coverage. By the time of the 1991 Somalian famine, the famine
Maren writes most of, these steps were fully established.

69

Not beautiful and not starving, these people made no impression. They

were just a large mass, signiﬁcant only in their numbers. Television could

do nothing with them (Kaplan, 2).

Despite their plight, the refugees of Tug Wajale B were not spectacular or
desperate enough to be photographed or ﬁlmed. Economist Alexander De Waal stresses
how for Westerners famine is not news until the dying starts when, in Famine That Kills,
he emphasizes how, in order to appeal—to be palatable for consumption—famine
sufferers, must be remarkable.105 Seemingly, only death makes Ethiopians remarkable on
US. and UK. television. It was not until the starving started to die in droves that the
Western popular media paid them much attention. By the time that Buerk and Amin
arrived in Korem, over one hundred Ethiopian refugees were dying each day.106
However, Buerk and Amin had not been the ﬁrst to arrive in Ethiopia or to photograph
the famine; nevertheless, it was their ﬁlm that made the headlines globally and sparked
the famine relief movement.

Another reason why both print and television news of Africa was sparse during
the 19805 was the fact that, since the 19605, “as part of a general reduction in coverage of
all foreign news” (Palmer, 242), there had been a decline in press coverage of Aﬁica and
African events and a severe reduction in the number of foreign correspondents housed in

Africa. In his synopsis of presentations at the 1986 African Studies of the United

 

105 In fact, as Alexander De Waal illustrates in Famine That Kills, the nature and conditions of famine are
radically misunderstood in the West. De Waal argues that the term itself is inaccurate as, for those used to
famine, the word does not necessarily signify death, but a dry season. H argues that “[e]ven when a famine
does kill, it does not follow that killing is the central experience of the famine: the focus need not be on
death. In part it is an experience: famines remain landmarks of suffering in the consciousness of peoples
(13). ‘
106Susan Moeller, Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sells Disease, War, Famine and Death. New
York & London, Routledge, 1999 (112).

70

Kingdom sponsored symposium in “Africa in the Media,” award winning ﬁlmmaker
Robin Palmer describes how “[u]ntil Gary Strieker opened a bureau for CNN in
Nairobi recently, there had not been a single staff correspondent or cameraman from a
British or American television network resident in Black Africa, though all were present
in South Africa” (246). As a result, much of the coverage of Aﬁica shown around the
globe in the 805 and even the early 905—coverage that rarely focused on anything other
than violence in South Africa, famine in drought stricken areas, or visits from foreign
dignitaries—was made up of stock footage. Which stock footage was acceptable for
general consumption was, according to ﬁlm and media scholar Chris Paterson,
determined by a handful of editors who see “the pictures and sound they provide as
wholly objective representations of news events, commodities to be sold to anyone who
will pay, to use as they wish in their nightly newcasts.107 It is true that the Buerk/Amin
documentary was aired in the UK. and then the US. simply because the images Amin
produced shocked, horriﬁed and elicited sympathy among newscasters and editors at both
the BBC and NBC head quarters (Harrison and Palmer 123). However, as academic Paul
Harrison, ﬁlmmaker Robin Palmer, and Chris Paterson indicate, it was a feat that the
footage was even ﬁlmed.

In News Out of Africa: Biafra to Band Aid, Paul Harrison and Robin Palmer,
provide some insight into why Buerk and Amin’s portrayal of the famine, unlike that of
their predecessors, suddenly received popular televised coverage. In their discussion of

the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm, Palmer and Harrison demonstrate that the story behind the ﬁlm’s

 

107For information regarding how the South African government used the ﬁlm as proof of the failures of a
black government see , see Paul Harrison & Robin Palmer. News Out of Africa: Biafra to Band Aid.
(London: Hilary Shipman, 1986) 133.

71

production and dissemination was the result of a series of individual motivations, local
events, coincidences, and moments of compassion. The history of famine relief
movements is certainly littered with compassionate acts and startling ingenuity of
numerous male journalists and celebrities, the actions of whom precipitated signiﬁcant
and permanent changes in aid campaigns, policy, and media coverage and, ultimately,
changed the face of the aid industry. Palmer and Harrison’s combined narrative
emphasizes how this change was precipitated as much by a series of local coincidences
and the individual assumptions of a number of media producers, as it was by larger global
factors. The visual, narrative, editing, and production/distribution choices made by just a
few men in the media industry had such an impact on both representations of Aﬁica and
Western assumptions.

According to British journalist Peter Gill, the only reason why BBC
correspondent for South Aﬁica, Michael Buerk had leave to visit Ethiopia was because
there was little going on in South Africa that week. And, as Harrison and Palmer describe
in News, Buerk stumbled upon the Ethiopian famine when, in July of 1984, he realized
that he could not go as planned to Mozambique to “put together a ﬁve-minute BBC
appeal... in some area where famine was a particular problem” (107). Because the
“request [for the appeal] had come in ridiculously late” and because “the logistics of
trying to get into northern Mozambique and out again on the time scale were just
impossible” (107), Buerk—under the advisement of Paddy Coulter, the head of
communications at Oxfam—decided to visit Ethiopia where “things were getting
desperate” (108). Through Coulter, Buerk was paired with VisNews cameraman

Mohammed Amin, but Amin could not travel to Ethiopia due to prior engagements.

72

Buerk traveled with a crew to Wolaita in South Eastern Ethiopia to ﬁlm an appeal that
was aired in the UK, on the BBC and Channel 4, at the end of July. The appeal raised
£10 million but, as implied by Rony Brauman (President of Médecins Sans Frontieres,
1982-94, and co-founder/director of Liberté sans Frontieres, 1984-88), the effort paled in
signiﬁcance to Buerk and Amin’s documentary ﬁlm. As Brauman states, “the ﬁrst ﬁlm
of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia fail[ed] to send more that a slight shiver down the spine of
the UK. while the second, broadcast three months later, galvanized the entire Western
world into action” (149).

With the aid of Amin’s crew, Buerk gained an entry visa and returned to Ethiopia
in October of the same year to help make the ﬁlm that “galvanized” the West to act on
behalf of the starving.108 Buerk and Amin traveled to Korem, in Northern Ethiopia, where
they ﬁlmed the dying on Betacam cameras, fearing that their batteries would run out
“before they’d ﬁnished ﬁlming” (Harrison & Palmer, 119). Buerk ﬂew with the footage
overnight to London, writing his commentary on the way. The footage was aired the
following day on the BBC ’5 Nine O’clock News and, a day later, on NBC in the US. In
an atypical move, NBC decided to keep Buerk’s voice as commentary, however, Tom
Brokaw provided a new name for the shortened US version of the documentary: he called
it “The Faces of Death.”

Arguably, the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm, unlike any of its predecessors, “galvanized the
entire Western world” for a number of reasons. First, the combined skills of Buerk as a

narrator and Amin as a ﬁlmmaker resulted in the creation of a profound, visually

 

108For full account of how Amin was instrumental in Buerk’s return, the problems with obtaining visas,
and the rivalry between Amin’s Viz-News and Buerk’s BBC, see Harrison & Palmer. News Out of Africa:
Biafra to Band Aid.

73

compelling ﬁlm. Second, the famine had reached epic proportions, the situation has
surpassed the point of “getting desperate,” and the dying had begun. Such images of
famine made captivating televised news: few viewers could witness such excessive
suffering (the likes of which had not been shown on television) without experiencing
some kind of sympathy or pity. Third, the types of images Buerk and Amin produced
tended to render the unfamiliar familiar and unthreatening, providing viewers with safe
access to that which is typically ritually expunged: the abject. Fourth, unlike in July,
when the Olympics dominated the news (particularly in the United States), the October
ﬁlm happened to be produced and aired at a time when there was little else worth
watching.
Constructing Suffering

The content of the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm was both shocking and familiar: shocking
because of the scale of the famine, the unbelievable amount of people affected, and the
vivid quality images that transported the viewer to the site of the catastrophe; familiar
because they are rendered so by Buerk’s commentary that not only places the famine
within a Christian framework that Western viewers can understand, but also because both
his words and Amin’s images clearly demarcate the victims, the “only familiar
landmark[s] in [this] merciless, anachronistic landscape” (Brauman,152), and transform
said victims into readable symbols, into signiﬁcations of famine.

The predominant symbol of famine footage is, of course, the starving child. As

Moeller states, “starving babies are the famine icon... the media’s coverage of the famine

74

 

 

is distilled down into the simple iconic image of the starving infant” (98).109 Whether
pictured as crying or dying, as an emaciated skeleton with a swollen belly or with a smile
and a plastic bowl in hand, the starving child is a sympathetic image that evokes both
outrage and pity in the Western viewer. However, I argue that the impact of the
Buerk/Amin famine footage cannot be simply reduced to the evocative nature of images
of dying children—previous footage had relied on such aged symbols.110 And, because
the starving child image has been analyzed in relative detail, I’d like to focus on an image
that is less prevalent in earlier footage of Third World catastrophe: the Madonna and
Child symbol. Through the analysis of this iconic image, it is possible to expose the
ideologies underpinning the production of famine footage and the construction of the
famine victim. Despite it uses in earlier reform movements, the Madonna with Child
symbol is an under analyzed symbol that is as prevalent today as it is in the Buerk/Amin
documentary. Through an analysis of the Madonna with Child pairing played upon and
parodied both in Buerk’s narrative and Amin’s footage, I expose the ways in which
famine symbols are constructed and speculate as to their intrinsic appeal for Western
audiences, and I attempt to unravel the implications of how, at least in the context of
famine coverage, “television provides [for the viewer] a common symbolic experience

and a common discourse, a set of shared formal conventions that are so important to a

 

109The starving child functions not only as a symbol of famine, but comes to stand for Ethiopia as a nation.
This is made most evident when, even after the famine, when the Marxist government of Ethiopia had been
overthrown and general elections were to be held, the British publication The Economist used an image of a
lone (motherless) dying child to accompany the story. The absence of the mother is telling: why depict a
starving orphan—devoid of parental or institutional support—to represent an election?

110For detailed analyses of the role of the child in famine footage see Susan Moeller, Compassion
Fatigue:H0w the Media Sells Disease, War, Famine and Death. New York & London, Routledge, 1999. &
Arthur Kleinman and Joan Kleinman, “The Appeal of Experience; The Dismay of Images: Cultural
Appropriations of Suffering in Our Time.” Social Suﬂering Ed. Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das, & Margaret
Lock. Berkeley, LA. & London: University of California Press, 1997.

75

folk. culture” (F iske, 80).

Apolitical, playing on both the fears and voyeuristic desires of Western audiences,
the Buerk/Amin documentary brought to light (for Western audiences) the severity and
symbolism of mass famine in Ethiopia. In his narrative, Buerk humbly describes the
famine as ‘biblical’, an adjective that not only speaks to the way in which Amin captures
images of dying Ethiopians, but also inﬂuences Western viewers interpretations of the
images they see. As an establishing shot reveals a dirty, dusty plain ﬁlled with ragged
starving people, Buerk narrates: “. .. the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on
the plane, it lights up a biblical famine.” In the same way, both Amin’s footage and
Buerk’s narrative will shed light upon, expose, the famine as an event. And, for any
Western viewer likely to forget the biblical analogy, if the image of the donkey in the
opening wide shot did not impress it enough upon the viewer, both ﬁlmmaker and
journalist continuously reiterate the biblical nature of the scene by producing images and
narrative, of biblical proportions, that replicate the iconic Madonna with child image.

The Madonna with Child construction proves to be a useful visual symbol, not
only because it immediately renders the unfamiliar familiar; but because it also
strengthens the impact of the shocking footage while containing the psychical threat that
the abject and emaciated African woman poses to the Western viewer. in such footage,
the abject mother is not simply contained within the boundaries of the refugee camp, or

simply within the frame of the camera or screen, but also by Western mythology.l ” She

 

111She may be contained and rendered unthreatening, but that is not to say that she is never under threat. In
“Refugee Camps as Conﬂict Zones: The Politics of Gender,” Jennifer Hyndman describes the dangers of
refugee camps for women, and the types of strategies being employed by the lntemational community and
aid agencies to help make women more safe in camps such as those populated by Somali refugees on the
borders of Kenya during the mid-905. In Giles, Wenona & Hyndman. Ed. Sites of Violence: Gender and
Conﬂict Zones Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2004.

76

becomes meaningful and comprehensible when positioned as a Mary-like ﬁgure. She is
reduced to an age-old symbol, so layered with ideological meaning, that she is no longer
allowed to exist as a woman, as a mother, as a citizen, or as a subject.

Buerk and Amin’s reliance on the Madonna with Child image to tell part of the
story to the viewers is not necessarily an innovative idea. The iconic image had been
evoked at the turn of the Twentieth Century by social reformers/ photographers Jacob
Riis and Lewis Hine, who took a series of photographs of women and children in the
Madonna with Child pose to arouse sympathy and elicit charity for the poor of New York

City.

 

Fig. 1. Jacob Riis, “Italian Mother and Baby, Fig. 2. Lewis Hine, “Ellis Island Madonna”
Ragpicker” ca. 1889-90; rpt. in The Complete 1905; kept in George Eastman House Still
Photographic Work of Jacob A. Riis, Ed. Photograph Archive, New York.

Robert J. Doherty (Boston: G K Hall

Publishers, 1987).

77

   

  

“I r—‘-- ‘.

L , . . "' - -' w
Fig. 3. Lewis Hine, “Italian Madonna” 1905; Fig. 4. Lewis Hine, “Madonna of the

 

kept in George Eastman House Still Photograph Tenements” 1905; kept in George Eastman
Archive, New York. House Still Photograph Archive, New York.

It is no accident that Amin/Buerk would rely on such obvious imagery to illicit sympathy
for famine victims. Due to its religious connotations, the image was recognizable; it had
proven fruitful in other, unrelated social movements; and it allowed for the construction
of the ideal victim. The Madonna image proves effective because it draws on a long
tradition of depicting female humility and suffering. When looking at her, potential
donors are exposed to an image of an innocent victim that appears (because she is
constructed to appear so) too ashamed to look at the camera or to beg for help. She is the
deserving poor—the humble and meek victim of circumstance. Rony Brauman argues, it
is this type of ‘pure’ victim that Westerners prefer to see. He states that, within famine
footage, “the only familiar landmark in this merciless, anachronistic landscape is this
image of the victim,” and that, in order for the media to pay said victims any attention,
they must appear to be “100 per cent victim, a non-participant” (154). Since the

Fourteenth Century she has been depicted as humble and meek; much like the Ethiopian

78

women in Buerk/Amin’s documentary. “2

 

Fig. 5. Duccio Di Buoninsegna, “Madonna and Fig. 6. Andrea Solario, “Madonna with
Child,” ca. 1300, The Metropolitan Museum of Green Cushion," 1507, Museum of Fine
Art, New York. Art. Budapest.

In none of the Madonna with Child examples above, in neither those images
painted by renaissance artists or those constructed by social reform photographers, does
the Madonna look directly at the viewer. Her gaze is almost always directed downward at
her child or her face betrays a blank look of quiet contemplation. Of course, the
implications of the religious icons differ greatly to the work of Riis and Hine. The former
images present a virgin worthy of God’s praise, but humble in her greatness. The latter
play with the humble virgin image in order to elicit compassion and ﬁnancial support

ﬁom wealthy Christian (speciﬁcally protestant) benefactors.l 1”

Riis and Hine produce
what can be described as modiﬁed replicas or parodies of the Madonna with Christ
designed that play on the notion of humility: they raise awareness and knowledge by

presenting the immigrant mother as a deserving victim of circumstance. The Madonna of

 

1 12Due to the ways in which it has aged and its location in the Palace of the Popes, Avignon. the ﬁrst
recorded painting of the Madonna with Child, Simone Martini's 1341 fresco “Madonna of Humility,”,
cannot be reproduced here. For a detailed description of see Millard Meiss, “The Madonna of Humility”
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 4. (Dec, 1936). pp. 435-465.

1 13For a detailed discussion of Riis’ use of religious imagery to elicit support for social welfare see
Gregory S Jackson. “Cultivating Spiritual Sight: Jacob Riis's Virtual-Tour Narrative and the Visual
Modernization of Protestant Homiletics." Representations. No. 83. (Summer, 2003), pp. 126—166.

79

famine footage differs, however, from the Madonnas of the Renaissance or the New York
social movements: she can be described as more of a dangerously hybrid ‘bad copy,’ than
a ‘humble’ parody.

In “Bad Copies: The Colonial Aesthetic and the Manjaco-Portuguese Encounter”
Eric Gable describes how the ‘bad copy’, which “V.Y. Mudimbe notes is the
objectiﬁcation of the colonialist disgust” (297), is a slippery concept that, in its
ambivalence, creates anxiety within the colonialist and informs “how Westerners come to
imagine people like the Manjaco in the Western Cultural Universe” (299). In his
discussion of Manjaco art, Gable indicates that it is the ‘native’ that chooses to imitate the
European colonials who are, in turn, never sure if they are being honored or being made
fun of. In some respects, and as Gable wishes to stress, this form of “copying” so
undervalued in the West, empowers the colonized individual. In contrast, when I describe
female Ethiopian famine sufferers as evocative of the Madonna ﬁgure, as bad copies of a
Western icon, I am not suggesting that Ethiopian women are empowered by being
positioned thus or that they have any control over their construction as Madonna (their
silence suggests they have no control over being ﬁlmed). I am asserting, however, that as
“bad copy” the Ethiopian Madonna can easily be deplored by Westerners as an inferior
version or an inauthentic replica of the famous religious icon, in the same way that the
‘natives’ who imitated their ‘colonial masters’ were also deplored.

In positioning her as bad copy, Buerk and Amin make it possible for the viewer to
locate her as victim and to sympathize while simultaneously viewing her with disgust.
She is 100% victim, but she does not—in her state of victim-hood—implicate the viewer.

Unlike the Fourteenth Century Virgin Marys, Buerk and Amin’s Madonnas do not

80

necessarily inspire humility among Western viewers, even when said viewers are inspired
toward acts of Christian charity upon witnessing the famine. And Buerk and Amin’s
Madonnas are distinct from both those of the Renaissance and the New York social
reform movement, not only as a result of the way in which Amin’s shots and editing
techniques distance the viewer of famine footage from the victim (such distance is not
possible with stills), but because the women depicted in famine footage are black
Africans.

Amin’s ﬁrst close-up is of a veiled mother holding her child While the shot holds
their images, and the child tries to suck on the cheek of the mother with dry gums, Buerk
describes the scene we are witness to; the images are punctuated with words such as
“hunger,” “desperation,” and “wasted people.” The camera zooms out slightly to reveal
the child’s body, skeletal with ribs protruding. The implication is obvious; unlike
Solario’s fertile, luscious, and bountiful “Madonna with Green Cushion,” this mother
cannot produce milk for her child. Her body is “desperate,” it is her child that suffers
from “hunger,” these are the “wasted people.” Seconds later, in a line of people waiting
for admittance to the camp, another mother with child is made visible. As the camera
tracks down a line of new refugees it lingers upon them if only for a moment. She holds
her child who, in turn, holds her breast. The breast lies limp in the child’s hand,
unproductive and ungiving. The image again implies that African women cannot feed
their children; it insinuates that, in the words of Aﬁican feminist, Ama Ata Aidoo, the
African woman “is breeding too many children she cannot take care of, and for whom she
should not expect other people to pick up the tab. She is hungry and so are her children”

(39). The repetition of the image, now (in the early Twenty-First Century) a

81

photojournalist cliché, only serves to afﬁrm the common Western assumption that this is
not an anomaly, but the norm.

Despite being immediately recognizable, despite its usefulness as a symbol, there
are times when this Madonna-esque image is not employed, perhaps because it is deemed
inappropriate. The next mother and child pairing offers a stark contrast to the previous
Madonnas presented. Approximately one-third of the way through the ﬁhn Amin focuses
the camera upon the head of a child in distress.

At ﬁrst the child appears as peaceful as the previous, recovering child. However,
both the camera movements and Buerk’s narration soon rids the viewer of this
misconception. The camera, which primarily focuses upon the child’s head, quickly
zooms out to present an almost full shot—an establishing shot—of a dying body. The
mother of the child sits at the edge of the bed, unmoving. She is unable to touch her
daughter because of the medical tubes and doctors that surround and separate the child.
On one hand, the space between the mother and child—the replacement of the mother by
Western medical apparatus—serves to reafﬁrm the stereotypical notion that the
unproductive African mother cannot care for her offspring; on the other hand, the space is
indicative of the gulf that separates life and death. Buerk narrates: “This 3-year-old girl
was beyond any help. Unable to take food, attached to a drip, but, too late. The drip was
taken away.” As a way of distancing the audience, giving them time to digest the
implications of the image, the camera then cuts to an image of a doctor removing medical
tubes from the scene; as Buerk states, the child no longer needs them. Seconds later, the
camera cuts back to a medium shot of the child’s body. Buerk informs us that “only

minutes later, while we were ﬁlming, she died.” The mother remains still. She does not

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touch the child even when the tubes have been removed.

As Buerk tells of the girl’s death, in a hushed tone, Amin re—establishes the scene
with a cutback (medium shot) to the upper half of the girl’s body. The camera pauses
there only for an instant before beginning a simultaneous slow tilt downward and zoom
outward, moving from her head to her knees. The purpose of the camera’s maneuvering
is to expose the child’s whole body, to show corporeal death in its entirety. But, as the
camera moves over the warm corpse, an almost unnoticeable white hand (reminiscent of
a “hand of God” perhaps)—anticipating this movement—reaches in from the lower right
side and carefully removes the blanket from the child’s lower half. The result is a full
shot in which the dead child lies almost completely uncovered. Her emaciated legs and
her immature genital area exposed for the whole world to see. Ironically, while they
refuse to depict the act of dying in the Ethiopian refugee camp, Buerk and Amin seem to
have no qualms displaying the genitalia of a dead three year old! One wonders if Western
photojournalists would ever depict a white European or American child thus.

The invasion of the camera’s gaze and the white man’s hand into the dying child’s
space, onto the child’s body, robs the child of all dignity, and yet the offensive nature of
this pornographic image received little comment when aired. This footage is intended to
horrify and shock, to elicit sympathy from Western audiences unfamiliar with the rigors
and tragedies of mass famine. However, the psychic distress such an image may cause for
the viewer is minimalized both by the distancing camera techniques and the ways in
which the mother and child pairing is framed and staged. The rapid zooms and cuts not
only serve to provide the observer with a more complete view of the dying child and her

surroundings; they also serve to literally distance the viewer from the abject body that she

83

or he is so desperate to see. This distance—like the intrusion of the doctor with his
tubes—anesthetizes the image, making it palatable. Buerk’s white hand and hushed
voice, the medical tubes and the doctor’s exit, disrupt the biblical narrative and change
the overall tone of the documentary, if only for a moment. What we see on screen is no
longer biblical tragedy, but the transition of a living female to abject corpse. This image
presents the worst fears of viewers, the closeness of death and abjection, while
maintaining it safely within the camera frame, within an Ethiopian refugee camp. Despite
the presence of the mother at her daughter’s makeshift bedside, the image does not evoke
the iconic Madonna with Child image. The living mother (even if she is on her last legs)
is kept separate from her daughter and remains isolated in her grief. Buerk tells us that
this has happened to her before, that “the mother had lost all her four children, and her
husband.” But, as Aidoo implies, what else do we Western viewers expect in Africa?

The fact that the Madonna with Child framing is not used in this instance is
particularly revealing; it proves the limitations of Christian iconography as sanitizing.
The icon is not replicated here because, to do so, would be to create psychic distress for
the Western viewer. Even in a refugee camp in Northern Ethiopia, during the worst
famine and drought in recorded history, the boundaries between life and death must be
consistently established and reinforced. To display a mother holding her dead child
would violate the taboo that separates the living from the dead. In addition, to present a
live Madonna holding a dead child would also cause irreparable damage to the Madonna
with Child icon.

The ﬁnal image of mother and child in the documentary is again reminiscent of

the Madonna with Child icon, not because it visually mimics the iconic image, but

84

because of the shared bond implied between the mother and the child and the relationship
between the mother/child pairing and the earth. It differs with previous parodies in the
sense that the mother and child depicted are dead and both are completely veiled,
wrapped in a shawl. Their faces are not visible; all that the viewer sees is the feet of
both, intertwined, as Buerk notes “This mother and the baby she bore two months ago,
wrapped together in death.”

There is an air of peace and tranquility to the image of the feet; the covering over
of the bodies implies a respect for the dead. The viewer is again reminded that, even in
Korem, there is a ritualized discarding of that which is abject; order is maintained with
funeral rites and burial rituals. Death is rendered familiar and acceptable through this
ritual. The same ritual of shrouding the dead that enables Ethiopians to maintain
civilization in the face of such trauma is mimicked by the camera’s refusal to invade and
prod beyond the death shroud. This image is possible because it does not violate the
boundary between life and death, but it does serve to reafﬁrm, once again, the inadequacy
of Ethiopian mothers to provide sustenance for their children The succeeding shot of a
man crying, a man we assume to be husband and father to the dead, further strengthens
the inferiority of the Ethiopian family unit, implying that the grieving father is as
impotent and incapable as the dead mother, his wife.

Through the rituals of the media and of Western viewing habits, the African
woman (and thus Africa) as abject, desirable, and taboo, is sanitized. Through careful
mastery of the camera and the editing process, and as a result of the repetition her image
receives, she is rendered unthreatening. As nothing more than a conduit or symbol, a bad

copy of an ideologically heavily-loaded icon, as one that has no subjectivity, agency, or

85

control over her own specularization, the African woman—despite her potential to thrill
or even titillate—becomes nothing more than a corporeal marker to be inscribed as the
viewer sees ﬁt. In essence, she is an empty signiﬁer, to be used as Western image
producers and consumers deemed appropriate, and to be provided meaning only through

the context and composition of the image itself.

86

Chapter Three
Compassionate Consumerism and Generic Entertainment: The Sensationalism of
Televised Images of Famine.

Crushed hopes, youth antics, colonial wars, and winter sports
are alike—are equalized by the camera (Susan Sontag).

I must have asked about the food that they as a family had had
to eat. In response, the farmer lifted his daughter’s ragged
dress over her head. A pathetic, almost skeletal skinniness was
revealed. The shock of her nakedness on the Korem road
seemed to shame the little girl into stopping her tears, it
shamed us into silence (Peter Gill, A Year in the Death of
Africa).

During the 19805 numerous disasters, catastrophes, and atrocities were displayed
on television screens throughout Britain and the US. The bodies of captured and
wounded freedom ﬁghters in Sri Lanka, Grenada, and Northern Ireland; of earthquake
victims in Mexico City and cyclones in Bangladesh; of the unlucky inhabitants of the
cities of Bhopal and Chernobyl; of gay men and hemophiliacs dying of AIDS, all made
major headline news during the era. However, perhaps none more so than the bodies of
Ethiopian famine victims received such expansive and constant media attention.

In Life, Death, and Aid: The Medicins Sans Frontiers Report on World Crisis
Intervention, former president of Médecins Sans Frontieres, Rony Brauman argues that
by the 805 the distinction between television new content and the content of other
mediums was rapidly disappearing.l ‘4 Brauman explains:

Since the early 19805, headlines in the press have largely reﬂected those

of the television news, and the latter now shoulders the heavy

 

114Ironically, the very technologies that enabled the television to dominate also made it impossible to
determine how far television actually dominated other media forms. As Moeller indicates: “Since the
19805, changes in computer and satellite technologies, mergers and acquisitions among the media and the
creations of institutions such as CNN and USA Today have made it difﬁcult, if not impossible, to
extrapolate meaningful comparisons and conclusions over a long period of time” (4).

87

 

 

responsibility for deciding what it is, and what is not news—in effect, for

creating news 153).
Brauman perceives of this shift in media dominance as a “heavy responsibility,” a burden
for television news. In contrast, Robert D. Kaplan sees television’s take over as a
“disturbing trend.” He argues that “television’s increasing ability to control the direction
of a story and, by this very power, to intimidate the print media into following
television’s lead” (my italics, 34). This becomes a problem for popular journalist, Robert
D. Kaplan, because television’s domination results in “even the newspapers, which
should have been less visually oriented, [becoming] ﬁxated with the drama of mass
starvation, while the historical and political context in which the famine belonged went
largely unexplored (34). Part of the reason for the de-historicization and de-politicization
of the print media has to do with what Moeller describes as a reduction of the news to
images (16). Moeller goes on to state that the “right images can seize and audience’s
attention, but only the words can teach an audience the meaning of those pictures” (99).
However, as the Buerk/ Amin documentary shows, often the words that accompany
famine footage are stock phrases, so heavily loaded with multiple religious, cultural, an
social meanings, that they could be interpreted—as John F iske would imply—in a
multitude of ways by diverse audiences.

By the 19805, for the print media to keep up (never mind compete with television

news) it had to focus less upon the politics of famine aid, and more upon sensationalist

88

aspects of Western aid intervention.l '5 Western photojournalists and TV journalists,
alike, tended to rely on stereotypical images of the famine and generalize about
conditions in Ethiopia. And, like the television news, many popular newspapers, for
instance, implied through omissions that all Ethiopians were affected and that all areas of
the country were in trouble as a result of the famine.

Coverage of the famine relief movement was dominated by television news. As a
result, representations of the famine tended to generalize and stereotype events
throughout the Horn and relied on easily accessible and readable images—such as the
Ethiopian Madonna with Child—to display and disseminated the famine experiences to
mass, diverse audiences. Once the famine hit the news with Buerk and Amin’s seminal
report, media producers realized that famine sells, that a market for famine existed. They
scurried to produce more coverage, quickly saturating the market with reports of the
catastrophe and of the work of foreign aid workers attempting to limit the damage.

In the previous chapter I identiﬁed the local and global conditions that allowed the
Ethiopian famine to take precedence over other news and I illustrated how television
coverage constructed speciﬁc famine icons to garner the attention of Western television
audiences. In this chapter, I attempt to interweave two separate yet connected theories in

order to explain both the appeal and staying power of famine footage. First, I look at the

 

115Moeller argues that the reason for the de-politicized shift from narrative to image, and the relatively
new tendencies of the media to generalize events—or completely omit pertinent information—is a result of
the Americanization of the media. This argument is, however, as ﬂawed as arguments that equate
globalization and Americanization. While it is true that the US produces a lot of news that is disseminated
throughout the globe (in formats such as CNN and USA Today), the US is not the only producer of news for
international markets, nor does the US have the monopoly on producing news that rely on a “repertoire of
stereotypes” (43), to “distill” the news “down into the simple iconic image” (98), or to “have a vision of
famine as something simple, huge, and apocalyptic” (100). Throughout the West, news producers relied on
similar iconic images and responded to the famine as if to feed the starving would solve all the problems in
the Horn of Africa.

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ways in which the vehicle of television, by necessity, sensationalizes famine footage; and
using Linda Williams’ work on ‘low body genres’, I position the footage within the
context of other genres of excessive entertainment. I argue that the famine footage
appeals because it not only horriﬁes and shocks the viewer, it also afﬁrms and entertains
the viewer in similar ways as colonial era photographs of Africa, ethnographical ﬁlm, and
a number of popular genres of Hollywood movies. Second, borrowing from the work of
cultural theorists Lauren Berlant, Susan Sontag, and transnational feminist Ranjana
Khanna, I argue that famine footage also appeals on another level, in that it also provides
an active role for the compassionate consumer who can appropriate trauma. My aim is to
illustrate how and why, despite a certain lack of originality and tendency toward
‘compassion fatigue’, the televised footage of suffering became integral in inspiring
youths in the United States and Britain toward activism. I argue that, had the famine
coverage not been televised, then interest in the famine would have dwindled quickly.
However, because of the ways in which television has the capacity to provide
entertainment to diverse audiences and the manner by which televised famine coverage
positioned the viewer as both active witness and compassionate sufferer, the famine
remained of major focus for months after the ﬁrst Buerk/Amin documentary was aired.
Televising Entertainment

According to Christian Lahusen and John F iske, television must employ
sensationalist techniques and rely upon un-narrativized or undernarrativized icons and
symbols to present its stories. In his description of popular culture’s focus upon the
individual in The Rhetoric of Moral Protest: Public Campaigns, Celebrity Endorsement

and Political Mobilization, Christian Lahusen describes how in which singularization and

90

personalization of political issues are often considered sensationalist; however, he points
out that this is also the way in which pop culture texts can appeal to multiple viewers
from diverse class, gender, ethnic, and national backgrounds. He claims that while there
are problems with the sensationalization of news coverage, “independent, distanciated
and comprehensive analytic focus” oftentimes detaches listeners and readers from the
subject at hand (The Rhetoric of Moral Protest, 147). This explains not only why famine
coverage focuses speciﬁcally upon individual starving ﬁgures as opposed to masses of
refugees, but why it is a problem if most members of the general populace garner news
from televisual sources.

In Television Culture John F iske provides a strong rationale for the sensationalist
tendency of television news when he describe how television interpellates diverse reading
subjects (66) in diverse and partial ways (57). He argues that on one hand “the
[television] viewer’s response to interpellation is impartial, not total” because “the power
of the text to position the reading subject is much less than cinema” (57); and on the other
hand, television “to be popular, must not only contain meanings relevant to a wide variety
of social groups, it must also be capable of being watched with different modes of
attention” (73). Here F iske indicates that television has the capacity to be read from
multiple perspectives and can be read without paying full attention to the text. It is for
this reason that television must, by necessity, generalize—even sensationalize—news;
and because of the sensationalism and generalizations, television can evoke multiple
interactions between viewer and text.

While I agree with Lahusen and F iske’s assertions, I argue that it is not simply the

individualization and sensationalism that results in televised catastrophe’s appeal to

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diverse audiences. The reason why footage such as that shot by Amin and narrated by
Buerk appeals to such large groups globally and continues to be reproduced in more
contemporaneous expose’s of Third World disaster is because it focuses on the body of
the Third World victim. And the ways that said bodies are presented and displayed, the
ways in which catastrophe texts and atrocity images reference numerous other (more
conventional) viewing codes, accounts for the array of extreme and conﬂicting responses
such texts and images evoke.

To comprehend how the body is depicted and functions in the Buerk/Amin piece
it is useful to turn to Linda Williams’ discussion of the three low body genres. In “Film
Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” Williams explains that even though notions of
corporeal excess have been thoroughly theorized in relation to ‘mainstream’ ﬁhn, few
analyses account for the excess presented in the low body genres of pornography, horror,
and melodrama. Williams argues that excess needs to be theorized in these genres (1). In
line with this, I would argue that the effect and function of portraying that which should
be excluded in mediums other than ﬁlm needs to be further examined; especially if, as
F iske indicates, television interpellates viewers in different ways to ﬁlm. Television also
differs from the ﬁlms Williams describes because of its ability to combine elements of all
three low body genres and, as a result, appeal to multiple and diverse audiences. In a
sense the famine footage under consideration here serves as an almost perfect example of
television’s excessive show of excess.

Because famine footage, in my opinion, borrows elements from all three of the
low body genres but presents them as one long continuous ﬂow of somewhat forgettable

images, Williams’ theorization of these genres allows for a sophisticated reading of the

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function, address, and appeal of televised famine footage. Her work provides insights into
the diverse ways in which multiple viewers can witness (and thus interpret and
appropriate) the famine; how depictions of famine bodies provide insight into
Westemer’s understanding of their own selves and cultures; and the ways in which
Ethiopian women and children—the most abjected bodies in ethnocentric Western news
texts—function as sites for the playing out of erotic fantasies. In addition,
conceptualizing the footage as a mix of genres or as a text referencing numerous generic
codes, provides insight into the speciﬁc ways in which television functions as a visual
medium and the experiences and expectations of audiences in the 19805.

Famine footage shares conventions from all three low body genres because of the
ways in which it depicts famine bodies as excess and in the throes of ecstasy, its
“apparent lack of proper esthetic distance [and] a sense of over-involvement in sensation
and emotion” (5), and the fact that the “audience sensation mimics what is seen on the
screen” (6). Williams describes the bodies in each thus:

Visually, [the] ecstatic excesses [in porn, horror, and melodrama] could

be said to share equally a quality of uncontrollable convulsion or spasm——

of the body “beside itself” with sexual pleasure, fear and terror, or

overpowering sadness. Aurally, excess is marked by recourse not to the

coded articulations of language but to inarticulate cries of pleasure in porn,

screams of fear in horror, sobs of anguish in melodrama (4).

The same could be said for the Buerk/Amin documentary, a ﬁlm that presents starving
Ethiopian bodies as bodies that cannot control themselves, that spasm involuntarily, and

that fail to maintain the boundaries that separate the internal from external because “[t]he

limits or borders of the body are not ﬁxed by nature or conﬁned to the anatomical

93

“container,” the skin.”1 16 Like the bodies of the three low body genres, excess is marked
aurally by cries that could potentially be read as a type of perverse pleasure (as
experienced in the throes of death), extreme fear, or mourning. However, whereas the
three body genres are marked as somewhat distinct (all borrow elements from
melodrama) by the ways in which they each separately present the excessive female body
as that of “the sexually ecstatic woman, the tortured woman, the weeping woman” (5),
the Buerk/Amin famine documentary exposes the presence of all three women in the
refugee camps at Korem.

Various critics of the media’s coverage of famine and NGOs use of sensationalist
images (such as Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer prize wining image of a dying girl being watched
by a vulture) have described famine images as “hunger porn.”117 But how can such
images be described as pornographic if, as Williams argues in Hardcore: Power,
Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible, pornography is “the visual (and sometimes
aural) representation of living, moving bodies engaged in explicit, usually unfaked,
sexual acts with the primary intent of arousing the viewer” (30)?

Famine coverage does not represent the sexual act, but I believe that it is
appropriate to designate ﬁlms such as the Buerk/ Amin documentary as pornography—
not necessarily because they expose and fetishize female breasts and the genitalia of
women, girls, and young boys—but because they have the potential to arouse and offend
the viewer, they are constructed and displayed purely for the gratiﬁcation of the viewer,

and they depict something akin to pleasure. What could be more pornographic than

 

116Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1994) 79.

1 l7Mnren, Road to Hell, 158.
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depicting death for the pleasure of the viewer? Amin’s shots of the moving, dying, and
then dead three year old girl—with her legs spread open and her clothing removed—are
indeed akin to the pornographic.118 And the fact that the documentary only alludes to but
will not show the actual moment of death, the fact that the camera cuts to immediately
before and immediately after, simply serves to emphasize the pornographic nature of the
text. The ﬁnal death throes of the child are unrepresentable on screen in the same way
that the female orgasm, the “invisible pleasure of the insatiable woman” (Hardcore 180)
is invisible (inferred) in all pornographic texts. Buerk’s hushed voice over and the
‘inarticulate cries’ of the mother are the only proof we have of her death or that the
moment of climax, of life, has passed. Like the female orgasm, the viewer can only
presume that what she sees (or cannot see) is ‘unfaked’. The pleasure comes, however,
not simply from the suspension of disbelief, but from the curiosity the invisible ‘arouses’
in the viewer and the knowledge that looking provides.

While in some ways the naked women of famine footage evoke function as
pornographic images, the Buerk/Amin documentary also draws from the horror genre
through its representation of the starving Ethiopian as abject body or, more speciﬁcally,
as Phallic Mother. The Madonnas of the Buerk/Amin documentary are, in the abjected
state, reminiscent of what Julia Kristeva deems the archaic mother or the monstrous
feminine who, in her very abjection, reminds us of the fragility of those boundaries that
separate life from death, the clean and ordered bodily exterior from the ﬁlthy, deﬁled
bodily interior. They are the ones who flmction upon the peripheries of the Symbolic, that

threaten order, and must be rendered unthreatening. The black female body in particular

 

118Barbara Ehrenreich asks if white child would be represented similarly in the Western press? Moeller,
Compassion Fatigue, 22.

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is presented as a liminal space that divides order from ﬁlth, excess from logic; there is a
thrill when one occupies a position on the edge of excess; there is a thrill and fear when
one risks being engulfed by abjection. And yet, because of the processes by which the
African woman—in footage or ﬁction—is constructed and displayed, because we view
her behind a glass screen and her excess is contained within the conﬁnes of said screen,
the risk is minimal. That is, because she is contained within the image, both the ﬁlming
and consuming of her puriﬁes her. Thus, in the same ways as the monsters of horror—or
the ﬁnal sexually ambiguous girl that, according to Carol Clover, banishes the demon and
redeems those at risk from the monster’s clutches—the Ethiopian Madonna and her
naked, dying child, is contained within the frame and rendered impotent or innocent by
the narrative. The threat posed by the Other must be always be averted for the viewer to
remain comfortable with her own illusory subject position as not-Other. The positioning
of starving women as Madonna ﬁgures and the children as innocent children weak in the
face of evil (mainly environmental disaster) have the power to disrupt but are always
made safe.

The repetitive nature of famine footage, the ways in which the actual images are
re-displayed multiple times and the iconic images are reproduced as stock images also
aligns famine footage to horror ﬁlms. In Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the
Modern Horror Film, Clover argues that part of the appeal of horror is that the horror
sequel is always expected to be the well Thus, even though critics of famine

representations are correct to assert that popular cultural saturation of such images leads

 

1 19Carol J. Clover Men, Women. and Chainsaws, 10.
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viewers to a state of compassion fatigue, Clover’s notion of the repetitive appeal of the
sequel explains how and why famine speciﬁc famine images are always in circulation.

It is the excess of physical emotion displayed by both the starving bodies and the
viewer that renders famine footage akin to melodrama. According to Williams,
melodrama can be deﬁned as a genre “marked by “lapses” in realism, by “excesses” of
spectacle and displays of primal, even infantile emotions, and by narratives that seem
circular and repetitive (3). The Buerk/Amin documentary serves as a prime example of
famine footage as melodrama because within the text the real lapses into the mythical as
actual dying bodies become ‘biblical’ icons; the primal is specularized to the extreme as
the camera captures humans in all states of extreme emotional distress; and, throughout
the ﬁlm, the narrative and the camera constantly returns to sensationalist symbols of
famine and sites of death in Korem.

Williams’ description of the spectacle of the body in all three low genres further
emphasizes the connection between the three body genres and famine footage or, in other
words, famine footage’s reference to and borrowing of the generic codes of pornography,
horror, and melodrama. Williams states:

The body spectacle is featured most sensationally in pornography’s

portrayal of the orgasm, in horror’s portrayal of violence and terror, and in

melodrama’s portrayal of weeping (4).

In presenting the body as spectacle, in visually alluding to orgasm, to terror, and to
weeping, and in evoking similar reactions within the viewer, the Buerk/Amin

documentary mimics all three genres. The body becomes spectacular in famine footage

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through the physical portrayals of pain and death (akin to orgasm), of physical violence,
and the crying or wailing of mourners.

According to Williams, in each low body genre are targeted toward and
seemingly appear to appeal to very different segments of the population. She claims that
porn is aimed at men, melodrama at women, and “gross-out horror” at “adolescents
careening wildly between the two masculine and feminine poles” (4). If, as I have
indicated, famine footage borrows characteristics and references codes from all three
genres, then it is possible that it can (and does) appeal to men, women, and adolescents.
Indeed, famine footage potentially offers something for everyone (at least in terms of
Western audiences).

While no evidence exists to prove the effects of such images upon viewers or the
demographic make-up of those exposed to the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm, we know that the ﬁlm
was disseminated throughout the First and Second Worlds and precipitated huge
responses among viewers globally. Figures on whether the death was witnessed prior to
or after the emergence of the celebrity driven famine relief campaign are also
unavailable. What is known, however, is that the documentary was aired on the BBC and
(after some editing) on NBC in late October of 1984. It is equally as impossible to
determine if youth audiences saw the original showings of the report, if they were
inspired to support the famine relief movement because of the report, or if youth and
adult responses to the ﬁlm differed. What is known, however, is that by the time that the
relief movement gained momentum and the ﬁrst Ethiopia music single was produced by

Band Aid in mid-November, millions of viewers in the US. and UK. had been exposed

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to Brokaw’s “Faces of Death.” Because the relief movement was born out of responses to
the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm, it is clear that the images had an impact.

To think of the Buerk/Amin documentary in terms of the low body genres is
useful because it allows for a better comprehension of how—once the medium has gained
the attention of the audience by sensationalizing, individualizing, and generalizing
coverage of the famine—said audience looks, continues to look, and responds to the
catastrophic and ‘biblical’ famine. Arguably, such footage appeals to audiences because
they know how to interpret it. This is not simply because, having been saturated by the
visual image, television audiences in the UK and the US have learnt how to read the low
body genres, it is also because—since the colonial era—viewers have been effectively
trained in ways to read Africa and each individual African.

Specularizing Africa

Since the colonial era images of Africa have played a speciﬁc role in the
appropriation of African spaces, bodies, and signs. In “Empires of the Visual:
Photography and Colonial Imagination in Aﬁica” Paul S. Landau explains how, in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, “[c]inema and still photography carried
messages to and from Africa and the West, and their images were repeated and
reproduced in ever new and distant contexts” (150). Landau explains why such images
have always been fascinating for Westerners and the ways in which Western audiences
use Africa and Africans as the Other against which they deﬁne themselves when he states
that “the history of the European view of non-European peoples has always reﬂected

European’s history of imagining themselves” (2).

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In “An Amazing Difference: Pictures and Peoples in Africa” Landau lists

the typical ways that Africans are presented in photographs and via the moving
images:

Stanley and his bearers, Livingstone in a cauldron, the wise Bushman

squinting in the Kalahari sun, bronze bodies, spears, lions, wild-eyed rites

and wildebeest on the plains, all hang in front of Africa like a theatrical

scrim. They reproduce themselves over and over again, fade into the dark,

the squalid, the starving child and the refugee camp, the irrational war cry,

before returning home in fresher forums: Saturday morning cartoons, Star

Wars movies, and television commercials (5).
Here Landau indicates that there is little difference between depictions of Africans as
noble savages and starving refugees. In listing the various ways in which Aﬁica had been
imagined in the Western consciousness in such a way, Landau indicates that there is little
difference between these representations of Africa and Africans. Because it is
decontextualized Africa, which “lives on almost solely in picture form” (5), becomes an
empty signiﬁer to be used in any way that media and visual culture producers see ﬁt. The
amalgamation of all types of Africans (of all African stereotypes) is worsened when such
representations are televised because then each image is “easily subsumed into the ﬂow
of time, bypassing the mind” (Moeller, 44). As Moeller states, in agreement with Susan
Sontag’s notion that television is a series of underselected images each of which cancels
its predecessors (18), “[t]he electronic images on television blur and melt away, while the
still photograph stubbomly resists dissipation” (44). As a result of the function of
television, Stanley’s bearers become one in the same as the famine victims.

In Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology visual

anthropologist Jay Ruby supports Landau’s assertions about the nature of representations

of Aﬁica and argues that such sensationalist and stereotypical representations of Africa

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have, no matter what format the moving images are presented in, varied little over the
past few centuries. Ruby describes early ethnographic ﬁlms:

Western spectators were as intrigued now by the exoticized African Other

in the early 205, when ethnographic ﬁlms about culture were ﬁrst created

for public ediﬁcation (Ruby, 8) and in the late 405 when Hollywood “saw

the potential for productions that featured exotic locations and starred

native people” (Ruby, 9).
The sterile woman of the dried African plains constructed in such images is placed within
a narrative that misrepresents her as much as any Hollywood movie would; she continues
the theme of the “human struggling with a hostile environment to eke out a living”
established in early ethnographic ﬁlms; she becomes—in the words of Paul S. Landau—a
“decontextualized vision-bites” in the same way as almost all other popular cultural
representations of Africa and Africa in the West since the advent of the camera.

Decontextualized, the African woman’s image is subsumed easily into Western
cultural repertoires upon which viewers draw in order to make sense of both new images
and their own relationships to Africa. The cycle repeats itself: every new image of Aﬁica
displayed (even if said image is produced by indigenous peoples as Ruby suggests
ethnographic ﬁlms in the Twenty-First Century should be) is read through the lens of
unconscious memories of images viewed previously.

The Western public’s assumptions about the continent and its peoples are

informed by “decontextualized vision-bites” that all “replenish the tableau in an

unending spectacular cycle of images” (5).
This cycle involves ﬁction as much as non-ﬁction texts. The cycle is, however, worsened

in the 19805 as a result of the resurgence of action adventure ﬁlm that used Aﬁica as a

backdrop for Western exploits. In such ﬁlms, Africans tend to be represented in the

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stereotypical ways that Landau describes and Africa becomes an empty space within
which Westerners can enact their fantasies and discover their true sense of self.120

In Artiﬁcial Aﬁicas: Colonial Images in the Times of Globalization, Ruth Mayer
illustrates how colonial imaginings of Africa continue to be replicated, particularly in
popular texts produced for youth audiences. Mayer argues that the in the 19805
Hollywood produced a number of ‘imperialist action adventures’ within which Africa, as
an exotic background “as cutoff from the historical and political realities of imperialism
as [H. Rider] Haggard’s Kukuanaland” (35), that “provides not only a mass of easily
impressible bystanders or easily dismissible victims but is eventually totally integrated
into the logic of Western technology” (37). In many ways, the famine relief movement
performed similar imperialist maneuvers to Hollywood blockbusters like the Indiana
Jones trilogy or Romancing the Stone because it too depoliticized Africa and treated the
continent as little more than a background with dismissible victims that, in famine relief
texts, was totally integrated into and elided by Western technology.

It is perhaps not surprising that ways of both appropriating Aﬁican spaces and
representing African peoples when one considers how, as Stuart Hall argues, it has been
difﬁcult for Westerners to visually conceive of Africans in any other way, even in the
post-colonial era. In The Road to Renewal Hall states:

It has been argued that, although the famine movement is beginning to

highlight these deeper aspects of the problem [of Third World debt], it has,

like the older aid and emergency agencies, portrayed Africa simply as

victim, linked to the charity of the West in what is essentially a
paternalistic relationship. Again, there is something in this: it could hardly

 

120This is still the case! Consider the ways in which Africa becomes a space for the Western man’s
adventure in Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener. For further discussion of the use of space in this
ﬁlm see H. Louise Davis “Watch Them Suffer, Watch them Die: Depictions of African Mothers &
Motherhood in Famine Footage & in F emando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener.” Mothering and
Popular Culture. Ed. Elizabeth Podniek. (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen University Press) 2008.

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be otherwise, given the way our imperial history has shaped our political
and cultural traditions (256).

Stereotypical representations of Africa have thus become part of the Western cultural
repertoire. They are reproduced and reinforced over and over again by both ﬁction and
non-ﬁction texts that, in claiming to represent Africa and Africans, do little more than
present Africa as a backdrop for Western adventure and Africans as the Other against
which Westerners can deﬁne themselves as active subjects.

What is interesting about famine footage, however, is the fact that on one hand
Ethiopians (and later the Sudanese) function as representative of the typical one-
dimensional, passive Aﬁican ﬁgure; and on the other hand, Ethiopians stand apart from
the rest of the continent. While in many ways they are not that dissimilar to Stanley’s
bearers and Bushman as all function in the same way for many Western viewers, the
Ethiopian famine victims have their own speciﬁc location and ideological function. They
may be as one-dimensional as the Aﬁicans presented in action adventure, but they have
come to speciﬁcally represent Ethiopia (as distinct from other African nations) in
Western consciousness. The famine victims are, paradoxically, at once ﬁgures the
represent the whole continent Africa and that are speciﬁc to one region of Aﬁica.

The fact that this image of Ethiopians has become set in the Western imagination
is made most clear in a 1987 cover of Time Magazine and a 1994 image in The

Economist.

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Fig. 7. Cover Photo for “Famine in Ethiopia,” Time Fig. 8. Accompanying photo to “Ethiopia, Voting of
21 December, 1987. a Sort,” The Economist 4 June 1994: 44.

The cover of Time relies on this now worn out icon of the Madonna with Child to
immediately cue the viewer—the potential reader—as to the nature of the cover story.
Yet, unlike in the famine footage, this mother/child pairing has been removed of all
context except for the brief narratives provided by the ethnocentric captions. The
background has been airbrushed to make the pair appear in a vacuum—as if the
“Ethiopian problem” itself occurred in a global vacuum. The caption indicates that, only
three years after the Buerk/Amin documentary caused worldwide sensation, the starving
Ethiopian woman and her emaciated child, iconic as they may be, are considered passé.
The caption that accompanies the image reads “Why are Ethiopians starving again?” The
sense of Western boredom, of “compassion fatigue” is made evident by the use of the
word “again,” and perhaps explains why now, in the Twenty-First Century, images of
starving Africans seem to have little effect upon Western audiences.121 The second
caption, “What should the world do—or not do?” is typical of the Western need to deny

responsibility for occurrences in Aﬁica. Despite Ethiopians’ potential to bore Western

 

12‘ The one exception to this rule is Chris Carter’s picture of Vulture with Child, an image that caused so
much controversy and personal agony that Kevin Carter killed himself. In light of this, one must ask if
Carter is really to blame. Indeed, he is a product of a Western society that advocates the non-interference
policy, not only when photographing an Othered human being, but when observing photographs. Carter‘s
image was designed to shock, to affect change. What it succeeded in doing was displacing the blame for the
girl’s death away from either Africans or the vulture, and onto one white man acting as messenger.

audiences, the starving child is once again referenced in the image accompanying The
Economist’s report on the ﬁrst democratically held Ethiopian elections in 1994. Susan
Moeller explains how this particular image of a child standing next to a container of
water that, in shape and size, looks surprisingly similar to a ballot box leads Susan
Moeller to exclaim that “[d]espite the Ethiopians’ success at averting famine in

1994. . .they are still often represented as the helpless victims they had been in 1984”
(104).

Like the Buerk/Amin documentary, such tabloid-esque images suggest that there
is nothing more to Ethiopia than refugee camps, that nothing exists beyond the camps,
and that all that is ‘outside’ is death. This death is, as the documentary shows, either
contained within abject women’s bodies by the woman’s skin or (if that fails) the
camera’s frame or shrouded at the edges of the camp in designated gravesites. The cover
of Time and the image presented in The Economist present different sentiments to the
Buerk/Amin famine documentary; the stories are generated at different times and have
different aims and audiences in mind. Nevertheless, the editors/producers of both
magazines choose to use the same methods as Buerk and Amin to attract the attention of
potential viewers and readers.

For Christian Lahusen, the tendency to highlight the plight of the individual has a
speciﬁc ideological function. Lahusen argues that in popular media depictions of tragic
events:

The individual becomes the primary symbolic and narrative device to

capture and represent political issues. These are then communicated in

terms of concrete individual experiences and actions: e. g., singular

experiences of inequalities and acts of discrimination, experiences of
environmental problems or acts of pollution. These problems are

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symbolized by individual actions and hardships and narrated in terms of
individual biographies and testimonies (147).

The Buerk/Amin documentary provides no exception to this rule. The hoards are depicted

6‘

only to be reduced to “this girl,” this group of children,” and “this mother.” The personal
stories of the worst afﬂicted, of the most photogenic become representative of the famine
as a whole. The dying three year old and her mother, who has already lost her husband
and four children, function as metonymic, as the part that represents the whole.

For Christian Lahusen the individualization of catastrophe intensiﬁes the
sensationalism. 1n the case of the famine, such sensationalism results in the generalization
of both the famine experience and of Ethiopia in general. All Ethiopians are perceived as
suffering the same fate as the ones depicted on the television news. This not only has the
effect of provoking outrage among audiences in the West and eliciting support for the
humanitarian agencies working in the Horn; but it also reiﬁes assumptions about
Ethiopians as unproductive and helpless. As Ama Ata Aidoo suggests in “The Aﬁican
Woman Today,” such footage results in the ‘setting’ of an image of the “African woman
in the mind of the world” (39). She states that the starving African woman:

has become a cliché of Western photojournalism that the African

woman is old beyond her years; she is half-naked; her drooped and

withered breasts are well exposed; there are ﬂies buzzing around the faces

of her children; and she has a permanent begging bowl in her hand (Aidoo,

39).

The image Aidoo describes is, as the Buerk/Amin documentary and its successors prove,

a commonplace image. The Aﬁican woman is, like the unyielding African earth, ‘old’,

‘withered’, and ‘well exposed’. These types of images, of starving Africans dying in their

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thousands, along side the formulaic narratives of sympathy that accompany them, were
perfected during the mid-805 through the specularization of emaciated bodies in Ethiopia
and the Sudan. On the Ethiopian planes of Tigray and Wollo, and the Sudanese regions of
Darfur, Kordofan, and Port Sudan, the black Aﬁican became the emblem of a failing
continent; an Other whom—in her most abjected state—Westerners could deﬁne
themselves in opposition. The black Aﬁican mother with child, in particular, would be a
ﬁgure used over and over again to represent the problems of Africa—later in the
Twentieth Century, she would also become a symbol of the latest African plague, AIDS.

As the focus on the individual is so typical to news coverage in general and, more
speciﬁcally, ethno-entertainment featuring Africa, it comes as no surprise that Western
viewers would know how to read the individuals depicted on screen. If this is the case
then it is possible to assume that viewers, already aware of the cues that call for
humanitarian action, responded to the Buerk/Amin documentary in such a manner
because they had been trained to do so. But how does this notion account for the fact that
prior calls for action had been ignored or that an unprecedented number of viewers

responded? When, as Lilian Brandt argued, “[t]ragic photographs of starved children and
skeleton babies fail now to bring the response which could have been counted on a few

years ago?” '22 Could it be that the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm was more effective at providing said
cues, at reaching mass audiences, at evoking compassion? While it is necessary to
acknowledge how the Buerk/Amin documentary surpassed previous footage of starving
Africans in terms of both quality and sensational evocativeness, I would argue that the

impact of the ﬁlm had as much to do with the “constantly shifting matrix of unconscious

 

122Rozario, “Humanitarian” 420

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memories” (Silverman, 4) shared by audiences in the 19805 was more expansive than the
repertoire of cultural images of previous generations. In other words, I am arguing not
only for the speciﬁcity of the Buerk/Amin documentary or the medium upon which the
famine was displayed (the television), but also of the audience that watched it. Audiences
in the 19805 not only drew experiences from an excessively large repertoire of cultural
images, but they had experience in viewing the excessive human body—bodily excess—
in a number of contexts.
Responding Appropriately

In her introduction to Compassion Lauren Berlant makes a distinction between
her own reading of viewers’ responses to images of pain and horror, and that of Susan
Sontag. While Sontag asserts such images arouse a sense of compassion and helplessness
or, more speciﬁcally, feelings of ‘impotence’, Berlant argues that such images of pain
empower Western audiences. This empowerment is possible because the images elicit
compassion, which in turn encourages the performance of compassionate ‘good acts’. For
Berlant, these ‘good acts’ not only provide the actor with agency (9), but also allows
them access to “social membership” or even citizenship in a climate of compassionate
conservatism. According to Berlant, in a climate of compassionate conservatism, one’s
good acts determine one’s rights to citizenship—those youth that performed acts of
charity performed good acts and, as a result, were no longer necessarily excluded from
the right to be a citizen. Their good acts also proved that they were responsible
consumers (spending their spare cash on ‘charitable’ goods for compassionate reasons).

Elements of both Sontag and Berlant’s arguments seem correct; it would seem

that the images do render the viewer impotent (perhaps as a result of unconscious

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identiﬁcations), but, in an attempt to combat said impotence, the viewer tries to perform
compassionate ‘good acts’. These acts indeed provide the viewer with agency, thus
empowering her. The images inspire not only a sense of impotence, but also—
potentially—a sense of superiority. Through the processes of interpellation, the viewer is
hailed as a subject in response to the object on screen. This subjectivity (illusory as it
may be) is contingent upon the ﬁgure in the image functioning as Other and,
subsequently, as lacking non-subject. In anthropocentric societies, the human subject can
read herself as more signiﬁcant, as of more value than the de-humanized object on
screen.

The subject- viewer also has the potential to feel morally superior to the famine
‘victim’ on screen: after all, the famine victim is, at best, a woman failing to live up to
Western notions of effective motherhood, and at worst, an agentless victim who (at least
in the depoliticized context in which she is presented) can be held responsible for her
own victimhood. The possible sense of superiority developed by the viewer also spurs her
into action, encouraging her to perform compassionate ‘good acts’ (such as ﬁrrther
consumption, activism, and donating) as said acts have the potential reinforce her
illusions of subject-hood, her sense of agency in contrast to the agentless victim, her
sense of moral superiority over the Ethiopians that have—unlike her—failed to function
as productive and active citizens of their nation.

Arguably, the famine images, the starving Madonna as bad copy, inspire both
psychic reaction and compassionate good acts, both of which allow the viewer-actor to
feel a sense of worth and encourage an awareness that her local actions can have a global

effect. This process of turning the painful image into an empowering compassionate act is

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a very effective way to disavow the pain of the image. The process distances the viewer
exponentially from the ‘victim’, allowing her to deny any of the ways in which she might
be marginalized like the impoverished Ethiopians on screen (many of whom were
suffering in the mid-19805 as a result of their religious or political afﬁliations or social
class), and, at the same time, enables her to develop connections with others who behave
similarly, as compassionate actors. In The Road to Hell, Michael Maren supports the idea
that providing aid helps both individuals and nations develop a sense of self worth when
he states that “aid is an offering, an act of compassion and sacriﬁce” (23). Rony Brauman
connects the idea of sacriﬁce and community when he states: “What we face here is a
problem in society: compassion, otherwise known as solidarity, is tending to degenerate
into pity, when it should be growing into calls for justice” (158). Brauman’s comment is
particularly interesting because it explains how the viewer is able to develop a sense of
moral superiority over the victim and then justify compassionate behavior on behalf of
the victim; pity is obviously a deciding force. Perhaps pity, rather than solidarity, is the
mobilizing goal of Christian iconic imagery.

It is possible to conclude that, in order to believe in the validity of compassionate
good acts, the actor-viewer must never consider the means by which either the bodies or
the images that inspire said acts are constructed. Thus, the viewer invested in
compassionate acts does not seek out more information pertaining to the famine, or
attempt to understand it on a more complex level; she remains happy with the images she
sees on the television and feels gratiﬁcation when she sees images of people providing
aid because, in these images, she sees a reﬂection of herself; and she feels anger when

she see images that expose how, as a result of aid distribution problems and corruption,

110

her good intentions have gone awry. Berlant explains how it is necessary for many
viewers to maintain the illusion of ‘social optimism’, to deny that such ‘optimism’ has
costs because “we do not like to be held responsible for consequences we did not mean to
enact.”

In “Remedying Globalization and Consumerism: Joining the Inner and Outer
Journeys in ‘Perfect Balance’,” Judith Simmer Brown describes compassionate
consumerism in more negative terms than Berlant; in her critique of unintended
consequences, she argues that compassionate consumers perform acts based on “idiot
compassion.” She states:

It is called idiot compassion for two reasons: First it is an impulsive

response based on insufﬁcient understanding of the true nature of reality.

Second, this impulsive compassion quickly becomes ineffective,

exacerbating suffering and confusion in others, and precipitating

discouragement and depression in oneself (41).

Simmer Brown goes on to discuss the ways in which compassion is a response to despair
and how, at least in the United States (and I would argue equally in the UK),
consumerism allows for the repression of said despair while continually perpetuating
consumerism. She claims that “[w]hile we may be aware of the damage consumerism is
doing to our own culture and to the exploited “supplier” cultures, it is threatening to look
closely at the entire pattern and to compassionately act” (43). Thus, according to this
argument, it is possible to conclude that consumerism relieves psychic threat in much the
same way as the containment of Ethiopian Madonna. Consumerism is a way to both

distance oneself from the unspeakable, the unrepresentable abject. To consume is to

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empower oneself—the act of consuming (particularly when consumerism is inspired by
compassion) allows the consumer to conceive of herself as an agent with the potential to
solve the world’s problems. At the same time, however, consumerism simply continues
the same patterns that are responsible for global strucutral inequities in the ﬁrst place.
This is, of course, the case with the famine relief movement—news agencies and
charities encourage consumption to ‘aid’ those in need, but such consumption only serves
to encourage further consumption (compassionate and idiotic as that may be) and often
fails to effect the real conditions of the Madonnas and their children exposed to the
hardships of famine and the dangers and diseases of refugee camps.

It is impossible to determine exactly how viewers react to the images presented in
the Buerk/Amin documentary, to decipher how far consumers of images of famine or
famine relief products are aware of the ways in which they perpetuate patterns of
inequity, or to ascertain how far the western viewer is simultaneously and paradoxically
rendered impotent and empowered through the act of looking at African bodies in pain.
However, it is clear that western viewers were affected, if not traumatized, by the famine
footage displayed on their television screens. While we cannot be sure exactly what about
the images inspired viewers to start or support famine relief, I have offered possible
explanations for both the documentary’s appeal and viewers’ charitable responses. I
would add, however, that the ﬁlm’s appeal and the response it precipitated is also
resultant of the feminization and Christian contextualization of the victim which, I
suggest, allowed viewers to appropriate not only the victim’s image and experience, but
the trauma of famine. And it is this appropriation of the trauma of famine that ultimately

explains how and why the famine relief movement and the ethic of compassionate

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consumerism grew out of one eight-minute news documentary.

In her presentation given recently at the “Feminist Publics: Mapping Difference,
Building Coalitions” conference at Michigan State University, Ranjana Khanna described
the problematic nature of narratives of genocide and ethnocide (within the framework of
trauma studies) that often place emphasis on the pain experienced by the witness as
opposed to the ‘disposable’ human victim. While she does not discount the trauma caused
by witnessing horror and pain—by watching the Other suffer—Khanna asked for trauma
studies to refocus attention away from the witness and challenge studies that posit the
witness as victim. While I recognize Khanna’s plea, it seems impossible to shift attention
away from notion of witnessing and traumas, at least when considering how the
Ethiopian famine was specularized, its appeal, and the consequent evolution of media
representations of catastrophe. This is because, if one attempts to understand how Third
World catastrophe affects the West, it is absolutely imperative to take into account how
the West views catastrophe. Any reading of famine relief would be incomplete if one did
not account for viewer reaction.

First, as demonstrated by the movement’s evolution further and further away from
the victim toward the donor, the witness of famine footage is positioned as the privileged
player in the Ethiopian famine: the one starving is elided by the very people attempting to
put an end to famine. This becomes more evident in later, in famine relief (as opposed to
famine) texts. Capitalizing on the advent and usability of new visual, communications,
and satellite technologies, both aid agencies and the media produced an excess of images
of desperate and dying Ethiopian women and children in attempts to raise funds and

support fOr global aid programs. At the same time, in response to the types of narratives

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and images produced by Buerk and Amin, popular famine relief texts such as the

Ethiopia songs and videos “Do They Know It’s Christmastime” and “We Are the World,”
and the televised Live Aid beneﬁt concert footage marked a shift away from the
specularization of starving Ethiopian as victim. Such popular “charity rock” texts fOCUSed
upon celebrity and youth famine relief donors throughout the US. and UK They
provided viewers with idealized ﬁgures with which to identify, and with positive
reﬂections of US. and UK. consumers as compassionate citizen ﬁgures. In their attempt
to raise mass amounts of money, appeal to diverse audiences and markets, the famine
relief texts, ironically, tended to elide the intended recipient of famine aid and interpellate
viewers as youthful consumer-donors.

Second, through the act of witnessing, the US. or UK. viewer appropriates the
trauma presented on screen and, to some extent, takes possession of the famine as the
culture’s chosen trauma of that moment—as if Westerners had no trauma of their own to
claim or to work through. As 1 illustrate throughout this dissertation, the 1983-85
Ethiopian famine became a chosen trauma for members of the general populace
(particularly youths) throughout the US. and the UK. In witnessing the trauma on the
television news, the viewer ultimately took control of the famine by consuming and
interpreting the images of abject Ethiopian Madonnas in Buerk/Amin documentary as she
saw ﬁt. In essence, the footage provided the witness, aroused by sympathy and a sense of
superiority, a cause around which to unite and build community. Witnessing became an
act. And, through their shared experiences as witnesses—as active consumers and
donors—famine relief participants became part of a community, proved their right to

citizenship and as a community of compassionate viewers, and reinforced retrograde

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values at the expense of those denied the right to citizenship in both the First and Third

World.

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Chapter Four
Compassionate Consumerism and Celebrity Outreach: The Evolution of Famine
Relief Texts and Merchandise.

The famine fashion turned into a safe political issue for the pop
aristocracy that all of a sudden heard a new melody: swing low, sweet
chariot.123

Outraged by the images of emaciated children and their desperate parents, singer-
songwriter Bob Geldof called the British public to act. With friends and like-minded
supporters, Geldof established Band Aid, a charity to help prevent famine in Africa, and
produced the ﬁrst of a number of Ethiopia singles designed to raise funds and awareness
of the plight of Ethiopian (and later Sudanese) refugees. The Band Aid single “Do They
Know It’s Christmas,” released in November 1984, featured numerous best-selling
British artists and became the fastest selling single to hit the UK. charts, selling three
million records and holding the Christmas Number 1 position in the charts for ﬁve weeks.
The single raised over ten millions British pounds. On the 5th March 1985, recording
artists in the United States followed suit. Guided by Geldof and Harry Belafonte, forty-
ﬁve recording artists joined together under the banner of ‘United Support of Artists for
Africa’ (USA for Aﬁica), and recorded “We Are the World.” Like its British counterpart,
the song raised millions,124 staying at number 1 in the US. for four weeks and the UK.
for two.125

The Ethiopia singles can be described as anthems for the famine relief movement.

in line with the famine footage, they set the tone for the movement and become integral

 

123Rijven “Rock for Ethiopia” 199

124According to Roy Shuker, with merchandise, “We Are the World” grossed over $50 million
(Understanding Popular Music, 237).

125 Both “Christmas” and “We Are the World” were international hits; in addition, they inspired similar
Ethiopia singles such as Germany’s “Nackt Im Wind,” Canada’s “Tears Are Not Enough,” and South
Africa’s “Operation Hunger.”

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to the movement’s frame. The songs mark the moment of the famine relief movement’s
emergence, which allowed for the evolution of the ethic of compassionate consumerism.
Because the ethic of compassionate consumerism emerged out of the famine footage that
inspired but also preceded the famine relief movement, and because the movement would
not have gained momentum or deﬁnition without the ethic’s prior emergence, it should
not be assumed that the ethic of compassionate consumerism and the famine relief
movement developed at the same rate. The ethic that informs the movement always
seems to be one step ahead of the movement itself. This chapter determines how the ethic
of compassionate consumerism shifted as the movement emerged, how the texts
produced by the movement affected the role of the compassionate consumer, and the
ways in which famine relief texts became pivotal in deﬁning the limits of compassion and
widened the number of potential sites for and objects of compassionate consumption.
Celebrity response to the famine precipitated a shift in both famine coverage and
kick started what was to become the ﬁrst global relief movement. The media quickly
shifted gear, choosing to focus on the more aesthetically pleasing celebrities banding
together to ﬁght hunger, rather than upon those dying. In the news, images of the famine
were replaced by images of celebrities gathering together record the Ethiopia singles and
advertise the famine relief movement. On the radio, reports of mass starvation were
juxtaposed with the sounds of celebrities singing to “feed the world.” And in homes,
schools, and communities throughout Britain and the United States, youths banded
together to support their favorite celebrities in their ﬁght to alleviate hunger in Ethiopia.
Both the UK song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and the US equivalent “We

Are The World,” recorded four months later, reinforced the ethnocentrism evident in the

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famine footage previously discussed, but they did so in such a way that made each song
culturally speciﬁc. The songs encourage their audiences to identify both with the
celebrity singing and the culturally speciﬁc sentiment expressed in each song. With
“Christmas” UK audiences were hailed by a variety of extremely popular 805 white male
pop stars singing lyrics that supported traditional British imperialist assumptions and
praying on charitable sentiments speciﬁc to the Christmas period (like the famine
footage, “Christmas” was timely). With “We Are” US audiences were hailed by a diverse
group of popular and established musicians from a variety of eras and genres.126 The song
spoke to the US’s diverse population, asking them to come together as a diverse yet
universally connected community. It played on emerging ideas of multicultural unity and
political correctness that were simultaneously produced by popular US television shows
such as The Cosby Show and Different Strokes. Despite their cultural speciﬁcities,
however, and like many other popular culture texts, both songs traversed and translated
well on the other sides of the Atlantic.

In the same way that it is possible to argue not only for the speciﬁcity of the
Buerk/Amin documentary or the medium upon which the famine was displayed (the
television), but also of the audience that watched it; it is possible to argue that the
Ethiopia singles were the ﬁrst social movement anthems of their kind and that an already
existent and anticipant market of compassionate consumers was waiting for this kind of
text to be produced. The songs share many similarities with the footage that they
reference through the lyrics. In addition, they too represent excess both in the mind’s eyes

images the lyrics inspire and the emotions expressed through the singers’ voices and the

 

126The diverse group of artist participants included Harry Belafonte, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Cynid
Lauper, Kenny Loggins, and Willie Nelson, to name but a few.

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words they sing. However, the ethic of compassionate consumerism inspired by the
footage alters as a result of the songs because, while the famine footage positioned
viewers as active witnesses, the Ethiopia singles provided them an even more active role
by interpellating them not only asmembers of a compassionate community but also as
potential donor-purchasers of famine relief products and accompanying merchandise.

While many scholars have provided valuable insights into the problematic
assumptions and effects of the famine relief texts (in particular T.V. Reed, Will Straw,
and E. Ann Kaplan) no one has, as yet, positioned the UK and US Ethiopia singles, cover
art, and merchandise within their cultural context and simultaneously performed a
content analysis of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “We Are the World.” In order to
fully comprehend both the material and ideological currency of such texts—and,
ultimately, the way in which compassionate consumer driven movements have become
part of a Western tradition—it seems pertinent to deconstruct the type of language and
metaphor used by the movement. Without a thorough comprehension the content of
famine relief texts and the ways they potentially ‘train’ the viewer/listener, analyses of
the movement (its texts, appeal, address, and failures) are incomplete.

While I am cognizant of the fact my placing of emphasis on the donor and charity
rock merchandise has the potential to elide Ethiopian (and later Sudanese) famine
sufferers, I believe that, in order to comprehend and remedy the problems of popular
famine coverage and famine aid in the West, it is necessary to examine and expose the
substitutions and ideological slippages in coverage of the movement as much as it is
necessary to reveal the veil of famine footage. Thus, my work demonstrates the

fruitfulness of examining not only how the African ‘victim’ is quickly displaced in

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Western media texts and public consciousness alike, but also what she is displaced by.

The media’s shift in focus not only aided the famine relief course. Indeed, it was
an extremely savvy maneuver on the part of media producers, especially when one
acknowledges the cost of ﬁlming in Africa versus the cost effectiveness, proﬁt, and
opening up of new markets that result from ﬁlming and displaying the famine relief
movement. For this reason it is also pertinent to consider the role that the media played in
constructing the suffering commodity in music video: Will Straw’s point about the role of
the industry should not be taken lightly, particularly when the “waiving of record label,
distributor and retailer proﬁts is much more unprecedented and spectacular than the
gathering of artists for charity purposes” (“Rock,” 204). Arguably, it is as a result of the
media and music industries that the shift in focus from depicting the starving in Ethiopia
to portraying those celebrities involved in famine relief occurred so quickly. Chris
Paterson, Robin Palmer, and Paul Harrison’s have all indicated in their discussion of
media agencies in Africa that providing coverage of most regions outside of South Aﬁica
is both expensive and difﬁcult. Thus, it is not surprising that news providers looked for
alternatives. Not only did the celebrity outrage at famine and ensuing movement provide
a cheaper, more local alternative, it was hot, new, and provided follow-up stories on
almost a daily basis. Such stories reinforced the appeal of the famine and the discourse of
compassionate consumerism that the movement relied upon.
Substituting Famine

The Buerk/Amin documentary elicited compassion from viewer/listeners by
presenting images of dying people (speciﬁcally women and children) that were both

fascinating and repulsive. Because these emotionally charged images were so shocking

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but offered audiences access to experiences they would not otherwise have, they
encouraged audiences not only to consume further but to act on behalf of the starving
represented. However, such images can—as Susan Moeller indicates—only maintain
consumer interest for so long before they lead to compassion fatigue (2). Therefore, in
coverage of the famine relief effort, images of starving people are limited, and are often
replaced by celebrity fundraisers. In the press and television news coverage, rock stars
functioned as substitutes emblematic of famine victims, but more pleasing and
entertaining to look at and listen to. At this point, the suffering of the famine body (which
is often appropriated by the witness who suffers upon viewing the images) was co-opted
and altered by the rock star that performed suffering in an attempt to display or prove his
or her sincerity. Compassion was elicited through possible identiﬁcation with a star, as
opposed to through the objectiﬁcation of a famine victim. As the celebrity moved from
the role of witness to activist, audiences of the Ethiopia singles identifying with the
multiple singers also (if only vicariously) shift from witness to activist.

Susan Moeller describes compassion fatigue simply as the point when audiences
are bored with representations of catastrophe and suffering. I believe that it is this sense
of fatigue (which Geldof himself suffered) along with the industry’s fear of audience’s
short attention span, which led to the series of shifts in focus and substitutions of famine
bodies by depictions of celebrities responding to the call to act. This shift in focus ﬁom
Third World to British and US celebrity bodies, from the plains of Aﬁica to studios in
London and Burbank, was accompanied by shifts in the type of media used to ‘advertise’
famine and famine relief and the invention of new campaign strategies speciﬁc to famine

relief. In addition, media emphasis shifted from the specularized to the consumer: no

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longer were audiences asked simply to consumer and witness the trauma on screen. They
were hailed as potential actors, donors, and participants. At the same time, however, they
were still encouraged to both watch and listen to their television screens.

Media agencies quickly took advantage of public interest in celebrity altruism and
charity rock consumables; the US and UK press covered hundreds of stories about Band
Aid in the ﬁrst weeks after the Buerk/ Amin documentary was aired; news channels
produced stories about the movement for diverse audiences; and music programs and
channels on both the radio and television repeatedly aired the songs, interviews with
participants, and advertisements for the Band Aid cause. As a result of the extensive
public and industry interest in the movement, campaigners attempting to raise money and
awareness for those affected by catastrophe in the Third World were offered an array of
new opportunities to fundraise and advertise. Their interests became increasingly tied up
with those of media agencies and corporate sponsors who, working together, had the
capacity to reach wider donor pools. The combination of music and television appealed to
a certain segment of youth that may not have been interested in the nightly news.

According to Rob Latham, television had been the chosen media of the Baby
Boomers when they were young(15). Latham argues that it was not until the emergence
of music television that the younger generation, Generation X and Thatcher’s Children,
became attached to the television screen.127 The fact that famine relief produced music
texts and relied upon the television to transmit said texts only served to make famine

relief more appealing to a diverse and broad audience base. This combination of music

 

127I think this assertion is too simplistic and is complicated by John F iske who argues, in Media Matters,
that radio was the Boomers chosen media format (15). However, Latham is correct in his assumptions
about music television because it did appeal to younger segments of the population—the young among
youth.

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and television, under the banner of famine relief, had the potential to unite the Boomers
with Generation X and Thatcher’s Children. They were not only coming together as the
result of a speciﬁc cause, but because their preferred medias were being combined and
advanced.
Feeding the World

In a presentation given in 1985, Stan Rijven provided an overview of the
numerous singles produced throughout the West in aid of the starving in Ethiopia.128 He
labeled the series of ‘opportunistic’ and ‘positivist’ pop songs the “Ethiopia Singles” and
describes their evolution thus:

In less than nine months [after the release of Band Aid’s “Do They Know

It’s Christmas?”] the Band-Aid phenomenon had grown from an

incidental seed to a baby fostered by hundreds of pop parents; in no time

Band-Aid became a word in the international pop-vocabulaire. As a new

tropical disease, or to put it more precisely, a new philanthropic disease,

Band-Aids spread all over the pop world (199).
We can surmise at least two reasons why the concept of charity rock spread so wildly
throughout the West, producing a total of at least fourteen Ethiopia singles. Firstly, it is
possible that, as Rijven argues, both celebrities and donors in various Western nations
wished to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak. And secondly, as most of the songs share
the same na'l‘ve ethnocentric assumptions (having built on the “Christmas?” prototype), it
would be safe to assume that the Ethiopia singles are born out of a shared Western culture
of paternalism and pity.

And, indeed, almost all of the Ethiopia singles draw upon already existent cultural

knowledges and assumptions. This is particularly the case for the original Band Aid

 

128Rijven, along with Will Straw, presented on the “Rock for Ethiopia” panel at the Third Annual
lntemational Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) Conference.

123

single and its US cousin “We Are the World,” both of which were produced in extremely
conservative climates that allowed citizens little opportunity to show compassion or
ability to resist the stone-cold rhetoric of individualism. Arguably, the songs appealed to
audiences because they worked on a dual level—the sentiments expressed were, on the
one hand, typical of mainstream conservative values and, on the other hand, resistant to
Reagan and Thatcher’s unsympathetic laissez-faire attitudes. The songs and videos ﬁtted
into what Kaja Silverman might describe as an already existent ‘cultural repertoire’ of
sounds and images while, simultaneously, pushing the boundaries of rock music and rock
culture.129 Despite their similarities—despite the similarities in their success in both the
US and the UK charts—the songs themselves, and the actions of those involved in their
production, reveal a cultural speciﬁcity that, although it translates well across
international borders, proves a distinct difference in the ways that British and US
celebrities and youths position themselves in the global scene.

In his discussion of the British Band Aid single T.V. Reed describes how the song
supports not only Western traditions, but Westerners conceptions of themselves, when he
describes how “Christmas” was “perfectly conceived to play into those seasonal spasms
of humanist “good will toward men” that get engraved on Christmas cards and ﬁll the
buckets of armies of salvation of various sorts every holiday season in both the United
Kingdom and the United States” (159). Reed accurately implies that purchasers of the
song feel the same sense of satisfaction and self-gratiﬁcation when buying Band Aid
records and memorabilia that they might feel when they support any other charitable

endeavor.

 

129Si1Ver-man, Threshold of the Visible, 3-4.
124

The song itself has all the makings of a typical Christmas hit single: not only was
it a song that uniﬁed many artists who would typically compete for the number #1 spot,
but it had a catchy tune, constant reminders of the joys of the season, and somewhat banal
but sentimental references to Christianity. The success of the single becomes obvious
when one considers the statistics: it sold over ten million copies and raised eight million
pounds. This is not surprising, however, as not only was the timing perfect “in marketing
terms” (Rijven, 200) but, as Stan Rijven points out rather caustically, “[i]n Britain,
Christmas singles, even if they are sung by Barry Manilow and Julio Iglesias in duet, sell
like Christmas trees” (200).

The song’s positivist lyrics are, primarily, indicative of Geldofs lack of
awareness of either the realities of the famine in the Horn or of Ethiopian culture in
general (a lack that, to his credit, he soon made up for), as many contemporaneous
popular culture and academic critics accurately illustrate, it is littered with imperialist
overtones. Reed suggests that the song “typiﬁes the narcissistic self-importance and
ethnocentric disregard for cultural differences that permeate much of this [Band Aid/
Live Aid] project” (159). I would argue that the main problem with the single is,
however, the fact that it simply and uncritically reiterates exactly the same sentiments and
imagery that the US. and UK. media had relied upon—and developed—in order to
represent the famine since the beginning. As I have explained previously, the use of
religious iconography and metaphor to describe the famine made it both palatable and
comprehensible to American and British viewers; the fact that Band Aid (and later USA
for Aﬁica) rely on the same time of worn out visions of Ethiopia is not only a result of

the fact that Geldof saw the Buerk/ Amin documentary at the end of October and

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managed to rally the celebrity troops to produce a single by Christmas. Tired Christian
imagery has been conveniently used, again and again, to depict all manner of problems in
the Horn; the same type of images are still in use—although they are now often stock
footage—not only representing famine, but the AIDS epidemic. Such Christian
sentiments seem somewhat integral to the ethic of compassionate consumerism. And
while, to a large extent, the Christian metaphor in both famine and famine relief texts is
both sanitizing and distancing, the Christian references somehow allow for the
sensationalism that underpins the ethic of compassionate consumerism.

The overall tone of the single is sensationalist, like the images presented in the
media; over-dramatic phrases that connote the desperate emotions of “Aﬁicans,” phrases
such as “bitter tears” and the “clanging chimes of doom” form the substance of the song
which, ultimately, offers little comment on the conditions of the starving or causes for the
famine. Geldof’s words simply reafﬁrm Western assumptions about the homogeneous
nature of “Aﬁicans” and Africa—as if the whole continent was suffering the same plight,
Geldof writes that there is no water, no snow; in fact, he states, “the only water ﬂowing is
the bitter sting of tears” and, as a result, “nothing ever grows/ No rain or rivers ﬂow.”
Such lyrics not only position the starving as representative of the whole of Ethiopia and,
consequentially, Ethiopia as indicative of the whole African continent; but insinuate that
the whole of Africa has always been a desperate and sterile wasteland, thus negating the
rich and vibrant cultural and economic history of the continent as a whole. This
assumption seems even more ironic when one considers that Ethiopia itself was once a
vast empire, and that the country boasts some of the most fertile regions in the world.

Like the starving in Africa, the British are also identiﬁed as a homogeneous

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group, as a community of compassionate consumers. Not only are all listeners assumed to
identify as Christian, hence the call for one and all to “say a prayer/ pray for the other
ones,” but the song assumes that all British people are in the position to celebrate
Christmas cheer in the same way—as if there are no poor, hungry, or homeless people in
the UK. experiencing the “bitter sting of tears.”

In his well-balanced criticism of the song (and of the movement in general) Reed
draws attention to the “virtual absence of black artists from the British recording session
and from the British half of the concert” (159, my italics). Reed argues that, considering
the prominence of black artists and performers in Britain during the mid eighties, such an
absence is “especially unforgivable.” What Reed fails to mention, however, is the
similarly apparent lack of female artists involved in the recording of “Christmas” an
absence that is equally unforgivable. As the Band Aid recording session video
demonstrates, both women and black artists were present at the recording, but not one
was given a line in the song. One wonders if either women or artists and audiences of
color are involved in the ‘we’ that intends to “feed the world” or the ‘them’ that the white
man should pray for and take care of. One also wonders if non-Christians are really
considered acceptable members of the compassionate consumer community. This is
because compassionate consumerism, while not deﬁned by Christianity, certainly evolves
in a way that shows its allegiances to a Christian tradition.

The song’s line-up could be read as yet another example of the ways in which the
white man is presented as the savior of Africa. Such depictions have been typical in US
and UK pop culture texts since the invention of not only the moving camera. According

to Ruth Mayer, the positioning of white man as savior was reinforced in the 19805 in both

127

countries by blockbuster hits such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and King
Solomon ’s Mines. “Christmas” relies on similar notions. The same old systems of power
are reinforced when the white man visibly acts to save Africa from itself. The fact that
this Africa is constructed in such a way as to ﬁt the stereotypical imperialist deﬁnition of
the continent is never dealt with. In the same way that the white man will expose the
failing of the continent and the people—literally as Buerk’s white hand uncovers death
and abjection—the white man will redeem the continent. The message to British and
American youths audiences is clear; global charity—that is, patemalism/neo-
imperialism—is part of the male domain.

The consumerist impulses elicited by the songs (and the movement’s ﬂame and
texts in general), and the fact that Christmas is the season of excess (in terms of
consumption and expenditure), ultimately led to an abandonment of conservatism and an
embracing of excess. As numerous news stories indicate, “Christmas” sold out almost as
quickly as it hit the shelves in record stores. Individual consumers purchased singles in
excess of 50 a piece. And, in addition to their purchases, consumers joined the famine
relief movement in droves, happily participating as donors as well as compassionate
consumers.

Being the World

It is not possible to attack the USA for Africa single’s line up for the same reasons
as they criticize the British single and concert line up, since “black artists took the
initiative and headed the organisation of a big musical event” (Rijven, 201). The song
was produced by Harry Belafonte, and written by Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson. It

was sung by a wide range of American artists, representative of a wide cross section of

128

both the American population and American musical genres. Nevertheless, USA Aid was
as much under scrutiny, for its imperialist assumptions and assertions, as its British
counterpart.

“We Are the World” sold over seven and a half million copies in the US alone,
immediately taking the number 1 spot in the charts. It received four Grammys in 1986,
including ‘Song of the Year’ and ‘Best Music Video’. Its success came, arguably, not
only from the fact that the diverse cast appealed to a diverse audience, but that the song—
as Christian inﬂuenced as it was—played yet again into an already existent set of cultural
values and, as Rijven states, appealed “[a]gain [to] that nineteenth-century charity idea”
(200).

“We Are the World” is as reliant on Christian sentiment and guilt as television
pictures depicted starving mothers and the British Band Aid single; however, its
ethnocentric overtones were more pronounced that any of the other Ethiopia songs.
Unfortunately, in an attempt to establish a sense of community, to deﬁne the world as a
human collective where all men are brothers, the writers chose lyrics that “play back and
forth between identity and difference in such a way as to make it impossible to see
Africans as capable social actors, while simultaneously pretending “they” are just like us”
(Reed, 160). For Reed, such empathy actually results in the erasure of Ethiopian famine
sufferers who were noticeably absent from the music video which “visually reinforces a
sense of inactivist self-containment” (160), and results in the saving of “the singer’s and
the audience, saved from having to think seriously about an “unpleasant thing” by simply
giving a few dollars for famine relief” (161). There is a dialectic tension in the song that

results frOm the vague nature of the address and the problematic usage of non-referential

129

pronouns. It is never clear exactly who is being addressed in each verse, who the ‘we’
that are the world might hope to save.

There are certain aspects of the song that hold a certain amount of truth; for
instance, it is true that “we can’t go on pretending” that someone else “will make a
change” on behalf of the Ethiopian people, particularly when that someone happens to be
either Western or corrupt Ethiopian government ofﬁcials. And yet, as happens
throughout, the song contradicts the very statement it attempts to assert because it
ultimately re-establishes and supports the very ‘pretense’ it is supposedly designed to
affect. One could expect that, when Kenny Rogers opens the second verse with “We
can’t go on pretending day by day/ that someone, somewhere will soon make a change”
the audience is being asked to take action, rather than expecting nameless others to solve
the world’s problems. The song, somewhat indirectly implicates the audience member
who remains blissfully but willfully ignorant of the struggles faced by others and asks her
not to “pretend” any longer. However, as Reed’s comment insinuates, donating to charity
actually allows the donor to pretend that the problem is solved, that there is no longer any
cause for self-reﬂexivity or guilt. This pretense results in the passing over of
responsibility: someone else, more informed, is given the duty of providing for the less
fortunate while American donors go back to thinking about their “own lives.”

The pretense is continued further in the third verse when song-writers imply that
all Americans need support the USA for Africa is to “send me your hearts.” The
implication here is that, if the American people show love and compassion, Aﬁicans will
“know that someone cares;” and, once they are aware of this love and compassion for

them—in quite an astounding leap—Africans will supposedly experience lives that are

130

“stronger and free.” It is not quite clear either how the starving in Africa will ever
become aware of the American peoples’ ‘hearts’ or how the knowledge that the
American people sympathize with them, will break the Ethiopians’ shackles, stop war,
genocide and ethnicide, and feed millions of starving people! And yet, the song implies
that American compassion can solve all of the world’s problems, or at least all of
America’s problems (not that the existence of any social or economic problems within
the US are acknowledged at any point in “We Are”).

Perhaps this ‘miracle’ is possible because American donors are supposed to
follow in the footsteps of God. God’s possible intervention is assumed; the fact that the
listener should do as God has done is, on the other hand, made explicit in the lines that
follow in which the song-writers tell us that God has shown us ways of compassion by
“turning stone to bread.” Like Him, we listeners too should “lend a helping hand.” Not
only is this verse overly sentimental, it is infused with the assumption that all listeners
(all charitable and loving people) are, in opposition to many of those worst affected by
ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia and later in the Sudan, Christian.

Again “We Are” hails the listener as a member of a homogeneous community of
Christians. Both the sentiment expressed in the song and the references rely on a certain
familiarity of Christianity and this emphasis could, potentially exclude or render resistant
non-Christians audiences. The Christian emphasis partially undermines the subversive
power of the ethic of compassionate consumerism in that it presents alternative identities
and communities for youth, but only within the conﬁnes of already established dominant
ideological frameworks. Must one be a Christian to fully participate in the famine relief

movement? What does it mean if one wants to participate within the famine relief

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movement, if one feels compassion and consumer urges as a result of the famine footage
and the celebrity response they elicit, but one is not a Christian? 15 one always, to some
extent, excluded? And if so, does this mean that—no matter how radical—it will never be
possible to construct or embrace a completely alternate identity or community.

“We Are the World” does not ask audiences to question how Christian
ideologies—religion in general—has played a part in both the devastation of rural
Ethiopia or global inequities. Similarly, the lyrics fail to question structural inequalities
that have led to such poverty in the Third World. On the contrary, they imply that
listeners should continue to support capitalist systems that rely on the commodiﬁcation of
the Other and support a free market economy that beneﬁts the most powerful nations on
the globe. However, it is possible to read the song as a text that is very honest in its
representation of famine relief and the ways in which the famine relief movement
beneﬁts the West. The song indicates not that ‘we’ are saving ‘their’ lives, but that ‘we’
are saving ‘our’ own—that famine relief will help us, not them. And yet, there is a
disparity between the ‘we’, whose lives are being saved, the ‘we’ who are doing the
saving, and the ‘you’ that needs to send your heart and the ‘you’ that, according to the
fourth stanza, must have more faith. The vagueness that results from such confusion in
pronoun usage serves to undermine the song’s assumptions in a number of interesting
ways.

In the last verse the composers make it clear that, through belief, all obstacles can
be overcome; that even “when you’re down and out” and completely hopeless, “if you
just believe, there’s no way we can fail.” But who is this ‘you’, exactly, that needs more

faith to oVercome hardship? For obvious reasons, one cannot really assume that it is the

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Ethiopian people being addressed in this last stanza, unless the idea is to address the
Ethiopians in an attempt to make the actual listener empathize with those starving. But
there is no indication of this. Ethiopians are never referenced directly, in fact, they are
never even mentioned once (they are as invisible in both the “We Are” music video and
accompanying documentary). It is more likely that the ‘you’ addressed in this instant is
an American—not an American that saves, but an American that does not deserve to be
an American.

The use of pronouns in the last verse again causes confusion, as is unclear to
whom the ‘certain call’ is addressed. There is again an implicit distinction between the
‘you’ that can help by sending ‘your hearts’ and the ‘we’ (perhaps the strong and free
‘we’, the privileged celebrity ‘we’) that sings the song “We Are the World.” While it is
insinuated that the ‘you’ to whom the line is addressed has a social a responsibility to act
on behalf of others less fortunate in the world, it is the ‘we’ that sings the song that makes
up the collective that is the world. ‘We’ are the ones is the limelight, the ones that all
attention alights upon, the ones that “make a brighter day.” From the very beginning the
song, through the establishment of a compassionate collective united against famine, has
tried to elide this implicit division between ‘you’ and ‘we’, between the ‘haves’ and the
‘have-nots’, between the ones with enough privilege to be compassionate and those who
fail as citizens. In this last verse, the ‘you’ that is addressed appears to be the hopeless
down and out ‘you’, the one that needs to believe, not simply because belief alone can
alleviate one’s own suffering, but, more signiﬁcantly, because suffering is caused by the
lack of belief. Belief will not only make the Ethiopian people ﬁnd strength and freedom,

but it will also ‘save our own lives’, the lives of those Americans who believe (does one

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need to believe to be an American?) In essence, the ones that don’t believe—the ‘you’ to
whom the stanza addresses, the ‘you’ that is not excluded because of structural inequities,
but because ‘you’ don’t have enough faith in the very system that impoverishes and
discriminates against ‘you’—could potentially destroy the American nation by not saving
“our own lives.” ‘You’ could end ‘our’ privilege.

Thus, the last two lines of the song call together those who do not have enough
belief, asking them to join with the ‘we’ who do believe enough. The lines thus ask those
without privilege to ignore their own lack of privilege and unite with those who have
privilege. The potential effects of such a call are frightening. The under-privileged are
being asked to de-politicize, to accept that they are not under-privileged because of the
structural inequities of capitalist systems but because they lack faith in the very system
that impoverishes them. They are being asked to deny their own social position and the
problems of their nation, and to identify with a group of privileged people intent on
helping women, men, and children in a foreign country; the focus on foreign catastrophe
and the pressure to ‘save’ either the starving abroad from starving or the privileged at
home from falling, shifts the focus away from domestic problems of the under-privileged.

In deﬂecting attention away from the problems of poverty and discrimination rife
in America under Reagan (and Britain under Thatcher), the song (and indeed the famine
relief movement) locates suffering elsewhere. Locating suffering in an ‘other’ place
depoliticizes suffering. “We Are the World” asks the under-privileged not to take up their
own cause, because the ‘other’ suffers more.

It is perhaps this deﬂection away from the social problems at home that leads both

the UK and the US government to support the famine relief movement, even when the

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movement potentially challenges each state’s foreign policy on famine relief and
domestic policies regarding the role of youths. This is because the famine relief
movement, while challenging certain aspects of state, does not do so in a way that is
threatening to the status quo. The ethic of compassionate consumerism, while going
against the rhetoric of compassionate conservatism sanctioned by Thatcher and Reagan,
does not challenge the West’s political decisions beyond the arena of aid distribution.
And it does much more to support the ideologies underpinning ideas of free-trade, the
free market economy, and consumer politics that it does to undermine them. It is for this
reason that, despite their original hesitancy, ﬁgures such as Norman Tebbit, Thatcher’s
President of the Board of Trade, ultimately congratulate the organizations behind famine
relief for their immense success in terms of proﬁts and revenue.

Unlike the Right, which, having realized its potential, quickly jumped on the
famine relief bandwagon; the left were slow to recognize the potential socio-cultural
power of the famine relief movement.130 For the most part, the left remain aloof from the
movement because, on the one hand, of a snobbish disregard for mass culture and, on the
other hand, because of concerns over the movement’s ethnocentric and imperialist
underpinnings. While the criticisms of ethnocentrism and proﬁteering lodged at Geldof
and his co-activists are indeed grounded in accuracy, it is possible to move beyond such
narrow critiques and recognize that, for all its downfalls, the movement did have a
number of positive outcomes for some Ethiopians and for many participants and sponsors

in the West. When considering the failures and successes of famine relief, one must

 

130For a discussion of how the left has failed youth and misunderstood the importance of movements such
as the famine relief movement, see Stuart Hall “Crisis and Renewal on the Left” The Hard Road to
Renewal, (London: Verso, 1988.) 257.

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acknowledge how, as a mass movement, the famine relief movement could only affect a
certain amount of change, within the conﬁnes of the culture that produced it. While we
may be disheartened by the apparent conservativeness of results, we should not discount
the movement for failing to affect a revolution.

For me, one of the biggest problems that arises from the left’s critique of mass
movement and popular culture in general, is critics inability to either acknowledge or
account for the pleasure that popular texts—especially those inspired by the ethic of
compassionate consumerism—can elicit from audiences and the subversive power of
pleasure itself. Through their involvement in the famine relief movement, the participants
gained both a voice and a sense of agency. Unlike the leftist intellectuals that critiqued
their behavior, they recognized that, through the consumption of mass culture and their
collusion with media and multinationals, they could simultaneously garner pleasure and
become active global subjects or agents of change.

Imag]in)ing the World

In Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture,
musicologist Andrew Goodwin persuasively illustrates how music is (even prior to its
accompaniment by music video) a visual as well as an aural text. He argues that pleasure
arises from the combination of sound and image, from what he describes as the
phenomenon of “synaethesia, the intrapersonal process whereby sensory impressions are
carried over from one sense to another, for instance, when one pictures sounds in one’s

3”

‘mind’s eye (50). After conducting informal interviews with artists and audiences,
Goodwin comes to the conclusion that “[l]isteners, as well as composers, “see” images

when music is hear ” (52) and argues that this combination of simultaneous visual and

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aural experience—synaesthesia—leads to a sense of heightened pleasure for the
viewer/listener.

Obviously the lyrics for both the UK and the US Ethiopia singles have the
potential to conjure speciﬁc images in the minds of the listener. In “Christmas” Geldof
uses somewhat stereotypical imagery to draw comparisons between the ‘smiling joy’ of
Brits at Christmas and starving Ethiopians. His lyrics ask that listeners visualize ‘raising a
glass’ for those less fortunate. For many listeners, having seen the Buerk/Amin
documentary (or similar, sensationalist footage of the refugee camps in Korem and
elsewhere) prior to hearing the song, already have a repertoire of embedded images from
which to draw when Geldof—via the voices of Simon Le Bon and Sting—reminds the
viewer (no matter how inaccurately) that “the only water ﬁowing” in Aﬁica is “the bitter
sting of tears.” How hard is it for the viewer not to cast her mind back to the image of a
starving child crying for food, or a father crying for his dead wife and child? The imagery
for “We Are the World” is much less mundane, more grandiose—rather than raising a
glass, listeners are asked to visualize God “turning stone to bread” or the whole world
“stand[ing] together as one.”

The lyrics guide the viewer’s visual imagination; however, the music itself also
potentially provides the viewer with an image. Perhaps the most effective example of this
is in “Christmas” when Bono tells us of how the Christmas bells that ring in Africa “are
the clanging bells of doom.” We have heard such bells as the beginning of the single, and
perhaps we associate them with Christmas (as the song’s title indicates), with a church
scene, with bells of hope, or even a musician playing a synthesizer that imitates the clang

of church bells. It is not until half way through the song that the lyrics tell the listener

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how to interpret the sound. Having once heard the song, the opening takes on a new
meaning—the conscious listener knows what the clangs are meant to represent and may
visualize death bells as a consequence. It is possible that the music itself may have
already set an image in the mind of the viewer that the lyrics ﬁnd hard to shake.

For the consumer-donor (or even the casual shopper) the audio-visual text is
altered, not only because is it now owned and tangible, but because the cover or
packaging provides new layers of signiﬁcation that on one hand reinforce the same ideas
expressed in the song and, on the other hand, alter the nature of the text itself. To
illustrate the power of cover art even in the 805—the era of music video—I want to refer
brieﬂy to an anecdotal example described by Jennifer Hurley in her ethnographic study.
In order to illustrate the relationship between album art and gendered subjectivity, Hurley
tells the story of a well-informed, intelligent female study participant’s decision to wear a
sexist Guns ‘n’ Roses T-Shirt, despite her knowledge that the sexist message undermines
her own self-interest and self-image (332). Hurley hypothesizes that the reason for this is
because “her fandom [rules] out any criticism of the band, even if this compromises her
integrity as someone who would normally consider [the message] abhorrent” (332); thus
illustrating that allegiance to a band, set of rock music ideals, or a certain rock
community is more important to many listener/viewers than their own sense of individual
identity. The reason why Hurley’s point is signiﬁcant to my argument is that her
observation indicates how the cover art or packaging of a song, album, or other musical
text is vital to inﬂuencing and maintaining the ethos and/or ideology that inform lyrics,

band/artist performance, and audience participation.

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Fig. 10. Cover art for the 12-inch single
They Know It’s Christmas," Phonogram release of “We Are the World,” Columbia
Records, 1985. Records, 1985.

The cover art for “Christmas” and “We Are the World” differ signiﬁcantly. The
former is a collage that juxtaposes color illustrations of children and domestic pets
participating in festive activities with a black and white photographic image of two
starving African children. The cover art is reminiscent of a Christmas card. Happy
families from a variety of eras (the Georgian and Victorian eras, the 19205 and 19505),
smiling parents and their joyous well-fed children, play with toys. Common symbols of
Christmas—including a Christmas tree, brandy, and Christmas cake—litter the frame.
Father Christmas stands outside the window looking into the frame or, more to the point,
into the warm and welcoming Christmas room isolated from the cold outdoors. The
starving African children, however, disrupt the sense of Christmas cheer. They function
as that which Roland Barthes would describe as the punctum in that the eye is always
drawn to them.131

In the same way that the images of starving Aﬁicans in the famine coverage are

 

131For discussion of the complex nature of the ‘punctum’ see Roland Barthes Camera Lucida (Trans.
Richard Howard. New York: Hill & Wang, 1981) 51-60.

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supposed to interrupt the viewer’s everyday life—to momentarily question the holiday
cheer—and encourage the viewer to donate, the image of the children in the cover
disrupts the image of holiday cheer in the fake Christmas card. Yet, despite the
effectiveness of the centered children, the way in which the starving are positioned,
specularized, and rendered in Black and White raises a number of implications.

First of all, unlike the illustrated children and Father Christmas who spies on them
from afar, neither of the African children look toward the camera. Unlike the two girls sat
on the sofa in the middle, left-hand side of the frame, the African children do not appear
to be aware that they are being photographed. The image of the girls, which seems as if it
is a color enhanced manipulation of a family snapshot, is obviously posed; whereas the
image of the African children (which is equally timeless and has become as much of a
‘traditional’ image of Aﬁica as the Dickensian-esque children at play has become a
‘traditional’ image of Christmas in the UK) is—in its monochrome format—more akin to
a seemingly ‘objective’ journalistic image. The white children (can we assume that, based
on their dress, they are all British?) are clearly gendered and representative of speciﬁc
historical moments: the starving Africans, generic as they are, seem both genderless and
timeless. As a result, the artwork presents famine, deprivation, and abjection in Africa as
a constant in the same way as the Buerk/Amin footage and the Ethiopia singles. The
viewer is once again positioned as both Sontag and Berlant argue, as impotent and all
powerful because while the viewer is not physically part of the charity rock community
on screen, she can aspire towards becoming compassionate consumer—a valid member
of a global society. At same time, however, the viewer is presented with ideal images

with which to identify. In this respect the cover art functions in the same way as the

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music videos that accompanies both “Christmas” and “We Are the World.”

The cover of “We Are the World” differs greatly from that of “Christmas” but
reinforces the Ethiopia single it accompanies in the same way. The notion of a one-world
community expressed in the song is once again represented in the artwork. Children of all
races (all seem to be of color) ﬁll the cover from the foreground to the horizon. Uniﬁed,
they stand together under a large blue sky, the sun shining behind and over them. Unlike
the Ethiopian children at the front of the Band Aid, these children look at the viewer. Are
they asking the viewer to be part of their community? Or are they implying that all
children of color, no matter where in the world, are the same (are ‘them’)? Whereas the
“Christmas” image was reminiscent of a Christmas card the “We Are the World” is
reminiscent of a Christian pamphlet or an image of peace. 15 this accidental or are we to
assume that, because the single is released near to Easter time, the art is produced in such
a way to implicitly remind Americans of Christian notions of compassion?

Despite the distinctions between the cover art for both “Christmas” and “We Are
the World,” in both cases a substitution occurs. The purchaser is presented with a piece of
plastic, a black vinyl object that functions for a substitute for the now forgotten Ethiopian
Madonna of famine footage. With the exception of the small photo, the image of the
starving Ethiopian has been replaced by idealistic images of Westemized Christian
charity and hope. The cover art illustrates how the relief movement continuously removes
itself from the cause it was designed to raise funds and awareness for. As we shall see,
the ‘them’ of the songs, the small reference to ‘them’ in the cover art, dwindles as
celebrities and donors become more and more involved in the movement. The question

then arises: if the Ethiopian famine sufferer is no longer visible, how does the

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viewer/listener continue to develop a sense of identity and subjectivity in opposition to
the Othered victim on screen? Arguably, references to ‘them’ is sufﬁcient to allow the
viewer/listener to establish self as distinct to the abject Ethiopian. However, I would also
assert that the psychic capital that viewer/listener gained by consuming the images of
dying Ethiopians is increased through the act of purchasing (spending money) on the
behalf of the helpless, passive victims of famine. In other words, the purchase of charity
rock and rock related products (such as magazine articles, T-Shirts, posters, and other
merchandise) results in consumer amelioration—the consumer proves her compassion in
the act of exchanging money for product. In purchasing the song, the purchaser also
becomes part of the purchasing community (one both familiar and spurred on by the
references to national pastimes and symbols illustrated in the songs and on their covers),

and as a member, arguably experiences even more amelioration.

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Chapter Five
Compassionate Consumerism and Commodity Synergy: The Relocation of
Suffering in Famine and Famine Relief Music Videos.

With crocodile tears to irrigate this ground
Make Ethiopia a fertile paradise
Where everyone sings Beatles songs and buys shares in BM].132

The production and release of the Ethiopia singles marks the emergence of the
famine relief movement and an evolution in the ethic of compassionate consumerism.
The movement emerged at the point where suffering was replaced by more aesthetically
pleasing commodities, that is, where suffering was transferred from famine sites in
Ethiopia onto famine relief sites in the West and, perhaps more speciﬁcally, onto the
voices, bodies, and faces of famine celebrities. As a result of the substitution of suffering
and famine sites by celebrity commodities and sites of performance, compassion was
redirected away from the famine victim toward the celebrities singing on behalf of the
victim and, later, toward the donor that identiﬁes with the celebrity. Consumer impulses
were also redirected as the number of texts and commodities increased, and, as more
diverse texts and commodities were produced.

This chapter examines the ways in which the famine commodity was replaced by
celebrity commodities in the Ethiopia music videos. I determine how, as a result of both
the ‘one world’ sentiment expressed in the songs and the synaesthetic qualities of music
video, the substitution of famine victim by celebrity appears natural and occurs with ease.
1 illustrate how the combination of visual and audio in the Ethiopia singles music videos
smoothes over celebrity substitutions and covers over any inconsistencies in the famine

relief text and, by extension, the ethic that inspires the famine relief movement. I explore

 

132Chumbawamba, “How to Get Your Band on Television,” Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records,
Agit Prop, 1986.

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how and why compassion and consumer impulses were redirected as the number of texts
and commodities increased and as more diverse texts and commodities were produced. I
also demonstrate how such substitutions not only lead to the elision of the famine victim,
but ultimately allow for the easy translation of non-tangible commodity into material
capital.

The substitution of victim by celebrity and the redirection of compassionate
consumer impulses resulted in an elision of the famine sufferer who soon seemed
insigniﬁcant in motivating the public to support the famine relief movement. Seemingly,
the famine victim became somewhat dispensable not simply because the celebrity
commodities that replaced her were more aesthetically pleasing and familiar to US and
UK audiences, but because the commodities of suffering, experience, and image
constructed and produced by the famine footage were—once celebrities, record
companies, and multi-national corporations became involved in the organization of
famine relief—were easily translated into capital in a real world marketing game.
Eliding Victims

The famine victim was replaced with ease for a number of reasons. Susan Moeller
would argue that both compassion fatigue and the assumptions media producers were part
of the cause. Moeller states:

Compassion Fatigue is the unacknowledged cause of much of the failure

of international reporting today. lt is at the base of many complaints about

the public’s short attention span, the media’s peripatetic journalism, the

public’s boredom with international news, the media’s preoccupation with

crisis coverage (2).

Despite the compelling nature of Moeller’s argument about the media’s ulterior motives,

the public’s need to see themselves reﬂected in the news, and the function of compassion

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fatigue, it is impossible to determine what either producers or receivers of famine texts
felt or believed about the commodities they consumed. I would assert that compassion
fatigue did not necessarily occur, not because Moeller is incorrect about the motives of
the media or the public’s potential attention span, but because the public was constantly
presented with by alternative representations and coverage of both the famine and famine
relief events, and with a multitude of famine related commodities and adverts for famine
merchandise.

Once the public expressed concern over the famine, the media did not limit
coverage of famine events to representations of Ethiopians starving. On the contrary,
news stations, newspapers, and charities presented the public with stories regarding the
politics of relief agencies, with reports on celebrities involved in famine relief, and
representations of famine in a the form of numerous different visual media and genres
(e. g. print news reports and video texts). The variety of texts and media available
prevented compassion fatigue from inhibiting the movement’s momentum, but—as I
show in my analysis of the music videos—it also resulted in further elision of the famine
victim.

The famine victim was easily replaced because of the unintended consequence of
the ‘one world’ sentiment expressed not only in the songs but also throughout the texts
produced and received within the famine relief movement site. While the ‘one world’
sentiment was naive and simplistic, and failed to allow for a recognition of the ways in
which global systems of inequities function, the notion that Westerners shared a
vulnerability with Ethiopian famine victim that results from the ‘one world’ logic (a

notion that, in attempting to show empathy, serves to equates all oppression) actually

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allowed not only for the process of substitutions to occur, but made the substitutions
proﬁtable. It comes as no shock to the viewer that the famine victim has been replaced by
an image of Bono or Michael Jackson because the celebrity performing on behalf of
famine relief becomes, through a process of synergy, synonymous with the famine
victim. In a similar move, products and merchandise either produced by or indirectly
connected to such celebrity ﬁgure became synonymous with the famine.

A number of interlaced questions arise as a result of this synergy and the insertion
of celebrities into the world of famine. What happens when the famine victim replaced,
and why is the celebrity commodity more likely to encourage Western involvement in
famine relief and raise funds and awareness? Does this process of substitution occur
because celebrity holds more cultural capital in the West, because certain forms of
commodity (like celebrity) are more valuable than others (such as starving Ethiopian
Madonnas), and because the celebrity commodity is more marketable according to media
producers and can be more easily translated into real capital? In other words, can we put
a price tag on experience, suffering, and imagination and, if we do, how does the
hierarchization of famine and famine relief commodities undermine the ‘one world’
vision expressed in the Ethiopia singles?

Arguably, the commodity of suffering in its celebrity form has more value in the
West than suffering in its Ethiopian form. In other words, the suffering, experience, and
image of celebrity is more valuable within the Western imagination than that of the
Ethiopian starving to death in a refugee camp in Korem. The fact that Bono or Jackson’s
suffering is more aesthetically pleasing and more likely to generate capital than the

suffering of the Ethiopians—the fact that viewers appear to want to share in Bono and

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Jackson’s pain more than that of the Ethiopian Madonna with Child—implies that there is
a distinction in value between types of suffering and that the shared vulnerability upon
which the ethic of compassionate consumerism and the notion of ‘one world’ rest is
perhaps illusory.

Constructing Authenticity

In order for the celebrity to replace the victim with ease, famine relief texts had to
present the celebrity’s suffering experience as authentic. In the case of the music videos,
the key to building this illusion was to construct the stories of the famine celebrities as
authentic truths and the stars’ compassionate pleas to help save the starving in real time,
as live events. Adding this illusion of authenticity not only further inspires viewers that
identify with the celebrities on screen to become more involved (more compassionate and
more extravagant with their consumer-donations), but also arguably makes the videos
texts more visually and aurally appealing. In the videos, a series of compensations and
substitutions of the visual and aural is employed to create an illusion of authenticity. And,
part of the pleasure of watching is identifying with sincere community of artists.

As a result of the music and the videos produced on behalf of famine relief, the
movement was able to raise awareness and funds globally. The increase in new famine
commodities (i.e. new scenes of suffering, rock music, celebrity images) and related
merchandise, added to the fact that such commodities were presented or advertised via
the television, meant that famine relief had the potential to reach even more broad and
diverse audiences than the famine footage. The more commodities and the broader the
reach, the more successful the famine relief movement, its ethic, and its underlying

ideologies appeared to be.

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Few scholars dispute the synaesthetic characteristics or potential of music or
music video, however, debates still rage regarding which holds supremacy: the visual or
the aural. When on considers how, in the Ethiopia videos, the famine is only referenced
aurally, then it is important to consider the relationship between the lyrics and sounds of
the Ethiopia singles and the ways in which they are visually narrated by the Ethiopia
videos. For Andrew Goodwin, the image supports the sound: he argues that this is the
case for both songs and visual music texts, such as video. For scholars such as Will
Straw, Carol Versallis, and Marsha Kinder, the aural (speciﬁcally the lyrics) is
subordinate to the visual. My own position is that the subordination of sound by vision,
or vice versa, is speciﬁc to each video text and that it is possible for different aspects of
the aural and the visual to dominate at various points throughout a video. This is
particularly the case with music videos that do not employ a metaphorical storyline, but
appear to present an impromptu live performance.

In line with French scholar, Michel Chion, I assume “the reality of the audio-
visual combination—that one perception inﬂuences the other and transforms it” (xxvi).
Chion, in moving beyond typical debates between screen theorists and musicologists,
argues that “[w]e never see the same thing when we hear; we don’t hear the same thing
when we see as well. We must therefore get beyond preoccupations such as identifying
so-called redundancy between the two domains and debating inter-relations between
forces. . .” (xxvi).

Through an analysis of the “Christmas” and “We Are the World” videos, I hope
to show how sound and image in music video function in unison—how each inﬂuences

the way in which the viewer/listener responds to the text--in order to illustrate how and

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why charity rock music videos appeal to the listener/viewer to such an extent that the
movements that they represent (Band Aid and USA for Africa) are monumentally
successful. My analysis of the function of music video also illustrates how, without the
availability of newly advanced aural and visual video technologies that allowed for the
reloction of suffering and commodity transference to appear part of a ‘natural’ process,
the famine relief movement might not have garnered the global response that it did!

The Band Aid video opens with Geldof 5 hands opening a newspaper to the center
page. The images revealed is a double page photograph depicting the artists involved in
Band Aid. No sound accompanies the opening of what can be described as a new story in
the history of consumer based relief programs, charity rock, and media coverage of
charitable events. The screen fades to black for a moment and then fades in to reveal a
medium shot that tracks Geldof walking (from right to left) behind other artists,
presumably toward the studio to record “Christmas.” As the camera presents him in
proﬁle, suddenly, the ﬁrst clanging bell of doom is heard. The camera lingers for a
moment on other celebrities that mill around (newspapers in hand) outside of the studio,
and then the camera cuts to a close up of Paul Young as he starts to sing: “It’s
Christmas?”3 For the rest of the video, the camera either follows the men singing their
lines and playing their instruments, or cuts to scenes of the wives and children of
celebrities socializing and artists relaxing between their lines.

The story presented to the viewer by the video serves to emphasize the sentiment
obvious in both the lyrics and the cover art for the single: in their own unique way, each

of the three presents the ethnocentric assumptions of a uniﬁed group of white saviors,

 

133“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” comp. Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, perf. The Live Aid Assembly,
Phonogram Records, 1985.

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“us,” who will save the passive and starving Africans (not Ethiopians), that is, “them.”
White, British families are presented as having fun, drinking, and singing—as is the
tradition in the UK at Christrnastime. As is now typical of coverage of famine relief, the
Ethiopians are only referred to brieﬂy. They are never shown, only mentioned—their
appearance would disrupt the representation of holiday cheer, of compassionate Brits
gathering together on the behalf of others less fortunate (and less attractive). The
Ethiopians are nothing more than the implied reason for the gathering of celebrities;
however, it is possible to imagine that the celebration may have occurred even if the
famine had not.

According to Will Straw, “[t]he narratives of how each of the Ethiopia singles
came to be are essential to the meanings of those records...” (205). And it is the stories
presented by the video’s visual montage, combined with the lyrics and sounds, that guide
the listener/viewer in how to both read and respond to the Ethiopia singles. The narrative
presented by “Christmas” is one of cohesion and compassion. However, the opening of
the video reveals a temporal discontinuity. How is it possible for Geldof to open a
newspaper to reveal a photograph of the Band Aid artists gathered together prior to their
gathering? Either the opening scene occurred after the recording was made, and the video
was edited in such a way to make it seems as if the newspaper was opened before the
recording; or, the newspaper scene was added, post recording in order to emphasize a
speciﬁc narrative—to guide the viewer/listener in her reading of the text. The newspaper
is opened like a storybook at the beginning of the fairytale. It is reminiscent of the
storybook opened at the beginning of ﬁlms such as Disney’s Snow White or Sleeping

Beauty. The Band Aid celebrities (remember, only the men sing individual lines or play

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instruments) are knights in shining armor, working together to save a damsel in distress—
the damsel being Africa (the silent Ethiopian Madonna who has no agency to save
herself).

The depiction of the newspaper spread functions on another level, as it also
illustrates how producers of different media work together to present the Band Aid story.
The tabloid press provides potential video viewer/listeners with a preview of what is to
come; it informs readers of the Band Aid project, and shows—once again—a cohesive
group of musicians united for one cause. The newspaper shot functions as an example of
what Rijven might mean when he states that all Ethiopia projects share “a high media
sensibility that feeds on itself—charity open all doors” (203). One text leads to the
production of another; the song leads to the video that is advertised by the photo-shoot;
the video and photo-shoot inﬂuence sales of the song (when presented as part of larger
text or programs such as Top of the Pops) and of the “making of” the video; the
combined appeal of which leads to the production and consumption of related
merchandise, the US version, and ticket sales at the Live Aid concert. Print, audio, and
audio-visual texts work together to continue to promote and sell the cause—the feeding
of the world.

“We Are the World” borrows the “Christmas” formula in a number of ways. The
video opens with a few seconds of footage that are particular to the video, but are neither
made audible or implied on the recorded single. A synthesized tune, akin to a tune used to
introduce an instructional video or a European radio news program, is played as a small
spinning globe enlarges as it rushes toward the screen and the viewer. The globe is a

digital image of the world. It continues to grow. A chime sounds (a clanging bell, a

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reference to Band Aid perhaps). The globe fades to white and, as it turns, the USA Aid
logo is revealed. The globe takes up the full screen, and—through the wonders of
technology—the signatures of celebrities involved in USA Aid are written (handless) in
unison across the screen. The news-theme continues and is incorporated into the
beginning of the song, as the logo screen fades to an image of Lionel Richie as he
prepares to sing “There comes a time, when we heed a certain call.” From this point
onward, the camera traces the singers delivering their lines, and only shifts from close-
ups and medium close-ups of singer’s faces in order to depict the USA Aid group singing
the chorus in unison.

In contrast to “Christmas,” the sound and images of the USA for Africa’s
performance are disrupted, not by images of happy families of singers “smiling joy” and
“having fun” back stage or during rehearsal breaks, but by other musical performances.
As a result of availability issues and technical difﬁculties, a couple of artists, including
Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson were required to return to the studio the day after all
forty-ﬁve celebrities originally gathered to sing “We Are the World.” Their re-recorded
performances were then combined with the original recording to present a sense of unity
and cohesion. The fact that the re—recordings are presented in sequence make them appear
less disruptive than those in “Christmas,” despite the fact that “We Are the World” is as
constructed.

Despite their difference, both videos attempt to construct an appearance of live-
ness. The narratives are constructed in such a way that they appear to occur in real time.
This is most evident in the Band Aid video that, of course, must have been edited in a

way that distorted time in order for the news photo of the event to be revealed to the

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event participants as they arrived for the event (this is temporally, an impossibility). The
illusion of real time has a double effect; it not only helps to stress the urgency of the
campaign (all the stars took time out of their busy schedules to come together at one
place and time to raise money for Africa) but also emphasizes the authenticity and
realness of the recording event. This helps to solidify the idea that the artists are not
performing—this is not a show—but are banding together as part of a compassionate and
concerned community, a community that they hope the viewer will become a part of.

The videos for “Christmas” and “We Are the World” appear most ‘real’ because
they are constructed so as to occlude the act that what is seen is not a live performance.
The pretense of the live is emphasized not only by the main focus on performance of a
community of stars, but by the exposure and display of technical equipment and
cameramen. The realistic aspect of the video is also implied by the camera’s revelation of
the means of production. In both videos, the technological equipment (cameras,
microphones, cords, lights) is exposed for the viewer to see. What is not exposed,
however, is the mixing, editing, or retakes of each sequence. It is strange that, on one
hand, the videos attempt to veil their construction, the fact that what we see and hear is as
much a constructed performance as any other, when on the other hand, aspects of
production are made visible. However, in making visible the cameraman, the existence of
editors, and behind the scenes footage of the recording studios, the producers of both
videos ironically only reinforce the sense of reality and urgency that the videos intend to
create. For instance, “Christmas” ends in such a way that the editing process is
acknowledged—the editors write a letter explaining the time it has taken them to produce

the text and expressing thanks to the organizers of Band Aid—but this does not spoil the

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illusion of a linear narrative. “We Are The World” also ends with the printed word, as a
verse from the song fades onto the screen in a white font. This also fails to disrupt the
illusion of linearity—the only effect of the words is to emphasize the sentiment expressed
by the song’s lyrics, to provide the lyrics with visual accompaniment, and to make the
viewer/listener part of the community of readers—like the singers of the US Ethiopia
single, the viewer/listener can also read the lines assigned them.

The illusion of realness of the videos comes, in part, ﬁ'om the combined effect of
the sound and image. When the visual text presents a disparity—a temporal or spatial
interruption, the soundtrack smoothes over the disparity. This is made most evident in the
“We Are the World” video when the images and soundtrack cover over the fact that
numerous USA for Africa artists either could not make the ﬁrst recording session after
the music awards or had to return to Burbank to re-record their segments. Although the
video appears to be free of a storyline, to present a live performance, it is a constructed
narrative in much the same way as music videos that present a metaphorical storyline. In
line with Kinder’s deﬁnition of music videos that are dominated by performance,
“[p]erformance dominates both the sound and image” in USA for Africa’s “We Are The
World,” but the performance is also interrupted by “a subordinate narrative [and] visual
fragmentation that disrupts the temporal and spatial unity” (7). The discontinuity in time
and space is, however, covered over both by the fact that there are no breaks in the song
(the sound having been edited and mixed) and by the editing of the music video. Sound
compensates for any visual inconsistencies. At various points the images of Stevie
Wonder, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Springsteen—images recorded the day after the 45

celebrities ﬁrst gathered—are superimposed onto pre-recorded images. This

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superimposition is obvious if one looks, but it is also very easy to ignore when the
continuous soundtrack is played over the images (and even if the viewer-listener notices
the edits and cuts in ﬁlm, there is no way to know when the shots were ﬁlmed or the
temporal and spatial discontinuities of the visual text). Sound helps to smooth over visual
disruption.

Because the song sounds like an organically constructed, complete, and linear
text, the video also looks like an organically constructed, complete, and linear text. The
video emphasizes the impression of linear progression that the viewer-listener hears as it
too shifts from one singer to another in correct order and succession. This linearity helps
create the notion of a uniﬁed and joined community and undermines notions of artists as
individual. The potential that constructing the famine relief community thus has when
interpellating potential compassionate, consuming viewer-listeners is immense.

Any gaps in the illusion of realness are covered over by the effect of synaesthesia;
they are also hidden through a display of excess enacted through the voices, gestures,
expressions, and emotions of famine relief artists. While constructed, the actions and tone
of the performers appears authentic enough to encourage viewer-listeners to identify with
the suffering star on screen and, consequentially, they interpellate viewers into
comfortable compassionate consumer subject positions. The videos provide ideal ﬁgures
for both identiﬁcation and empathy—this allows viewer-listeners to experience the
pleasure of connection, of uniﬁed identity, and community.

Celebrities in the West became the ones that suffered as a result of the famine.
The suffering of the famine-celebrity is intimated, not only through the lyrics of the

Ethiopia singles as previously discussed, but is also expressed through the excessiveness

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of the tone and gestures of the singers. Will Straw argues that the voices in the US
Ethiopia single are more distinct and identiﬁable than those in the Band Aid single, in
part because USA Aid involved many male and female singers from a range of musical
genres. However, while my own experience would support his assertion, I think his
observation about the voices “We Are the World” could be effectively applied to the UK
single too. Straw states that:

The aesthetic success of the song is that while these voices [Michael

Jackson’s, Bruce Springsteen’s, Cyndi Lauper’s and Lionel Ritchie’s] are

expressive, that expressiveness is exploited for its narrative value, rather

than a succession of individual moments of testimony. The recognisability

of these voices is such that the normal harmonic tensions are doubled by

the tensions attendant upon the identiﬁcation of the successive voices
(205).

Straw does not elaborate on what he means exactly when he describe how the
combination of different or diverse voices has a certain “narrative value” or that “the
normal harmonic tensions are doubled.” However, his comments appear to afﬁrm my
own hypothesis that the song—the apparent natural and smooth transition from one voice
to another—creates the illusion of both an aural and [a visual linear narrative. The
discordant voices of Springsteen and Lauper, or even Boy George and Bono, do create a
sort of tension between individual lines—but I would argue that, in both songs, this
tension is released upon viewing the video when not only is it possible to clearer identify
each singer in succession, but the smoothness of transition (as well as the knowledge
provided by the visual) relieves tension.

Most interesting about Straw’s statement is his idea that the narrative
overcompensates for, and dilutes, the ‘testimony’ of each artist. His choice of the word

testimony is signiﬁcant here as, particularly in “We Are the World” the singers appear to

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be testifying: testifying to the greatness of God, and testifying as witnesses to the horrors
in Ethiopia (horrors they do not present visually, horrors that we can only assume either
as a result of the singer’s testimony or our own memories borrowed from famine
coverage in the news). The testifying nature of the lines may be minimized by the
narrative transitions, but they are emphasized clearly by the gestures of the performers
(some more than others—Bono and Springsteen, for example, appear to be very moved
and very passionate.)

According to Goodwin, gestures have the potential to elaborate upon both rhythm
and tempo in music video (68-9). Arguably, in the case of the Ethiopia singles, gestures
emphasize (albeit illusory) a constant rhythm, a continuousness of tempo; the gestures of
singers both veil the narrative discontinuity and draw attention away from the fact that
what is presented as ‘real’ and live is, in fact, a constructed illusion. The passion that
singers such as Bono and Springsteen exhibit not only allows the viewer/listener to easily
identify them when singing, it also has the potential to impassion audiences and
encourage them to join the donor community that the Ethiopia singles and videos both
represent and advertise.

In “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation,” Stuart Hall argues that there
is no equivalence between enunciation and true meaning. Therefore, it is impossible to
determine meaning simply by hearing sounds. One can only make assumptions about
meaning. The visual representations of the gestures of those singers ‘testifying’, however,
guides the ear and inﬂuences meaning. The viewer-listener is guided to see sincerity.
This visual emphasizes the words, but the words also emphasize the visual. For example,

when springsteen looks like he really cares for famine victims (for those that are part of

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the “World” that we are) he also sings like he cares.

The combination of visual and aural sincerity implies that there is a ‘true’ or
speciﬁcally identiﬁable meaning applicable to each song. However, this sense of ‘truth’
created by the singer’s visual and audio expressiveness is as false an illusion as the
realness of the live performance. At the same time that the audio compensates for visual
lack, it is possible to consider that the visual compensates for an aural lack; that is, the
something indeﬁnable and inexpressible in the aural. We think we know the intentions of
the singer because they are implied visually, through gesture, expression, and movement.

Despite the distinctions in genre, audience address, and medium, the documentary
footage produced by Buerk and Amin, and the Ethiopia videos, have a common appeal
and effect. The illusion of liveness in the videos makes the music videos analogous to the
famine footage that inspired them and the famine relief movement at large. The Buerk/
Amin famine footage denies its own constructed nature both because it exposes the
means by which it is produced and because the audio narrative Buerk provides (and the
visual edited narrative) smoothes over the relatively rough transition from images of the
plains to the feeding centers, ﬁom the hoards of starving to individuals in pain, from the
living to the dying. In this respect, in its exposure of the means of production and the use
of narrative to create an illusion of the unconstructed real, the footage functions like the
videos—they are different text and media but they serve the same ends. They share
similarities in the ways that they both sensationalize events, placing both the camera and

onus on the suffering of the individual.

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Merchandising Video Texts

More so than news footage, the music video functions as an extremely effective
advertisement for famine relief because it had the ability to sell multiple commodities and
products at once. In other words, the Ethiopia music videos enabled an easy translation of
screen commodity into material capital. Because of the famine videos potential to
advertise, many celebrities, sponsors, and producers could be persuaded to donate their
talents and equipment. Each video potentially advertises the video itself, the song, the
album, the artists performing, each artist’s image, other works performed by each artist,
other products endorsed by the artist elsewhere, the clothing and accessories worn by
celebrities and extras, the location of the video, the technologies and production
equipment used, the musical instruments used, the video’s director and production
company, and the record company with whom the artist is signed.134

The potential for the music video to advertise commodities and associated
merchandise is increased exponentially when more than one artist or group is depicted.
For instance, forty-ﬁve artists participated in the “We Are the World” video. The video
not only advertised the USA for Aﬁica single (and, by association, the British equivalent
“Do They Know lt’s Christmas”) and accompanying famine relief merchandise (such as
T-shirts, books, and the making of video); but also the image, music, and endorsed
merchandise for each of the forty-ﬁve celebrities involved. In addition, in becoming a
substitute for the famine victim, each celebrity—and by extension their clothing,

accessories, music and merchandise became associated with famine relief by association,

 

134Arguably, a good video does all of the above without exposing itself as a commercial while
distinguishing itself from the other commercials and videos that precede and succeed it.

159

simply because the celebrity was depicted in the famine relief video and—became (if
only temporarily) synonymous with the famine and the famine relief effort.135

The Ethiopia videos, alongside the famine footage in its video form, helped to
advertise both the famine relief - movement and—by association—a range of famine relief
merchandise: this was the point at which the commodities represented in the famine
videos were easily translated into material capital. And, I would argue that they were
most successful in selling themselves as famine relief texts and associated famine relief
merchandise because audiences knew how to read the music video as a sophisticated
commercial for a multitude of products. The videos (both of the Ethiopia singles and the
CBS documentary) hailed their audiences as consumers, active and empowered in their
role as consumers. The videos, because of the ways they depicted and commodiﬁed
suffering, also encouraged compassion among consumers and were, thus, arguably,
highly effective in evoking compassionate consumer impulses and help the movement
succeed.

Arguably, as a result of the videos and later the Live Aid concert which
functioned as a long video text, famine relief movement organizers sold famine
merchandise worth millions. While the proceeds of each supplementary text and product
went to the famine relief cause, each visual text—particularly the videos—once again
advertised the celebrities involved (including extra celebrities such as Jane Fonda that

weren’t involved in the recording of the Ethiopia singles but introduced the Making of

video), their endorsements and record companies, all the accoutrements necessary to

 

135Various critics focusing on the intentions of artists have condemned those involved in both the famine
relief videos and the Live Aid concert (which, as 1 illustrate in the next chapter also functions like a music
video, each performance and advert being part of a continuous text). For instance, Straw and Rijven argue
that celebrities became involved simply to gain free advertising, that is, to capitalize on what I have
described to be compassionate consumerism.

I60

maintain their celebrity image, and the producers and distributors of each text (be they
producers and distributors such as RCA/Columbia Home Videos that produced and
distributed Making of “We Are the World” or Bob Geldof’ 5 Ten Alps that has produced
and distributed the Live Aid DVD compendium).

The merchandise that accompanied the Live Aid concert not only economically
beneﬁted the movement but private citizens, various writers, publishers, and
publishing/production companies. Merchandising included not only footage (which was
only been available on DVD when), but concert programs, a series of books including the
not-for-proﬁt World Wide Concert Book (proceeds of which went to Band Aid) and Live
Aid (a for-proﬁt text published for children by Comerstones of F reedom/ Children’s Press
Chicago), clothing,136 and, souvenirs such as press passes and tickets (the revenues for
which is not guaranteed to go to the famine relief cause).

Whether or not the proﬁt for merchandise went to the famine relief cause, what is
clear that sales were made as a direct result of the advertising capabilities of the Ethiopia
video texts, video footage of famine the Horn, and the Live Aid concert disseminated to
an estimated 1.5 billion people around the globe. To participate in the famine relief
movement, the public had to actively consume famine and famine relief texts.
Participants became united both in their shared knowledge of how to read famine relief
texts and their roles as consumers. The youth market was both identiﬁed and uniﬁed

through acts of consuming and purchasing within the famine relief site, and through the

 

136Arguably the Live Aid logo was also a valuable commodity. Organizers fearing that, prior to the
concert, pirates would create bootleg merchandise, kept the logo under wraps. “Live Aid Faces Rip-Off,”
Scottish Daily Express, 11 July 1985: 15.

I61

evocation of compassion that each consumer text and act of purchase enabled and
intensiﬁed.

There are other signiﬁcant consequences of using music video formats. Not only
are music videos an effective way for advertisers to sell commodities and merchandise,
but they are also effective in unifying a speciﬁc type of community. Both the Ethiopia
singles’ videos and other music video texts produced in the name of famine relief
successfully hailed audiences as both compassionate consumers and as members of
youth market and rock community. Perhaps the reason why famine footage was
presented in music video format at the live aid concert is because the music video form
speaks to youth consumers, savvy in the art of advertising and the consumption of music
video texts. The effectiveness of this format in reaching youth markets with expendable
income might explain why the famine relief movement became a music movement.
Pop-ifﬂ'ng Famine

As I have indicated, the similarities between footage and videos are relatively
apparent. However the parallels between famine footage and famine relief texts became
stronger when famine texts began to take the music video format. This is exactly what
happens with the most signiﬁcant famine footage presented during the Live Aid concert.
According to The Glasgow Herald, the CBC coverage was aired at the behest of global
pop star, David Bowie.137 Under the headline “Yesterday’s Rock Heroes and Stars of
Today,” the anonymous reporter notes “Bowie had insisted on cutting his stage time

short to allow the screening of a particularly moving ﬁlm taken recently by a Canadian

 

137Glasgow Herald 15 July 1985: 7. The Live Aid: World Wide Concert Book also credits Bowie for the
idea (Hillman 128).

162

ﬁlm crew in Ethiopia.”138 Had Bowie not donated a certain amount of time from his own
musical set to the footage, there may have been very little visual reference to the famine
during the concert. Of course, the reduction of sensationalist images of starving
Ethiopians and Sudanese on the television would not necessarily be something to mourn,
however, as I have previously illustrated, such images appeal to compassionately minded
audiences and inspire them to perform ‘good acts’. Can we assume that, in presenting
such images, Bowie encouraged viewer/listeners to donate more money and buy more
merchandise than they perhaps might have done without the abject reminder?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporations’s documentary short is typical of
televised news coverage of famine: a seemingly omnipresent cameraman ﬁlms
individuals or small groups of starving people. However, this report differs from the
typical footage and, more speciﬁcally, from the Buerk/Amin piece because a pop song
accompanies it. The song, The Cars’ “Drive,” while a major 805 hit, seems inappropriate
in theme. After all, what relevance does a song entitled “Drive,” with the chorus line

“Whose Gonna Drive You Home?,” have to the famine? More than one would imagine,

 

138It seems pertinent to consider Bowie’s performance leading up to the presentation of the clip on both
the concert telescreens and the televisions of at-home viewers. Of the three songs that Bowie sings, the
titles and lyrics of two—“Rebel, Rebel” and “Heroes”—seem particularly pertinent to my discussion of the
Live Aid concert. The second song Bowie sings, “Rebel, Rebel,” interpellates youths in the audience to
perceive of themselves as subversive in some way, as rebellious, either as a result of their listening to rock
music or their compassionate consumerist acts. It is no surprise that Bowie, a man who was a sub-cultural
icon for many youths throughout the 705, would choose a song that spoke to a group of people that feel at
worst, disenfranchised, at best, different. Bowie’s third song, “Heroes,” speaks more speciﬁcally to the
event itself, hailing the audience to be “heroes” if “just for one day.” The crowd is extraordinarily animated
during this set—cameras span the crowds to show thousands of raised hands clapping. Bowie ends the song
with the line “God bless you. You’re the heroes of this concert.” And indeed, all those involved in Live
Aid—whether or not their beliefs are “self-congratulatory” as Marcus Griel implies (29, Rockin’ the Boat,
Garofalo)—could conceive of themselves as heroes of the famine relief movement, as heroic in their
attempts to ‘feed the world’ (Bowie’s other part in the concert is to sing the opening lines to “Do They
Know lts Christmas?”). While Bowie should be commended both for applauding the audience, and not his
fellow superstars, as the heroes of the day; his statement is simply indicative of the ethnocentric nature of
the event and of the perception that the British audience (the stadium and the crowd) is somehow located at
the epicenter of the globe.

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perhaps. It would seem that the song was picked because other lines hold resonance with
the famine and the famine relief movement’s call to act. The ﬁlm is edited in such a way
to emphasize the relevance of speciﬁc lines. For instance, when The Cars sing “Who's
gonna pick you up/ When You fall?” the screen displays an image of a mother lifting a
child. When The Cars sing “And who's gonna plug their ears/ When you scream?” the
screen shows a child violently crying. For a moment the song fades out so that the
diegetic sound, the actual scream of the child, can be heard. Other lines seem relevant to
the cause, in particular the statement “You can’t go on pretending nothing’s wrong.”
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate, however, to show Westerners in the
audience when this line is pronounced!

The Madonna with Child image is, not surprisingly, once again replicated as well.
However, the footage is distinctly different to that produced only a few months before by
Buerk and Amin. Madonna depicted picking up her child (as The Cars narrate) shows
both an awareness of and a distrust of the camera that captures her image and that of her
child. Her eyes look toward what we assume to be a cameraman and, although he is never
shown, his presence is implied through her look. The presence of the camera, or perhaps
of the cameraman, creates an anxiety that is clearly marked upon her concerned facial
expression and rapid, ﬂustered eye movement. Her eyes dart quickly back and forth from
the implied cameraman to within the frame. This mother has the strength and awareness
to silently protest her own objectiﬁcation. But, rather than confronting the cameraman
who invades her space without her consent, she covers over the image he wishes to ﬁlm.

The camera holds with her while she literally struggles to gather her blanket and cover

164

herself and her child prior to feeding her child. As soon as she is covered, there is an
abrupt cut to another image of desperation and despair.

The CBC footage shows people who are receiving aid. It illustrates how, once
women regain strength, it is possible for them to confront the gaze that captures and
contains them. But at the same time, the short demonstrates how African women are
aware of the necessity of being ﬁlmed, of having such images disseminated around the
world. On one hand the mother attempts to maintain her dignity, but on the other, she

does not refuse depiction.

On one hand the report differs from most narrative music videos because the band
singing is never shown spliced in with the CBC footage (The Cars do, however, play later
in the concert). It is, on the other hand, similar to narrative music videos because there
appears to be little relation between narrative and song, except at the few points when the
images appear aligned with the lyrics. In “Look! Hear!” Frith describes explains that there
are a number of reasons for using music as an accompaniment to documentary footage. He
notes that, ﬁrstly “Music is used to aestheticise the reality we see,” secondly “music is
used to ground what we see,” and thirdly, “to distance viewers from the action and make
them feel more knowing” (282). In speciﬁc reference to the use of pop songs, Frith states:

Pop songs are being used not just to indicate a place or time or even to

tug on emotional memories (as on ﬁlm soundtracks) but to make

historically important or dramatically intense scenes mundane (just as

advertisers use pop songs to imply that fantasy is routine) (282).

Frith raises a number of interesting points here. Not only does he provide yet another

165

way to connect both the CBC report and music videos, in general, to commercials—in the
sense that all three combine music and fantasy—but his argument also suggests that the
use of music with the footage of starving Ethiopians tends to render the image mundane
and distance the viewer from the abject images she is presented with (this leads one to
question if the viewer, in being distanced, then latches back onto the lyrics in a way that
alters their subordinate position). Therefore, watching death in the form of a music video

makes it palatable.

Empowering Videos

The music video format does more than simply unites audiences as rock
communities it also provides the viewer/listener a certain amount of pleasure and,
according to certain music video theorists, this pleasure (even when combined with the
traumatic pain that might be evoked by videos representing suffering) is empowering.
Perhaps, then, this provides another explanation as to why the music video was the
format and vehicle of choice for famine relief organizers and participants: not only did
consumers know how to read music video, but they were empowered by it.

According to recent studies, music videos—above other visual and aural texts—
are effective and appeal to diverse audiences because they provide pleasure for viewer-
listeners by interpellating them into clearly identiﬁable music communities139 and, in
strengthening memories, add richly to already existent cultural repertoire of visual
images. According to Marsha Kinder in “Music Video and the Spectator: Television,

Ideology and Dream,” music videos appeal not only because they intensify the

 

I39Kinder argues that these communities are mass audiences uniﬁed through uniﬁcation of private and
public identities (l l).
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viewer/ listeners pleasure through the combination and interplay of the audio and visual
sensations; but because they also allow for the simultaneous act of identifying with and
objectifying the bodies on screen (1 1), they are hypnotic (5), and they have an
unprecedented effect in the memory because they function like REM sleep.

Kinder explains that one of the reasons why music video has such an immense
appeal because it functions in very much the same way as dreams. She explains how, as a
result of structural discontinuities, montage, and the effects of video on the memory,
music video had a privileged position in the cultural psyche during the 19805. She states:

Although the triggering of sounds of the song come from external sources

(unlike the internally generated signals in dreams), the music video fan has

been taught to identify with the external receiving apparatus, so some

degree of internalization occurs. This process of retrieving prefabricated

video images from memory may help train viewers to retrieve them more

readily during REM sleep. 1n other words, the structural reliance on

memory retrieval shared by MTV and dreams may give these music video

images a privileged position within the dreampool (14).I40
Kinder’s theory proposes that visual music texts had the potential to enter into levels of
the unconscious that other texts could not, purely because they could be described as akin
to dreams and were presented on television, as part of a continuous television line-up.141
While Kinder’s argument presents a hypothesis, and arguably different videos could have
a different effect on memory retrieval during sleep, it is ﬁightening to think that the type
of ethnocentric propaganda espoused in the Ethiopia videos has the potential to ingrain
itself on both an individual and cultural psyche. In essence, the argument that Kinder

presents implies that, because they are presented in music video format, the Ethiopia

singles have the potential to maintain a privileged place in the cultural repertoire of

 

140My own experiences would indicate this is correct—I wake up almost every morning with an Ethiopia
single in my head since the beginning of this project.

141The theory is based on the Hobson-McCarley activation-synthesis model of dreaming.
167

images, and I would argue also in the repertoire of sounds. Videos provide pleasure in the
same way as dreams because, in both, there is a sense of omnipresence that is
empowering.

This sense of viewer omnipresence is emphasized not only by direct address and
discontinuous narrative of music video (Kinder, 11), but also by the fact that the
viewer/listener has been trained to “focus on one’s powers of personal choice and
reception while ignoring the remote sources of transmission—the true Remote Control—
whose ideological determinants and manipulative strategies remain mystiﬁed” (Kinder,
14-15). How far can this remote control transmit?

Kinder suggests that the viewer/listener’s believes in the fact that she makes
choices while watching/listening (rather than being manipulated by both the text and its
mode of transmission). This sense of choice lead to an illusory sense of control that
further helps to veil the ideologies underpinning not only each individual texts, but the
means of media production that produce the texts. The illusion of omnipresence veils in
the same way as the Ethiopian Madonna—in neither case is the viewer a party to the
actual mechanisms that produce either famine or famine and relief texts.

Arguably, the famine relief videos were even more effective than the average
music video, not simply because they were designed and marketed speciﬁcally to raise
funds (all videos do that) but, because of the ways in which the videos create the sense of
the authentic through the illusion of linearity, exposure of modes of production, and
gesture. That is not to say, however, that the subversive aspects of the videos are capable
of overcoming either the ethnocentrism expressed in the lyrics or the ramiﬁcations of

celebrity appropriation of suffering. Nevertheless, I suggest that, subversive or not,

168

without the production of the Ethiopia singles videos (without the visual accompaniment
to the songs) the famine relief movement would not have extended its scope beyond
small, adult communities in the US and the UK. Through the use of innovative audio-
visual and communications technologies, Band Aid and USA for Africa reached massive,
diverse audiences worldwide. ”2 And, once they’d reached the audiences, they hailed
them as consumers and encouraged the consumption of both famine related and non
famine related merchandise.

If one in doubt as to power of videos, or of charity rock in general, one only needs
to consider the evolution and possibilities of next step of famine relief, the famine relief
beneﬁt concert Live Aid. Without videos, without commodiﬁcation of bodies of artists,
the famine as cause; without synaesthetic appeal of famine relief texts, the Live Aid
concert would probably not have seemed viable to organizers and producers. The new
tradition of non-radical, consumer-based global social movements would not have been
born. And, compassionate consumerism would have diffused before it did, perhaps never
becoming such an ingrained part of our culture (perhaps even of our cultural dreampool).
In essence, the Ethiopia videos set the groundwork for the global, technological

phenomenon—the largest beneﬁt concert to have ever been planned.

 

142Any consumer with satellite television, no matter where they may be located, had the potential to access
the Ethiopia videos as they were played on MTV to excess. The songs hit the charts in numerous countries
and inspired numerous national equivalents. For more information regarding the international Ethiopia
singles see “Food and Trucks and Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and Rijven. For information concerning the number of
countries that had access to the concert footage and the channels covering Live Aid, see Esnault.

169

Chapter Six
Compassionate Consumerism and Global Enterprise: The Multiple Beneﬁts of Live
Aid.

Television has ﬂexed its muscles as a world power, a new uniﬁed force
to be reckoned with, sweeping aside government and politicians in a
dynamic drive for action to save the starving and the dying. We must
allow the singers and the minstrels their heavy moment of triumph.
They might even be right. If they can rouse the world’s conscience and
raise over £40 millions with one 12 hour international TV concert, it
gives them a voice that must be listened to.‘43

In July 1985, Band Aid and USA Aid joined forces to produce what can be
described as the climax of the 1984-5 famine relief movement, the Live Aid beneﬁt
concert. The star-studded concert was performed simultaneously in two separate cities
linked by satellite, London in the UK, and Philadelphia in the US, 162,000 attended the
concert at the two venues (70,000 at Wembley, London and 92,000 at Kennedy Stadium
in Philadelphia). The 16 hour event was broadcast live, via seven telecommunications
satellites, to an estimated one billion television viewers in over 150 countries worldwide.
Over the course of one weekend, Live Aid raised over seventy million dollars to “feed the
world.”144

Live Aid was heralded as “The Greatest Show on Earth” by newspapers around
the world.145 In the US and the UK countries national news programs and local papers
alike reported how Live Aid on the technological components of the event, describing the

ways in which satellite feed works, the amount of cable laid at each stadium, and the

amount of energy needed to hold the event.'46 Consumers and donors were enticed by

 

143James Murray, “The Pictures You Didn’t See,” Scottish Daily Express, 15 July 1985: 10.
l4“Shuker 237.
145“The Greatest Show on Earth,” Scottish Daily Express 12 July 1985: 19.

146e.g. “Build Up to Live Aid,” News Round, BBC, 12 July 2008; and Lindsey Gruson, “Global Concert
Gives Philadelphia A Chance To Introduce Itself To The World,” New York Times, 13 July 1985, late city
ﬁnal ed., sec. 1: 5.

170

descriptions of the event as a never before seen feat of ‘technological wizardry’, a ‘global
jukebox’, and a charity rock ‘triumph’.147

The technological extravagance of the concert culminated not only in the live
satellite feed that connected countries around the globe, but also in the supersonic
transportation of transatlantic star, Phil Collins (live feed from on board the aircraft).
Collins was the only performer to play on both stages at Wembley and Kennedy. Due to
the miracle of the Concorde (and the generosity of British Airways for donating the
ﬂight), Collins was able to commute between the two venues during the course of the 16-
hour event. When asked why he was undertaking the journey, Collins responded thus:

We thought that if it could be done, wouldn’t it be good to do it. And then

we went into the logistics and we found out it was possible. Eric

Clapton’s on tour out there, so is Robert Plant, and so I rang them up to

see if 1 could play with them so it would give me something to go for.

And, um, it’s just nice to be involved as much as possible, really. I’m a

lunatic, you know, really.148
Collins’ rationale here could be applied to the concert as a whole. Live Aid was also done
because it could be done, because it was “nice” for artists to be involved, especially as
other artists and friends were involved. Bette Midler and Jack Nicholson’s introduction to
Collins at Kennedy further supports this notion that the concert, an unabashed celebration

of excesses and extremes, was held simply because it was possible. As Midler states:

“Everything is possible. We can beat time. . .we can beat hunger. . .if we just pull

 

1471.. Stevens, “Global Concert Gives Philadelphia A Chance To Introduce Itself To The World,” New
York Times, 13 July 1985, late city ﬁnal ed., sec. 1: 5; L. Stevens, “72,000 Fans Flock To Live Aid,”
Sunday Mail (Queensland), 14 July 1985, 20 Aug. 2007

<http ://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1 .cl .msu.edu:2047/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?start=7&s
ort=RELEVANCE&format=GNBF I&risb=21_T4397198806>; Richard Harrington and Geoffrey Himes,
“Rock Around the World:

Live Aid Concerts Raise Millions For Africa,” The Washington Post

14 July 1985, ﬁnal ed.: A]; Richard Harrington, “The Greatest Show On Earth, Tomorrow: 'Beatles' May
Reunite for the Global Concert,” The Washington Post 12 July 1985, ﬁnal ed.: D1.

148See concert footage on Live Aid, dir. Vincent Scarza, 1985, DVD, Warner, 2004.
171

together.”I49 Here Midler implies that it is through community, through pulling together,
that the possibilities of Live Aid become a reality. As a community banding together,
hunger can be eradicated.

But, ultimately, the global extravaganza was not attempted simply to “beat
hunger.” The global spectacle was attempted because it could be attempted. As much as
one might like to assume that its appeal to participants was the sole result of the ethic of
compassionate consumerism, the newspapers tend to imply that the event appealed
because of its technological uniqueness, the fact that communities around the world could
be involved, that involvement in the concert located its audience at an important point in
history, and the fact that hundreds of globally recognized ‘super’ stars had agreed to
perform.

The show arose out of a search for possibilities: the possibilities of advanced
visual and communication technologies, of popular culture texts and performances, and
of global social movements. While ultimately it offered few new options to those starving
in Africa, Live Aid offered up a myriad of opportunities for a number of its organizers,
sponsors, and celebrity participants as a result of their involvement in the event. For
many of those involved, the possibilities that Live Aid provided have been boundless.

Celebrities, record companies, instrument and equipment manufacturers, and
telecommunications companies all beneﬁted from unprecedented advertising. Corporate
sponsors, particularly those endorsed by famine celebrities involved in the concert
beneﬁted not only from the advertising gained through product placement (note for

instance the paper Pepsi cups perched on ampliﬁers and keyboards throughout the

 

149ibid.
172

concert) and commercial airtime, but also through their connection to a compassionate
consumer movement. The cities of London and Philadelphia (and the nations where these
cities are located) gained revenue and positive promotions for hosting the event. Most
signiﬁcant to this project, however, are the ways in which youths beneﬁted as the famine
relief movement created more sites for youth activity, expression, and production; as a
result of the new deﬁnitions they gained as a ‘new generation’ of compassionate
consumers and through their identiﬁcation with famine-celebrities; and through their
multi-faceted relationships with compassionate corporate sponsors such as Pepsi.

This chapter examines some of the multiple beneﬁts of famine relief, speciﬁcally
the Live Aid beneﬁt concert. It attempts to outline how the evolution of the famine relief
movement and the subsequent diffusion of the ethic of compassionate consumerism
resulted from the creation of an interwoven web of connections, associations, and
relationships that—even though at times contradictory in nature—provided numerous
opportunities to Western individuals, groups, companies, and evens youths, while
continuing to elide the famine sufferer in Ethiopia.

Disseminating Globally

Through the miracle of television, millions of people were able to attend the
concerts at Wembley and Kennedy stadiums. ‘50 The experience of the rock concert—the
rock spectacle—was no longer the privilege of a fortunate few as it was at Woodstock for
instance, nor was it limited by the audience's physical location. The implication of this

global reach was enormous. The fact that billions could view the concert was not only a

 

150The concert was aired in countries as far ﬂung as Yugoslavia, Australia, and China. For detailed
information on the concert’s reach see Esnault.

173

testament to the miracle of television, and indicative of the productive, synaesthetic
relationship between music and television; it emphasizes the ‘possibilities’ for the global

transmission of compassionate consumerism.151

In the UK, the BBC was the only television channel to broadcast the concert.152
As the BBC is available to all who have a television without extra cost (excluding the
television license fee necessary to even own a television), any UK television viewer (and
most of Europe) could access the BBC version (which, by all accounts, was the most
extensive). Segmented between live performances, the BBC broadcast interviews with
famine-celebrities, Bob Geldof appealing to fans to “give us your money,” views of the
stadium and famous audience members, the comings and goings of stars, references to
foreign contributions, and segments of Live Aid events held around the globe.‘53

In the US, however, coverage was less extensive, but was offered at different times

by different channels. ABC aired a range of live and pre-recorded Live Aid segments from

 

151The movement was vicarious, the choices made by youths here inﬂuence what is marketed abroad
global markets. Youths in the US and UK were integral in the determination of global demands and the
construction of global sites (even if such sites remain illusory). Arguably, as such texts spread, so did the
American and British ideals and values expressed in said texts. That said, as Geroge Lipsitz indicates, The
choices made by Generation X and Thatcher’s children appear to have more of a global resonance, being
transported worldwide and gaining popularity in remote places. In Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music,
Postmodernism, and the Poetics of Place (London: Verso, 1994), George Lipsitz illustrates both the
positive and dangerous aspects of using music to mobilize bodies and voices through time and space. He
describes the abilities of music to transcend local and national boundaries whilst still retaining elements of
the original location in which is was produced (3-4), as well as the ways in which transcendence and
transmission of musical forms (and literal music texts) alter music(s) and place(s) by creating diffuse
cultural meanings in different places (4, 17). This results in the creation of new scapes or “geopolitical and
economic realities” (6) and in the problematization of place (5). Despite the utopian aspects of such new
creations (19), and the possibilities they may present to disenfranchised groups, Lipsitz warns of the
dangers that arise out of the production of new spaces and alterations of meaning is said spaces at the
crossroads. He states, “collisions occur at crossroads; decisions must be made there” (7).

152A limited number of satellite customers in the UK could also access MTV.

15 3 F or detailed description of Live Aid line up see Esnault.
174

London.154 MTV provided the most extensive coverage in the US, but was only available
to satellite customers and cable subscribers (thus, only those with the means to pay for
extra services could see the concert in its entirety). MTV also interrupted the concert
with pre-recordings, commercials, and VJ s.15 5

Concert audiences in the US were reliant upon corporate sponsors to determine
their Live Aid experiences. And in return for the services they offered, such corporate
sponsors demanded either space in the arenas or television airtime to advertise their
products, and proﬁted greatly from their association with the famine. Due to the
processes of synergy, corporations such as Pepsi and AT&T were able to rely on
compassionate consumer sentiment to sell products (such as soda) and services (such as
long distance phone service) unrelated to the famine. The fact that the concert functioned
like a lengthy music video also served well the corporate sponsors and US advertisers

promoting products throughout the concert’s duration.

The concert can be described as akin to the music videos that preceded it because
it also appears to function as a continuous text. In her discussion of music videos
presented on MTV in Rockin ’ Around the Clock, E. Ann Kaplan describes how music
television “takes over the history of rock and roll, ﬂattening out all the distinct types into

one continuous present” (29). Kaplan also argues that the MTV station functions as a 24-

 

154ABC’s decision to prerecord was based on the fact that important and upcoming acts performing at
primetime in London were too early to be seen in primetime in the US. Madonna requested London
primetime and was aired later on ABC, much to the disappointment of Led Zeppelin fans (Esnault).

155As a result of the adverts (the speciﬁcs of which I will deal with momentarily), different ones being
played at different times on different channels, the Live Aid concert text was again altered in nature. Thus
the concert text was unstable as a result of what George Yudice describes in his article, “We Are Not the
World,” as ‘uneven networks of dissemination’ (204). While scholars often assume that such unevenness is
felt most harshly in poorer nations throughout the world, evidence reveals that the unevenness of networks
has as much effect in the US, particularly among communities unable to pay for cable.

175

hour continuous text that distinguishes as little between adverts and video texts, as it does
between music genres (13). Arguably, the concert does the same thing, ﬂattening out not
only the generational distinctions, i.e. between 605 acts such as the Beach Boys or Paul
McCartney and newly emerging mega-stars like Madonna, but also distinctions between
performances, famine footage, and advertisements for non-famine related texts and
services. As I explained in the previous chapter, the blurring of the line between music
video text and advertisement serves corporate advertisers well. This is particularly the
case at the Live Aid event where many of the famine texts and famine relief
performances are intended (in their various ways) to evoke compassionate consumer
impulses. Having sodas and services associated with compassionate consumer
commodities and products could do corporate sponsors of Live Aid no harm.

The most obvious examples of ﬂattening distinctions between texts are both the
Pepsi and AT&T commercials presented in the United States. Throughout the course of
the US broadcasts, channels carrying the event repeated the same Pepsi and AT&T
adverts. Both companies sponsored the Live Aid extravaganza and, in doing so, gained
airtime and space. Despite the fact that both Pepsi and AT&T beneﬁted from their
association with the concert and ran adverts throughout the day, the advertising strategies
they used differed.

The Pepsi commercials are worth mentioning because they very clearly illustrate
the interwoven relationships between sponsors and celebrity participants and between
commercial texts and the concert text. Journalist Tom Shales caustically explains how,
for instance, Lionel Richie and Pepsi worked together as a mutually beneﬁcial

advertising unit. Shales states:

176

Less charitably minded was the Lionel Richie spot for Pepsi-Cola
informing viewers they were part of a new generation (newer than the one
in April, when the commercial ﬁrst aired?) Richie, mercifully absent from
most of the program, appeared at the very end in Philadelphia. One
couldn't help thinking that this appearance had to be worth a million bucks
to Pepési after the rigorous reinforcement of its Richie ties all through the
day.

Shales’ comments here are perhaps even more astute than he realizes. Richie not
only shared connections simultaneously with the famine relief movement and Pepsi, he
made the connection obvious in the text of “We Are the World,” a song that he co-wrote
with fellow Pepsi celebrity promoter, Michael Jackson.157 The chorus-line of Richie’s
song in the Pepsi commercial is “We made our choice/ Make it a Pepsi.”158 This line
sounds rather strongly reminiscent of the chorus-line, “There’s a choice we’re making,”
in the “We Are the World” single. According to the end of the Richie Pepsi commercial,
Pepsi is the “choice of a generation.” Could it possibly be that the choice “we’re making”
when listening to “We Are the World” is not only the choice to help feed starving
Ethiopians, but also to become part of a consumer-savvy, philanthropically minded
generation—a generation that, according to the end of Richie’s Pepsi commercial, drinks
Pepsi?

In a rather cynical remark Marcus Greil sums up the potential consequences of the

Pepsi, Richie, and Live Aid connection. He states:

 

156Tom Shales, “After the Music, The Memories; On TV -- Hype, Hoopla And the Whole World,” The
Washington Post 15 July 1985.

157Interesting connections abound. For instance, EMCI (Entertainment Marketing & Communications,
Inc.), “a Stamford, CT based agency that links consumer companies with music and entertainment
properties” not only “handled such landmark entertainment alliances as Pepsi-Michael Jackson,” but
handled the corporate sponsorship for Live Aid. For more information, see “Rocketing To Success,”
PROMO Magazine, May 2000.

158Lionel Richie, perf., Advertisement for Pepsi, 1985, 20 May 2008
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fentTLsth>.

I77

...the true result will likely be less that certain Ethiopian individuals will

live, or anyway live a bit longer than they otherwise would have, than that

Pepsi will get the catch phrase of the advertising campaign sung for free

by Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and all the rest.159
In using Richie and the music video format, the Pepsi commercial easily blends with the
Live Aid performances that also appear in the style of music video. It is at this point,
where Pepsi and the famine become virtually synonymous, that the ethic of
compassionate consumerism begins to diffuse. It is no longer possible to determine why
consumers watch, listen, or consume. It is no longer possible to identify if their interests
lie in philanthropic impulses or in being part of a community that is both philanthropic
and corporate. And it is no longer necessary to be a compassionate consumer in order to
participate as a member of the famine relief youth market. But, it is also not necessarily
important to determine the exact stimuli that led to famine relief participant donations
and good acts of compassion, what is important is to note that the stimuli were multiple
and successfully resulted in raising awareness and a huge amount of funds for the famine
relief effort.

As the Pepsi commercial clearly illustrates, the Live Aid beneﬁt concert is
inherently tied to corporate and celebrity interests. And, admittedly, those corporate
interests result in a downplaying of the famine: why give the victims airtime (when,
supposedly, everyone already knows what they look like) when airtime can be devoted to
advertising more saleable products? Here Pepsi is relying upon Richie’s association with

the movement, his image as compassionate and as a member of the compassionate

 

159566 Garofalo, Rockin ' the Boat 29.
178

consumer community (an image produced by the “We Are the World” video), to sell their
soft drink products.

Rather than employing a superstar to advertise their phone service, AT&T
employed a cheaper alternative. Shales points out that, in their advertisements,
“[p]hotographs of the victims of famine were melded together while new lyrics to the
company's old ‘Reach Out’ theme were sung: ‘Reach out, reach out and touch someone/
Someone whose only hope is you’.” Again, AT&T constructs a symbolic relationship
between its service and the service provided by aid agencies in order to sell phone lines.
They, like Pepsi, rely on the association of their product with the ethic of compassionate
consumerism and the famine relief movement to encourage audiences to buy what they
have on offer, despite the fact that their phone service has nothing to directly connect it
either to the famine or the famine relief movement.160

Both Pepsi and AT&T are relying on the fact that their captive audiences in the
stadiums (ads were also posted on billboards and merchandise available at the concert)
and at home were members of a new generation of rock community. Pepsi relied on the
fact that audiences would see Richie and identify him as a famine relief ﬁgure and, by a
process of transference, see Pepsi not only as a refreshing drink, but a famine related
product (one need not mention the irony of a soda company endorsing an event intended
to raise money and awareness for a group of people dying as a result of famine and
drought). AT&T also capitalizes on the rock community, assuming that the audience will
know how to effectively read the music video advert on screen. And, no doubt, audiences

familiar with both music video in general and the Ethiopia videos in particular, would be

 

160It is quite possible that AT&T’s decision to sponsor the Live Aid event may have been an attempt to
elide criticism of its monopoly, criticism that led to its breakup into the “baby bells” in 1984.

179

able to read the text appropriately, allowing the process of synaesthesia to cover over any
gaps between image and sound, between phone service and famine relief, between
compassionate consumerism and simple consumerism.

The fact that adverts and performances all assume a rock community audience is
evidence of the fact that the famine relief movement had evolved. No longer simply
trying to appeal to a soon-to-be homogenous youth market through the ethic of
compassionate consumerism, the Live Aid texts were designed to appeal to a now
existent rock community market. This community consisted of both 605 rockers and 805
poppers who—despite their potentially different music genre tastes and different
relationship to the medium of television, rock performances, and music television—were
uniﬁed both by their attendance at the concert and commodities they consumed (or would
potentially consume).

Because of the sheer number of texts and the diverse nature of each text’s
meaning, the ethic of compassionate consumerism could not be restricted or conﬁned
within any one particular frame. As with brands and branding, the practices, experiences,
identities, and discourses surrounding the ethic of compassionate consumerism could not
be absolutely controlled by those that produced famine or famine relief texts. And, as a
result of their sensationalized content, and the fact that they were for the most part
televised, famine and famine relief texts could be read and received in a multitude of
ways. As the number of famine and famine relief texts produced and disseminated
increased throughout the course of the Live Aid concert, so too did the number of
potential textual interpretations and emotional evocations. Consumer impulses became as

varied as their options were varied. Like the compassion that was originally evoked by

180

the famine footage, consumer impulses were no longer conﬁned to famine and famine
relief texts.

Corporate sponsors, the rock industry, and the rock community beneﬁted
immensely from participation in the Live Aid event. The Live Aid concert was also an
extremely beneﬁcial event for a number of groups, corporations, cities, and nations
outside of the rock community. For instance, both the cities of London and Philadelphia
gained ﬁnancially as a result of hosting the event.

Benefiting Locally

During set changes at the concert, television audiences are treated to images of the
stadiums within which the following act will be presented.“" The overhead images of the
stadiums and the surrounding urban sprawl (presumably shot from a blimp) are not only
a way to situate every performance, but also relocate the global to speciﬁc urban
locations. That which is global is, in other words, also situated locally. The fact that the
cities being specularized are ﬁrst world cities of historical note—London being the capital
of the United Kingdom (the capital of the former British empire) and that Philadelphia
was once the capital of what is now the United States—indicates how the event also
functions on a national level. And, indeed, the global spectacle was extremely proﬁtable
for the economies and images of the concerts’ host nations and cities.

In “Mega-Events and Micro-Modernization: On the Sociology of the New Urban
Tourism,” sociologist Maurice Roche demonstrates how mega-events encourage tourism

and investment. He states that, although “TV rights is usually the single biggest item of

 

161 Live Aid, DVD, 2004.
181

income to the organisers of premier mega-events,” the “media presentation of the event
also inevitably provides a certain amount of free and generally positive publicity for the
host city” (586-7). As one New York Times writer pointed out after the concert, this free
publicity was particularly useful for the city of Philadelphia: “ofﬁcials grabbed the Live
Aid concert as a way of rehabilitating the city's image in the aftermath of the Move
tragedy.” As well as improving a city’s image and encouraging tourism, Roche argues that
mega-events result in what he describes as ‘pre-event levering’:

The pre-event levering effect of mega-events on other capital investments

has been noted in recent research... Armstrong demonstrated that pre-

event, the preparation of a mega-event often encourages both public and

private sector to bring forward plans that they may have been going to

proceed with anyway (588).
Thus, it can be assumed that both the Live Aid mega-event and the pre- and post—event
levering that it may have precipitated was highly proﬁtable for the cities of London and
Philadelphia, that is, proﬁtable in a way above and beyond the revenue generated by
audience spending on transport, parking, accommodation, food and beverages, and other
tourist merchandise. Because Margaret Thatcher refused to wave the 17.5% value added
tax (VAT) on tickets or concert merchandise, the British government also beneﬁted
directly from the concert.

The fact that the Live Aid concert beneﬁted two major cities within two of the

most afﬂuent nations in the world (and therefore, by default, beneﬁted the nations too)

182

leads me to two further points. First, it proves that, despite the shifts in economic power
resulting from the processes of globalization, the US and the UK still maintain a position
at the epicenter of the globe. Second, in this position (supported by the media, consumer
markets), both countries (and the peOple within them) enjoy a certain amount of privilege.
It might have been more beneﬁcial to those suffering from famine (and the countries in
which they were located) had the concert been held and transmitted from a location in
Africa. However, as the following anecdote illustrates, this was never an option for the
organizers of Live Aid. Without the already existent privilege of being viewed within the
global scene as a cultural and economic epicenter, African counties had—at least in
Geldof’s entrepreneurial mind—no potential to lure superstars to perform or foreign
companies to invest in a concert event located in African capitals. Arguably, music videos
and adverts that located suffering elsewhere were much more effective ways to raise
money for Africa than investing in, exposing, and promoting the positive aspects of
Africa.

In the fall of 1985, following the success of the concert, Bob Geldof visited seven
countries in the Horn of Africa with members of the international media to draw further
attention to the plight of the most famine stricken regions of the continent (Geldof in
Africa, 10). The second country that the crew of reporters and Band Aid representatives
visited was Burkina F aso. Much to Geldof’s chagrin, he received a warm welcome from
multiple groups of singers and dancers upon his arrival at Ouagadougou airport. He was

disturbed because he had asked for no fuss of him to be made.162 He was as equally

 

I62Blundy and Vallely 40.
183

displeased when asked to meet with the Minister of Sport and Culture of one of the
poorest nations in the world. The following is an account of the interchange between the
two men provided by David Blundy of the London Sunday Times. In this narrative, not
only does Blundy unwittingly inform the reader of Geldof and Band Aid’s ethnocentric
attitudes towards the nations they had randomly decided to visit on their consciousness
raising tour,163 but he also outlines the model that Geldof used to execute a thoroughly
successful, global beneﬁt concert that had a much more marked effect upon US and UK
cultures than famine regions in the Horn. This model is still employed to some extent
today. Blundy recounts:

The Minister who had heard about the stunning success of the Live Aid
concert, wanted Geldof’s advice on arranging an international festival of
music in the Burkinan capital the next spring. Geldof was incredulous.
“What, you mean live from Ouagadougou?” That is exactly what the
minister meant. “I thought of getting all our traditional singers and dancers
to perform and then inviting international stars like you.” “Yes, well, I’m
very tied up this spring as a matter of fact,” said Geldof. “But I will tell
you what to do. . . . You want to scrap the ethnic crap and get in some of
the American superstars like Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie... It isn’t
very revolutionary but it works and you’ll make money. First you ring up
the TV companies. You’ve got to have TV, that’s where the money is.
You tell them that you have Michael Jackson playing and do they want
live satellite feed. . . . Then you ring up Jackson’s agent and you tell him
the television companies are taking a live feed from Ouagadougou. Does
he want to come? Of course he wants to come. Then you ring up other
rock stars and say ‘We’ve got everyone else.’ Then they’ll come. You
make a lot of money, they make a lot of money. Got it? ...” [S]aid the
Minister[,] “We look forward to ‘Live from Ouagadougou’.” “Yeah,
great,” said Geldof. “I’ll watch it on the TV.”164

Geldof’s response to the minister is not only dismissive, but also sarcastic. He shows

little interest in repeating the Live Aid event elsewhere because the event would no

 

163According to Blundy, none of them knew where Burkina F aso was prior to landing—in repeating the
anecdote Blundy obviously doesn’t think that this is anything to be embarrassed about (3 6).
164131undy 47-9.

184

longer be under his control. Blundy claims that Geldof’s reaction is due to his dislike of
political ofﬁcials (especially ones working for dictators in the Third World, which was
the case for the minister of culture in Burkina F aso). What is most interesting in this
account, however, is not Geldofs arrogance, but his inability to see how such an event
would beneﬁt famine stricken regions. It is shocking that his understanding of how to
organize a global spectacle is so sophisticated, while his understanding of its multiple
consequences is so naive.

But perhaps Geldof is not as naive as he seems. Arguably, to host the event in
Africa would be extremely beneﬁcial if it worked. But whether or not the event would
work in such a location is debatable, not because Burkinans are incapable of hosting
‘Live From Ouagadougou’, but because locating the event in Africa would undermine the
discourses and practices of compassionate consumerism upon which such charitable
events depend for their success. If an African nation were to become the epicenter of the
globe, even for one day, Western consumers might not be so inspired to sympathize with
starving Africans. The premise of compassionate consumerism is that the consumer
‘saves’ the victims, not that the supposed victims own their suffering (thus disallowing it
to be appropriated by celebrities or witnesses) and show an ability and desire to solve
their own problems. ‘Live From Ouagadougou’ would provide Africans too much
agency, African cultural practices with too much visibility. Compassionate consumerism
of the West is dependent upon Westerners saving Africans (as Geldof does) and the

domination of Western cultural practices. '65

 

165Even in 2005 at the twenty-year anniversary beneﬁt concert, Live 8, African artists were excluded on
the grounds that only musicians with more than four million records sold could play, otherwise people in

185

Geldof’s statements dismissing ‘Live From Ouagadougou’ imply that the idea of
an African concert is ridiculous. And, to some extent, the idea of hosting the event in a
country so impoverished that people cannot feed themselves seems delusional. And yet, I
cannot help but think that Geldof’ 5 biggest problem with such an idea betrays an
assumption so inherent to not only the famine relief movement, but to global aid
movements in general: this assumption being that, while it is acceptable for Africans to
observe and consume global culture, it is not acceptable for them to appropriate or
(re)produce culture (as in Geldofs song, “Christmas,” Africans remain passive in this
narrative). Is this because they do not have either the funds or the knowledge to create a
Live Aid concert, or because, in replicating Live Aid, they might be verging on
producing a bad copy of a Western text?I66

In the course of his explanation of how to host a successful mega-event (the
formula for which is impeccable), Geldof describes a format for future aid extravaganzas
(future ‘aids’). It is no mistake that part of this formula involves employing British
contractors, using Western made equipment, and inviting Western superstars. After all, a
signiﬁcant impetus behind the mega-event is the potential to make proﬁt. While the
proceeds of the event go to charity (for the most part), numerous corporations and
individuals proﬁted from advertising and production rights. As pointed out in a 2006
article in The New Internationalist, Geldof has proﬁted immensely from his role as savior

to Africa (perhaps why he is so adamant to prevent any appearance of African agency in

the Live Aid and later Live 8 concerts). He has become a ﬁgure relied upon not only by

 

China would ‘switch off’. See “Bob Geldof,” New Internationalist 386, 2006, New Internationalist
Magazine, 4 March 2008 <http://www.newint.org/columns/worldbeaters/2006/0l/Ol/bob-geldof/>.

166F or further discussion of the concept of the bad copy see Eric Gable, “Bad Copies” 297.
186

the British government on issues concerning Africa, but he also owns the company that
produces the videos and DVDs of Live Aid and Live 8 for home sales. His company, Ten
Alps, also produced spin off products, such as the DVD series Geldof in Africa. Perhaps
more signiﬁcant, however, are the connections that Geldof has developed with
multinational corporations as a result of his re-found fame during the famine relief
movement and his involvement in multi-national charity organizations.167 Like Geldof,
other organizers and sponsors involved in Live Aid have enjoyed major successes in the
corporate and entertainment world. Harvey Goldsmith, promoter of Live Aid, as of 2007,

had his own television show Get Your Act Together, also produced by Ten Alps.

Benefiting Youth

As Jean Baudrillard clearly illustrates, any form of cultural expression or
resistance to hegemonic systems in the late capitalist era is easily and quickly co-opted
by dominant institutions. However, despite this process of cooption, it is not possible to
conclude that the masses are simply manipulated by the institutions appropriating and
reproducing cultural items, activities, and movements. It seems dismissive to assume that
youth were simply media dupes, completely unaware of either the processes by which
the media and corporate sponsors proﬁted, or the fact that the concert shifted focus away
from Africa (after all, the young were the ones watching and listening most intently. They
could just as easily see the Pepsi cups on stage and the lack of Africans as much as more

established critics).

 

167The anonymous writer of The New Internationalist article entitled “Bob Geldof” explains: “One of
[Geldof’s] company’s subsidiaries - Ten Alps Events — specializes in creating ‘branded environments’ and
has worked for some of the world’s most powerful corporations, including BP, Glaxo Smithkline and
Microsoft, not to mention the British Foreign Ofﬁce.” All of the above have a vested interest in African
poverty and disease.

187

In Rockin ’ the Boat: Mass Music and Mass Movements, Reebee Garofalo
challenges conventional criticisms of charity rock, Live Aid in particular, that condemn
the beneﬁt concert for its seeming lack of ‘authenticity’ and ‘sincerity’. Garofalo explains
how typically comparisons between 605 protest/ folk movements and 805 rock
movements are employed in order to undermine not only mass (or global) culture, but also
those individuals involved in mass movements. He describes the tendency of the left to
dismiss mass culture—“a debased culture produced only for proﬁt and manipulated from
above”—because it is “seen as vacuous culture of an undifferentiated mass whose only
function is consumption, as opposed to folk culture which expresses values and ideals of
an identiﬁable group of real people” (2).

As Roy Shuker points out in Understanding Popular Music, much of the
criticism of the famine relief movement, speciﬁcally the mega-events, revolves around the
idea that rock music has been ousted by apolitical, consumerist muzak:

There was criticism that the majority of the recordings reﬂected ‘the

same muzak characteristics, transparent frameworks built on the

conventions of pop song writing that only sell because of the Band-Aid

connotation (237).

The notion that 805 charity rock is muzak is problematic and presumptuous. For Shuker,
such yearning for more authentic or sincere conscience rock is typical of the ‘left’s moral
high ground’ (a sentiment that both Frith and Hall support). He states that such morality

results from the left missing the point of the famine relief movement, in essence, that such

188

criticism “misses the point that Band Aid was not about music, and popular music as a
focal point for youth, but rather about raising money and consciousness. The critics’
preoccupation with credibility and ideological purity is accordingly misplaced” (Shuker,
238).

Shuker is correct to assert that the left speaks from a moral high ground. And his
notion that, oftentimes, critics miss the point of the charity rock phenomenon is also
refreshingly observant. However, his assumption that the movement is not about music
or youth is ﬂawed. The contrary is in fact the case; the famine relief movement is more
about music and youth than anything else. Shuker’s assumption arises from his inability
to recognize how the Left’s problem with famine relief music texts is generic, nostalgic,
and espoused by a group of 605 counter-culturalists with an interest in maintaining the
label ‘youth’ for themselves. He thus fails to see how, tied up with politics and political
protest, are issues of both music and youth. The Live Aid concert was a youth site
(within the youth site of famine relief) where numerous ideologies, practices, discourses,
and identities intersected.

The compassionate consumerism of Live Aid (in its various forms) inspired mass
donations because the events spoke to a sense of youthfulness.168 The music texts,
through their entertaining excess, inspired both emotion and consumer impulses that are
both typical of youth and integral in the construction of youth. As Deena Weinstein

states in “Rock is Youth/Youth is Rock,” youth deﬁnes itself through music. She states

 

168F or a discussion of the relationship between youth and youthfulness, and the appeal of youthfulness to
older generations, see Acland, “Fresh Contacts” 35.

189

“[t]he relation of youth to rock music is reciprocal; each one deﬁnes the other, but they
are not identical” (91). The Live Aid event was political because it allowed youth, through
music, new avenues through which to deﬁne themselves, new identities as compassionate
(or at least emotionally savvy) consumers, and entry to a newly emerged community of

compassionate consumers. By participating in Live Aid youth are, as Reebee Garofalo
argues, actively involved in seriously challenging the “existing hegemony in the most
conservative political period in decades... in one arena [music] where, at least for the
time being, progressive forces seem to have real power (16).

In “Another Boring Day in Paradise: Rock and Roll and the Empowerment of
Everyday Life,” Lawrence Grossberg argues that rock music, as a result of “the
emotional articulations that form the rock ‘community’, tend[s] to disrupt the hegemonic
control of the corporate power brokers over the community’s desires and pleasures”
(Ullestad, 69). Grossberg implies that music texts are potentially counter hegemonic
because media and music producers cannot necessarily control the products, brands, or
commodities they produce: they do not have complete control over the ways in which
pleasure is evoked by a text or the consumer’s individual desires to see and hear music.
In other words, music texts (and the communities that are constructed around them) have
the potential to subvert because, both as stand-alone texts and as part of one continuous
televised text, they evoke pleasure that is uncontrollable and desires that are
undetermined by those that produce the texts.

In “Rock Rebellion: Subversive Effects of Live Aid and ‘Sun City’,” Neal
Ullestad not only suggests how pleasure affects change subversively, but insinuates that

music is one of the most effective mediums to perform this subversion. He states:

190

Subversion of satisfaction is the name of the game in pop rock music, the
constant changes in artists and sounds perpetually subvert conventional
meanings of desire and pleasure, and we ‘can’t be satisﬁed’. Consumer
mythologies of style and fashion work to condense the fulﬁllment of our

desires into the act of buying that which is ‘new’, now. Clearly such change

seldom includes any signiﬁcant disruption of everyday acceptance of the

‘natural’ order of things. Since meaningful change is a threat to corporate

control, it is the superﬁcial change of the subversion of satisfaction—vital

to the increasing of proﬁts, it seems—that has been institutionalised (67).

At the end of this excerpt Ullestad points to the fact that change has been
institutionalized. In doing so he explains how the media and corporations collude with the
mass movement and its participants to affect change because such change is proﬁtable.
However, simply because it is proﬁtable, simply because such change results of the
combined efforts of curious bedfellows, it does not mean that this change is not apparent
or challenging to hegemonic systems of control.

Live Aid may not have been inspired by the same idealism as Woodstock, but it
was no more commercial than its seemingly anti-establishment predecessors. '69 Unlike the
beneﬁt concerts that preceded it, Live Aid ignored fantasies of a world without Western
over consumption. It was not idealistic, it was precipitated by a drive for possibilities.

While it is necessary to acknowledge that there may be national differences
between the actions, motives, and movements of American and British youths during the
19805 (differences that are not simply the result of being exposed to either nationalist

narratives or different types of images but also result from differences in aid and in the

nature of corporate and celebrity sponsorship in both countries), the ways in which

 

169F or further discussion on the similarities and differences between Woodstock and Live Aid, see Samuel
G. Freedman, “Live Aid and the Woodstock Nation,” New York Times 18 July 1985, late ed.: C19; “From
Woodstock to Philadelphia,” editorial, New York Times 16 July 1985, late ed.: A22; and Harrington, “The
Greatest Show on Earth.”

191

famine relief aid plays out in the US and the UK indicates that said differences may be

more superﬁcial than at ﬁrst assumed. This is made most evident by the ways in which
the “Charity Rock” phenomenon—the hype and consumerism—is transmitted back and
forth across the Atlantic; as well as the distinct ways in which youth activism and
charitable campaigns encourage nationalism (albeit somewhat distinct types of
nationalism) in both countries.170
Despite their regional and ethnic speciﬁcities, youth culture in Britain and
American becomes more and more synthesized throughout the 19805, partially as a result
of the transmission of musics, and partially as a result of the shared desire for youth in
both countries to develop a sense of community, national identity, agency. The local
choices made by those youths privileged enough to participate or consumers in the US
and the UK had global effects. Not only did youth consumers, through their buying
power and role as a market force, participate in the ebbs and ﬂows of worldwide
economies; but also their desire to consume (as well as their desire to give, to make a
difference, and to help those less fortunate) resulted in Western intervention in foreign
nations. This intervention may have taken the form of US or UK government aid convoys
(convoys put together as a result of public pressure upon both governments), or the
intervention of Western press ofﬁcials, journalists, and catastrophe tourists but,
nevertheless, there is a direct correlation between Western youth and such intervention.171

To some extent youths are aware of the fact that their actions have an actual psycho-

physical effect (sometimes positive, other times negative) upon people in the Third

 

170See Shuker on donationalism (23 7).

l 71Penrose 154-5.
192

World, and, as a result, youth are able to gain and comprehend a sense of self worth and
agency.

American and British young people—in their role as consumers, as a specialized
market—not only gained more agency, but had an effect upon global markets.172 The
consumer choices made by young people in the US and the UK had a direct effect upon
the types of consumables produced and distributed for international markets. This is
made evident by the American and British Ethiopia singles that not only exceeded sales
expectations worldwide, but also spawned a wave of Charity Rock music produced by
artists in other Western and non-Westem nations. The distribution of Western texts
worldwide also results in the distribution of Western ideologies afﬁrmed by such texts;
youth, in having an effect on the market, were also integral to deciding which types of
texts were to be exported.

The youth/ multinational corporation relationship had added bonuses for both
partners. By the late capitalist era it was no longer voting that was the citizen’s most
effective method of expressing values and concerns; rather, consumerism became
perhaps the most signiﬁcant avenue for the (global) citizen to make himself heard. This
correlation between citizenship and consumerism is suggested by cultural theorists,
Lauren Berlant, who suggests in Compassion that citizenship is often contingent upon
one’s ability to consume responsibly and act compassionately (8). In essence, in
perceiving of youth as viable consumers and in redeﬁning them (more positively) as a

market, multinational corporations not only proﬁted economically, but they also

 

172Anglo American consumer choices had an immense effect on global markets. For further discussion of
how US/ UK inﬂuence is inherently present within global musics see Frith World Music, Politics, and
Social Change, 5. For further discussion of rock music as Western see Garofalo 6—7. Garofalo also notes
that “Anglo-American pop [...] catapulted to new heights in the phenomenon of mega-events” (21).

193

empower youth, providing them with the agency associated with consumerism as well as
a new consumer identity.

Being an audience, a potential market, is (like watching music videos and concert
footage) empowering in many ways. And, while it may be true that corporations beneﬁt
most from the beneﬁt concert, it is not plausible to argue that corporate involvement
necessarily devalues Live Aid, the intentions and successes of the young people involved,
or the ‘unreadable’ subversions of youth participants. Yet, it is also plausible to argue, as
Marcus Griel does, that corporate inﬂuence does tend to distract attention away from the
beneﬁt cause. This is, however, not that surprising considering how every one else, the
media in particular, performs similar moves, as proven in the previous chapter; but also
when one considers that the movements are always more about the donors, without
whom, there would be no movement.

The Live Aid event was a natural progression from the Ethiopia singles and
videos. While they may have been motivated by altruistic intent, both the videos and the
concert were clearly about the possibility of global spectacle and consumer pleasure much
more that the recipients of aid. However, neither should be condemned simply for that
reason alone. The problem with both sets of music texts, as leftist critics correctly
suggest, comes both from the nature of (or the lack of) representations of Africans and the

fact that celebrity participants proﬁted exponentially from the event when they could

simply have donated money themselves.

194

Conclusion

It is perhaps hard to imagine that an emotion can be subversive, that compassion
can lead to subversive acts. However, the famine relief movement of 1984-85 illustrates
that compassion can function as a motivating force for activism, and, that the expression
of compassion through consumerism can lead to signiﬁcant socio-cultural change within
even the most conservative and regulatory nations. In expressing compassion, in
responding to their interpellation and in deﬁning themselves as compassionate beings,
famine relief consumers effectively pushed the limits of existing hegemony in the US and
the UK during the compassionate conservative Reagan-Thatcher era.173

The famine relief movement challenged compassionate conservatism, not only by
opening up the range of people who were considered to be deserving of compassion,174
but by redeﬁning compassion for widely diverse audiences. The movement helped to
construct compassion in terms of humility, a shared vulnerability, empathy, and altruism.
This reformulation of compassion simultaneously affected the lived conditions of
thousands of starving people in Ethiopia and empowered consumers in Britain and the
US.175 Through their acts of compassionate consumption, purchasing, and donation,
participants in the famine relief movement not only raised enough money and awareness
to help send food aid to refugees throughout the Horn of Africa, they also found a new

way to make political statements.

 

173Garofalo 16.

174See Berlant for discussion of the limits to ‘appropriate' levels of compassion in a compassionate
conservative climate (3-1 1).

175 F or further proof that the movement provided aid for Ethiopians see Geldof’s 1985 documentary, F ood,
Trucks, & Rock n Roll.

195

The compassionate consumer actions of famine relief participants eventually
forced Reagan’s administration and Thatcher’s government not only to reconsider their
limitation of aid to Ethiopia,176 but also made the US and UK governments recognize
compassionate consumers as productive consumer-citizens and active agents of socio-

cultural change. 1 77

The fact that there were multiple, positive consequences of the famine
relief movement for both donors and intended aid recipients illustrates the power of
consumerism, and illustrates that consumerism is politicized, especially when similar
consumer acts are performed, simultaneously, en mass.

Famine relief consumerism was politicized in three ways. Firstly, it was
politicized because it was motivated by and reﬂected a type of compassion that
challenged compassionate conservatism in the West. Secondly, it was politicized because
consumerism and activism became synonymous within the newly created famine relief
sites. And thirdly, it was politicized because famine relief consumerism allowed for the
creation of an inﬁnite number of new sites within which participants could prove
themselves productive citizens, create new communities, and develop mutually beneﬁcial
relationships with celebrities, multinational corporations, and advertisers.

In the case of the famine relief movement, compassion was ﬁrst evoked by the
horriﬁc and fascinating representations of starving Ethiopians produced by Buerk and

Amin. By consuming the Buerk/Amin images, viewers garnered an altogether unique

experience of famine. As a result of both its use of Christian iconography and its play on

 

176See Penrose 154-5.

177For example, according to Garofalo, British minister of Trade, Norman Tebbit, commended the Live
Aid as “the triumph of international marketing” (27). Reagan presented Geldof the Congressional Arts
Caucus Award declaring July 13, 1985 Live Aid Day. For more information see Richard Harrington,
“Geldof‘s Plea for the Starving: On the Hill, the Live Aid Organizer Lobbies Congress,” Washington Post,
24 July 1985: 10.

196

the low body genres, the documentary functioned as a contradictory text. It had the
propensity to position viewers as both witnesses and vicarious sufferers of famine, to
interpellate viewers as subjects that identiﬁed with famine and as subjects that deﬁned
themselves in opposition to the abject Other on screen, and to function as both a Christian
allegory and site of fantasy and entertainment.

In the Buerk/Amin documentary Africa functions as a dual site, as an empty space
available for the enactment of Western fantasies, and as a location where biblical events
happen. As a result of the combination of Christian iconography and low body genre
techniques the famine footage appears paradoxical; it is Christian pornography, Godly
horror, biblical melodrama. It is the contradiction inherent in such footage that not only
rendered the text unique and a product of its time (the late postmodern era), but also
explains its mass appeal and its ability to simultaneously repel and compel viewer
attention. In other words, the iconography used and the generic conventions applied made
the ﬁlm more easily consumable for Western audiences. The shocking nature of the
footage would seem to encourage a compassionate response for various audiences.

In its use of traditional, Christian iconography to familiarize the Western viewer
and contextualize the famine within a framework that Westerners could respond to, the
footage appears to play into conventional Christian and colonial narratives. The people
depicted are portrayed as humble ﬁgures, reminiscent of biblical ﬁgures such as the
Virgin Mary and the ‘Baby Jesus’, upon whom charity should be bestowed. They are
however, also presented as incompetent Aﬁicans who cannot fend for themselves nor
feed their children. The footage, however, paradoxically challenges Christianity,

particularly the type of Christian values espoused by Reagan and Thatcher because it

197

implies that the very people deemed unworthy of Western aid—that is, Ethiopians living
under a Marxist regime—are, in fact, deserving of Western consideration and charity.
More signiﬁcantly, however, the documentary simultaneously undermines the Christian
notions of propriety and modesty it supports by presenting images in a way that is
reminiscent of soft-core pornography, contemporary horror, and gratuitous melodrama.

Because the documentary drew on numerous Western icons and presented the
scene of suffering in the style of a number of popular genres, the text had the potential to
appeal to diverse audiences. The fact that is was televised also resulted in the text
reaching mass audiences. The impact of the Buerk/Amin ﬁlm was ultimately felt
worldwide. And while it is estimated that almost half a billion people saw the
documentary, it is impossible to determine how many viewers witnessed shots ﬁlmed by
Amin and narrated by Buerk because the footage was often appropriated, cut, and shown
repeatedly in a variety of formats (for instance, not only were segments of the
documentary shown as part of other news reports, including an episode of the British
children’s news program News Round, which aired the day before the Live Aid concert,
but it was also added to the DVD version of the Live Aid concert).

The combination of Christian iconography, on one hand, and ﬁlmic techniques
borrowed from contemporary low body genres, on the other, allowed the text to speak to
a variety of politics, to challenge absolutist and dichotomous logic, and affect a set of
diverse consequences. However, perhaps the most signiﬁcant and, seemingly, most
common consequence of the footage was that viewers responded with a display of non-
conservative compassion, a literal show of feelings of empathy and a shared vulnerability

that was demonstrated, primarily, through their consumption of subsequent famine texts.

198

This consumption of more famine texts demonstrates that compassionate
consumerism is self-perpetuating. It is a self-propelling, self-(re)producing, cyclical
force, which functions in the following manner: consumers consume texts that evoke
compassion, this compassion inspires a desire for further consumption, and further
consumption intensiﬁes compassion, due to the evocative content of the texts. It is the
self-propelling force of compassionate consumerism that is politicized because this force
motivates and requires the production and reception of new texts: texts that challenge
both Right-Wing narratives of compassionate conservatism and Left-Wing notions that
downplay the politicized potential of consumerism; texts that through their production
and reception construct new youth sites for activism and compassion; texts that, simply
through their production and reception, precipitate socio-cultural change.

The Buerk/Amin documentary was unique, not just because of the ways in which
it hailed multiple diverse audiences by referencing various ideologies and discourses
through its combination of Christian iconography and the excess of the low body genres,
but also because of the unprecedented response it garnered from the multiple audiences
that viewed it both when it was originally aired, and in its various, repeated forms.
However, the signiﬁcance of the ﬁrst famine coverage to be aired was not so much a
result of its content nor its reach (even though both were impressive), but more so in the
ways in which the text was received after its ﬁrst broadcast in late October 1984, and the
subsequent response of impassioned Western viewers.

The fact that viewers felt a sense of concern and compassion is made evident not
only by the fact that viewers consumed more famine texts, but also because masses

embracedthe famine relief music texts, “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “We Are

199

the World,” produced by famine-celebrities soon after the famine came to light. Without
consumer demand, such texts would not have been successful. But because, like the
famine footage, the relief texts also borrowed ﬁom a range of ideological frameworks
and genres, they also spoke to diverse audiences (some of which were already existent
and others that had been constructed by the famine relief texts). In addition, because the
Ethiopia songs and videos were aired on both radio and television, and were purchasable
in single, LP, and video format, they had the ability to reach mass audiences throughout
the US and the UK. The success of famine relief texts was a direct result of the
postmodern composite of ideologies, iconographies, and genres as well as the ways in
which the texts were transported and disseminated.

My readings of the famine relief texts, speciﬁcally the Ethiopia singles and
videos, attempt to show how, like the Buerk/Amin documentary that inspired them, these
famine relief texts also borrow from a range of ideological frameworks and generic
conventions. Like the famine footage, the songs and videos express neo-imperialist
sentiments, but do so in the style of rock music, gospel, country music, and new wave
pop (this is particularly the case for the “We Are the World” single and video).178 In this
respect the texts are unique. And, they appeal to diverse audiences not only because they
present something for everyone, but also because they are part of a new set of
philanthropic texts that speak to compassionate consumer impulses. The Ethiopia singles
in their various forms simultaneously inspire compassionate emotions (both real and
performed) within viewer/listeners and justify the pursuit of material products like the

LPs and VHS cassettes. This justiﬁcation comes from the fact that, in purchasing, each

 

178For a discussion of the mix of voices in the Ethiopia singes and the effect of this combination see Straw
205.

200

buyer becomes a donor; each act of consumption is simultaneously an act of activism and
philanthropy. The effect of constructing the famine relief texts and accompanying
products as compassionate consumables is that the act of purchase is transformed into an
act of altruism.

The famine relief movement not only emerged out of and resulted in the
production and reception of new philanthropic texts that had mass appeal. It altered the
role of the consumer, positioning consumers as activists, organizers, and donors. New
communities were constructed around the acts of purchasing, consuming, and
duplicating/ pirating the Ethiopia singles which—like all popular songs and videos—held
a certain amount of cultural cache for interested audiences. Arguably, the songs and
videos hailed pre-existing philanthropic and rock audiences. However, partially because
the Ethiopia singles were disseminated via relatively new technological mediums such as
MTV, the songs also constructed new audiences. They spoke to youths that may not
necessarily have been interested either in Africa or philanthropy, because they presented
Africa and philanthropy in a format that appealed to youths, that is, via popular music,
using low body genre conventions. The songs and the Live Aid concert showcased a
variety of stars from a range of genres and eras. Diverse stars such as Cyndi Lauper, Bob
Dylan, and Spandau Ballet banded together to help feed the world. And, in doing so, they
produced a postmodern text that helped to ﬂatten out not only musical distinction, but
also generational distinctions between audience members, and distinctions between
already established audiences and new compassionate consumers. Through the act of
consuming the same texts as adults, young people were able to emulate and bond with

their elders. In joining adult created communities, and in being partially responsible for

201

the maintenance and reformulation of such commercially viable and proﬁtable
communities, young people proved themselves valuable members of society. They
participated in the creation of new famine relief sites within which they not only
expressed counter-hegemonic emotions such as compassion, but also supported existing
hegemonies by embracing and expressing consumer desires. While the agency accorded
to youths through their participation in the creation of new sites, and the production and
reception of new texts, may have been illusory, the sense of agency inspired through their
involvement had the potential to empower compassionate consuming youths.

Arguably the reformulation of compassion and the politicization of consumerism
had a marked effect on the lives of the young people. While people of all ages
participated in the famine relief movement, young people made up a considerable portion
of the famine relief audience. As caring and compassionate members of local, national,
and global communities ﬁghting to alleviate world poverty, such disenfranchised young
people proved incorrect the common Right Wing assumptions of youth as citizens in
training.179 Through acts of consumerism (i.e. watching, listening, tape-recording, and
purchasing the Ethiopia singles, videos, and accompanying merchandise) and as a result
of their activism (i.e. collecting food and monetary contributions, participating in
sponsored events to raise money, organizing famine relief events to coincide with Live
Aid, volunteering at Live Aid, and otherwise donating time and money) young people
showed that—even before reaching adulthood—they could function as productive
members of society. By consuming and producing cultural texts, and through acts of

purchasing that help produce revenue and stimulate national economies, young people

 

179Grifﬁn 3.
202

became active citizens. And by broadening the category of people deserving of
compassion through their consumer acts they also showed that, with the help of both
celebrities and like-minded adult communities, they (the potentially undeserving) could
develop ways to ﬁnd a voice.

As a result of the production of new sites and new texts, compassionate
consumerism evolved at the moment when the famine relief movement emerged. New
texts, sites, communities, and audiences, meant new ways to express compassion and the
production of multiple, diverse texts for both consumption and the expression of
compassion. At the Live Aid concert, however, compassionate consumerism became
diffuse because of the inﬁnite ways in which compassion could be expressed and the
number of commodities to be consumed and merchandise to be purchased. While it
impossible to determine the ways in which compassionate consumerism was manifested
or was a motivating factor at Live Aid, simply because of the size of the event and the
fact that the famine relief community came to encompass millions of people in a global
mass movement, I would argue that the event—in appearing as a compassionate
consumer event and encouraging compassionate consumerism—was politicized through
the ethic of compassionate consumerism and affected substantial change for both
Ethiopian famine sufferers and diverse groups of participants.

Since the Live Aid concert, compassionate consumerism appears to have
permeated many aspects of society in the United States and Britain. But, like the ethic
that inspired it, the famine relief movement eventually diffused. This was partially
because of a loss of momentum among organizers and participants, and partially because

energies were directed into spin-off movements. In addition, the Band Aid/Live Aid trust

203

 

turned its attention to distributing aid and sending Geldof to Aﬁica. USA Aid, because of
its built-in obsolescence, disbanded altogether, leaving organizer Ken Cragen to focus
upon the equally successful Hands Across America event.180

The methods for raising consciousness and making a politicized statement that
developed throughout the famine relief movement have proven to be invaluable for a
number of spin-off campaigns. Since the mid-19805 an inﬁnite number of ‘Aids’ (e. g.
Fashion Aid, Sport Aid, Ferry Aid, and Idol Aid) have garnered public support and raised
funds by employing similar techniques to Band Aid and USA Aid; by designing
campaigns that are spearheaded by celebrity ﬁgures and provide consumers multiple
ways to enact activism through compassionate consumerism. While not all campaigns are
as successful, and not all relief or ‘Aid’ sites are equal, such consciousness and fund
raising techniques continue to prove effective throughout the West. Compassionate
consumerism has become such a way of life, that it is now not only a way to justify
almost any extravagance Westerners can conceive of, it has also become habitual.

Despite the quick diffusion of the famine relief movement, latter movements and
campaigns have successfully employed many of the methods used to encourage activism.
The beneﬁt concert format, for instance, has proven itself to be a valuable tool for
organizing the masses well into the early Twenty-First Century. In 2005 Geldof helped
organize the Live 8 beneﬁt concerts to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Live

Aid. Live 8 was a series of concerts that were held in the eight G8 nations and coincided

 

180Despite the similarities in their names, the spin-off movements often had different aims and slightly
different modes of raising funds and awareness. Farm Aid, for instance, used the beneﬁt concert format, but
aimed to donate money throughout the US as well as in Third World countries. Hands Across America—an
event where participants paid to hold hands in a line across the US—was designed to raise money to ﬁght
poverty and homelessness in the US. And, Sport Aid raised money for Africa, not through music, but
through sponsored walks and runs.

204

with the G8 summit held in Gleneagles, Scotland. Rather than being asked for donations,
concert participants were asked simply to contribute their names, via text message, to the
list of concerned global citizens.181 2007 saw a rash of similar events, once again
designed to raise awareness for speciﬁc social causes. Al Gore was integral in arranging
Live Earth, a series of concerts held on all seven continents and aimed at raising
awareness of global warming. The same week, at the Princess Diana concert—an event to
honor the Princess ten years after her death, was held in Hyde Park, London, and
transmitted to an estimated 140 countries around the globe, as well as being streamed
over the Internet. Throughout the event, video spots were shown to showcase charitable
organizations that Diana or her sons, Harry and William, had found to be worthy of
support.

Similar to the beneﬁt concert, the music video has proven itself to be a valuable
philanthropic and political tool. A number of entrepreneurial democrats have recently
produced music videos in support of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The most
famous of these is perhaps the “CNN Ba Rock Obama” song that has, up to the present,
had 12,212 viewers on youtube alone. A slightly more risque ode to Obama, “I Gotta
Crush...On Obama” was released on youtube in June 2007. The producers of the video, in
which a scantily clad young woman dances seductively alongside superimposed images
of the presidential candidate, subsequently raised over $1,000 for the Philadelphia

Committee to End Homelessness by auctioning clothing worn in the video.

 

181Geldof proﬁted from the concert by, once again, producing the Live 8 DVD. He also beneﬁted and/or
exercised inﬂuence through his role as advisor to the British government during the summit. For more
information see “Bob Geldof,” New Internationalist.

205

Arguably, compassionate consumerism has become an established part of
contemporary culture. For the most part, however, compassionate consumer texts—much
like the “I Gotta Crush...On Obama” video—take the form of parody, while still relying
on low body genre conventions. Numerous parodies of the “Christmas” and “We Are the
World” videos also abound in popular culture. Highly popular youth shows such as The
Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy have all at some time or other shown skits that
either reference or play on the Ethiopia videos. Perhaps the most effective parodies of the
Ethiopia singles are the recent videos “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” and “I’m Fucking Ben
Afﬂeck” created for the Jimmy Kimmel show. While amusing, these videos serve as key
criticisms of the Ethiopia videos. For instance, at the end of “Ben Affleck” a group of
celebrities staged on choral risers in the same way as the USA Aid for Africa celebrities
in the “We Are the World” video sing “I’m Fucking Ben Afﬂeck” in the style of a charity
rock song. While singing the line “we all hope, we all hope Matt will understand,” actor
Robin Williams exposes the pornographic nature of such video texts (and simultaneously
the masturbatory motives of the celebrities involved in the Ethiopia singles) by squirting
himself with water in way that is reminiscent of the ‘money’ shot in video pornography,
smiling as if in ecstasy, and further emphasizing the generic conventions by a momentary
freeze frame.

What these videos do is criticize the sensationalist and gratuitous nature of famine
relief and celebrity philanthropy while still providing pleasure and a sense of community
to their audience. They hail the same audience as the Ethiopia texts, an audience aware of
the tropes of philanthropic music videos, reinforced by the appearance of celebrities such

as Huey Lewis in both “We Are the World” and “Ben Afﬂeck” (without this awareness,

206

the videos would lose their humor). And much like the Ethiopia videos, the Kimmel
videos position the knowing listener/viewer as a member of a ‘knowing’ community that

shares “a sense of belonging”182

as a result of shared knowledge.

Arguably the parodies of philanthropic music videos abound because youths have
found more attractive, alternative sites for resistance and outlets for their compassionate
consumerism. I would argue that one signiﬁcant alternative site is reality television: in
particular, programs such as Pop Idol and American Idol, Survivor, and Big Brother.
These types of shows (franchised in the US and the UK as well as numerous other
countries) are part of a television genre that—like the famine relief movement—provides
viewer/listeners both with pleasure and with a sense of agency and community
(oftentimes a global community). In asking them to actively participate in the ‘plot’ of
the show, by identifying with and voting for their favorite contestant, such shows create
new media-sites within which youths can help in the production of a cultural media text
and express themselves.

Certain reality television shows are so similar to the famine relief movement that
certain shows even run charity drives in the style of a famine relief charity drive. For
example, once a year American Idol ‘donates’ a show to help raise awareness of poverty
and AIDS in Africa and the US. The show’s format is similar to that of the Live Aid
concert—celebrities perform live and then appeal for monetary donations to major
charities. These appeals are often accompanied by footage of the most desperately

impoverished. (Shows such as Survivor—the rights to which are partly owned by

Geldof—are also reminders of the movement because, as a result of their overt

 

182Hurley 332.
207

 

 

 

ethnocentrism and colonial overtones, they seem reminiscent of the famine footage
produced by Buerk and Amin in 1984). Like the famine relief movement, ‘American
Idol’s’ Idol Aid relies on the same ethic of compassionate consumerism.

Ultimately, the most important aspect of compassionate consumerism—whether
evoked by the famine relief movement or more recent reality television programs—is the
fact that it allows for the creation of socio-cultural sites within which youths can
experience pleasure and a sense of community. If it accomplished nothing more in the
805, the famine relief movement and the ethic that inspired it helped to construct a
community of youths that shared knowledge and a sense of belonging. In doing so, the
ethic and movement set a precedent for compassion that is still seen in US and British
culture today.

That said, despite the major accomplishments of the Band Aid charities since the
mid-805, famine remains a major problem in the Horn of Africa. But, unfortlmately, few
youths or media producers seem concerned with the fact that people are dying daily as a
result of famine in the Horn.183 The famines continue unhindered by Western public aid.
Therein lies the problem with the parodies of famine relief texts and the shift of youth
markets away from social movements to reality TV. As a result of the successful and
amusing comedic criticisms of famine relief parodies, as a result of the pleasure provided
and community building potential of reality television, the famine relief movement and

the struggles of the 805 seem almost comical and outdated. But, ignoring both the

 

183There are notable exceptions here. Starvation comes to world’s attention, not surprisingly, when
celebrities visit affected regions in Africa. 1f Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, or George Clooney spend time in
refugee camps in the Third World, then the plight of those nations suddenly hits the shelves in the form of
spreads in Hello Magazine. For a discussion of celebrity involvement in contemporary famine, and the
West’s subsequent response, see Julie Flint & Alexander Dewaal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War
(London: Zed Books 2008) 167-199.

208

problems youth faced and the solutions they found to combat their marginalization in the
805 seems particularly naive and foolish when one considers the fact that conservatism,
especially concerning youths, still dominates the political arena in the US, and will most
likely return to the UK with a vengeance if and when the Tories are voted back into
power. Despite the progress made by the famine relief movement and the ways in which
compassionate consumerism provides youth with agency and mobility, the future for US
and UK youths and the future for famine sufferers in the Horn will continue to look bleak
unless we try to further identify the ways in which compassionate consumerism can be

employed for the greater good.

209

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