“A Delicious Way to Help Save Lives”: Race,Commodification, and Celebrity in Product (RED) |
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| Abstract: | Abstract The Product (RED) campaign raises money to fight AIDS in Africa by helping to sell brand-name merchandise to affluent consumers. This paper examines the racialized representations of the (RED) website and the campaign's use of a consumer–celebrity fund-raising model. Through the analytical lens of critical cultural studies, I argue that (RED) commodifies Africans and “African-ness” under a celebratory guise, and reinscribes a narrative of Africa as a “problem child.” The campaign paradoxically trades on the very disparities of global capitalism that propel the AIDS crisis. It is central in (re)producing the human consequences of globalization, shoring up a symbolic and material marketplace marked by extreme poverty and extreme consumption. |
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| Keywords: | Celebrity Post-race Philanthropy Whiteness AIDS |
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