power to influence the public
Power to influence the public- you and I have a little. Who has more? Celebrities. The public adores them, looks up to them, obsesses over them, whatever. But some are not doing as much as they could be.
If you do a Google search for a “list of famous vegans,” you will get many websites that have long lists of vegan celebs. Although they are not all verified, it’s still a long list of possible vegans. My question is: why aren’t more vegan celebs doing something? Taking action, volunteering, doing campaigns? They have power over the public and they know it, so I think they should take action if they have made the choice to become vegan. As of right now, it’s not the most common/acceptable thing to do. Even in Hollywood, I would assume it could get awkward sometimes at certain A-list restaurants. That could be a possible deterrent for them. I suppose it depends on the person.
There are some celebs that have used their powers for good. But then comes my other question: why don’t we hear more about these things they are doing? For example, Moby has an all-vegetarian café in New York called Teany. I suppose part of the reason I’ve never heard of it is because I don’t live in New York (sob, I wish I did!) but still, I’ve never heard anyone mention Moby is a vegan, his wife is vegetarian and they opened a vegetarian café together. Alec Baldwin and Alicia Silverstone have done really good work with PETA. Alec narrates the amazing video "Meet Your Meat", and Alicia does a lot of "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" stuff, but aside from a few advertisements that have made it into mainstream magazines, most of the time not many people are exposed to the work they do. When named, some celebrities' names register automatically with their cause. Angelina Jolie: “oh yeah, she’s the one that adopted all those kids!” Oprah: “she’s the one who opened the school for girls in South Africa!” When many people hear the names Alec Baldwin and Alicia Silverstone, their first thought isn’t likely to be, “they’ve done some wonderful work with PETA.”
In my dreams, I am a vegan-promoting A-list celebrity who uses my 20 million dollars from every movie I make to create even more animal sanctuaries for saved factory-farmed animals! Ha, can you even imagine how much hate mail I would get from all the meat eaters out there? Guess I’ll never know…but I can dream!
P.S. Thanks r., for your suggestion of trying Galactic Pizza. It is an amazing place! I was there twice last weekend! :)
Comments
Hopefully you wouldn't get too many hate letters. I certainly wouldn't send you one, but you raise an interesting quandry, why aren't there more out there vegan celebs? I suppose it comes down to how you view/frame the eating of meat. If it is a personal ethical choice or something that requires activism. This is not the kind of question that will easily precipitate civil debate (entrenched ideologies have a way of doing that), so maybe celebs avoid talking about it to save their bottom line. But you can't get some of them to shut up about scientology, so who knows? At any rate, the reason that someone like Moby's veganism is less popularly known is that he isn't as popular as he once was. Back in the day, it came up in every interview--he even provided tofurkey receipes on MuchMusic. 4.5/5
Posted by: r. | March 29, 2009 8:03 PM