Long Before Brangelina…

By Kate | Permalink | No Comments | February 4th, 2007 | Trackback

…there were celebrities doing all sorts of things for charity:

Super Bowl Shuffle - video powered by Metacafe

In case you didn’t catch that, Walter Payton said, “we’re not doin’ this because we’re greedy, the Bears are doin’ it to feed the needy.”

As a Chicagoan, I most definitely want the Bears to win this current Superbowl: Go Bears!

The idea of celebrities aligning themselves with a charitable cause raises many questions though. There’s little doubt that they successfully bring in money and raise interest, and these are both good things.

But…are they doing it altruistically? Or is it one more way of not only getting publicity, but gaining a reputation for being a “celebrity saint” of some kind? Will the cause gain popularity only because it’s seen as trendy?

Personally, I think it’s still more or less a good thing. Plenty of celebrities spend money on self-promotion and never raise any for or give any to charitable causes. In a perfect world, individuals (meaning all of us, not just celebrities) would seek out and support worthy causes without regard to who endorses them or how “cool” they are…but the reality is that the choice is not between that perfect world and one where celebrities pick causes to promote; the choice is between the world where celebrities pick causes and one where they just don’t.

What do you think?

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