Sam Majic's "Lights! Camera! Feminism?": Celebrities and Anti-trafficking Politics

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

The APSA 2020 theme, "Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation,” raises questions about political communication and mis- and disinformation. Celebrities—persons well known for their artistic, athletic, or other achievements—are key players in the contemporary polity and, some would argue, conduits of political and other issue information. To explore celebrities’ political-communicative actions and their potential effects on political discourse and democratic politics more broadly, this author-meets-critics panel will gather scholars to discuss Dr. Samantha Majic’s book, Lights! Camera! Feminism? Celebrities and Anti-Trafficking Politics (University of California Press 2022).

This book examines how celebrities engage in the broader movement against human trafficking to consider questions about celebrity and politics, performance, and political representation. Majic focuses on celebrities in the United States because they have drawn significant attention and resources to the complex issue of human trafficking—a subject of feminist concern—and they are often criticized for promoting sensationalized and simplistic understandings of the issue. In this comprehensive analysis of celebrities’ anti-trafficking activism, however, Majic finds that this phenomenon is more nuanced.

Situating her research within broader theories of celebrity feminism, political representation, and performance, and drawing from an original data dataset capturing celebrities’ anti-trafficking activism from 2000-2016, Majic’s interpretive analysis reveals that even as some celebrities promote regressive issue narratives and carceral solutions, others use their platforms to elevate more diverse representations of human trafficking and feminist analyses of gender inequality. Lights! Camera! Feminism? thus argues that we should understand celebrities as multilevel political actors whose activism is shaped and mediated by a range of personal and contextual factors, with implications for feminist and democratic politics more broadly.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Interpretive Methodologies and Methods

Chairs

• Farah Godrej University of California, Riverside

• Michaele L. Ferguson University of Colorado, Boulder

Presenters

• Juliet A. Williams University of California, Los Angeles

• Susan R. Burgess Ohio University

• Zainab Alam APSA

• Kimala J. Price San Diego State University

• Samantha Ann Majic CUNY-John Jay College