Celebrity capital in the political field: Russell Brand’s migration from stand-up comedy to Newsnight

Abstract

The socio-political conditions that enable celebrities to migrate from the entertainment to the political field are specific to their national and historical contexts (Ribke 2015). A significant feature of contemporary politics in the UK is a decline in support for the established political parties (Keen 2015) alongside a pervasive sense of disillusion with parliamentary politicians (Jennings et al 2015). While the professional political class are seen as increasingly indistinguishable as they argue over the bureaucratic minutiae of managing the post-crash budget deficit, charismatic individuals have emerged aligned with new social movements and captured the popular imagination. We have chosen to focus our attention on one such figure, celebrity entertainer and comedian Russell Brand whose turn to political activism has attracted widespread media attention. He has been described in an influential current affairs magazine, as:'the spiritual leader of Britain's disaffected anti-capitalist youth…dismissed by his opponents as a clownish opportunist and even a hypocrite due to his own wealth, he is nevertheless the most charismatic figure on Britain's populist Left' (Prospect 2015). Our research aims to discover how Brand used and adapted his persona and performances to gain legitimacy in the political field while maintaining the authenticity and popularity of his celebrity brand. In order to demonstrate how this worked in practice, we have selected two contrasting performances to show how Brand used his cultural capital as a comedic performer to challenge the political status quo. Our textual analyses of his stand-up show which a celebrity first comes to prominence were found by Ribke (2015) to affect the degree to which media attention could be transformed into political power. We identify the particular challenges and opportunities arising from Brand's origins in stand-up comedy, such as the use of his comedic skills to counteract media hostility and his embracing of his outsider status in opposition to the political establishment to lay claim to be a spokesperson for 'the people'.

The comic counterfactual: Laughter, affect, and civic alternatives

“…104 Other comics have faced similar challenges, such as Russell Brand, who had to move beyond the comedy genre to perform his changed political views. 105 Comedy carries an ambivalence that often involves "no commitment to anything except the act of levity." 106 In a culture jamming episode with a Bulgarian monument, for example, Ivanova notes how "the comic movement of the composition also suggest[s] that whatever may (or may not) come next will also be just another particular universal."…”

Celebrity enactments of addiction on Twitter

“…The American singer, Lady Gaga, for instance, actively encourages her Twitter audience to donate to charitable causes or to engage in direct action on social issues (Bennett, 2014). Russell Brand's reinvention of himself as a political activist has also been achieved via his Twitter activities, among other media performances (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016).…”

Stay in Your Own Part of the Bookshop! Legitimation in the Literary Field and the Limited Exchange Value of Celebrity Capital

“…Celebrity capital has been conceived as "accumulated media visibility that results from recurrent media representations" (Driessens, 2013, p. 543), and enables celebrities to cross from unrelated fields such as entertainment into politics (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016), or across boundaries that separate high-status fields from lower ones, such as Paul McCartney's migration from popular to classical music (Giles, 2015). However, as the case of McCartney suggests, while celebrity capital can secure a foothold in a higher status field it does not guarantee legitimation in that field if other important credentials are required, such as the cultural capital accumulated through formal education within that field.…”

“…Again it is the perceived neutrality of comics arising from their outsider status that lends weight to their claims to represent the public voice (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016). Stand-up comedy is a particularly effective vehicle for communicating political ideas: as Quirk (2015) argues, the perceived (unmediated) neutrality of the theatre stage allows performers to try out routines that would be unacceptable on television (the same applies to online media like YouTube).…”