Playing the celebrity game

OAKVILLE, ONT.—NDP leader Jagmeet Singh recently invited reporters to witness and record his wedding proposal to Gurkiran Kaur. Sounds like a cute—even romantic—little media stunt, right? Well, don’t say that to CBC journalist Aaron Wherry, who thinks Singh is taking the wrong path. As he put it, “Inviting a media outlet to document your engagement is the sort of thing a celebrity might do. And celebrities are generally not taken very seriously.” This is a harsh assessment which raises two key questions: 1. When did CBC reporters get so curmudgeonly? and 2. Where has Wherry been for the past two years? On Mars? What I mean is, anybody who has been paying even the slightest attention to politics realizes that we do indeed take celebrities very seriously. We’ve seen Donald Trump, a reality TV star, elected president; we’ve seen Justin Trudeau, who has branded himself as a rock-star-style celebrity, elected prime minister; and now many serious voices are calling for celebrity TV host, Oprah Winfrey, to run for president. And before that we saw actor Arnold Schwarzenegger elected governor of California and former pro-wrestler, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, elected governor of Minnesota. Clearly then, acting like a celebrity or better yet, being a celebrity doesn’t hurt a person’s electoral chances. Indeed, I’d go a bit further and suggest we also want our political leaders to be entertainers. Whereas in the past, we expected politicians to cite Biblical verses or the ancient classics, today we want them to quote lines fromSeinfeld or to opine on the latest Star Wars movie or to amuse us with clever Tweets. In short, a pop culture mentality is overwhelming the political universe. This explains, in part, why former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ultimately fell from favour. Simply put, Harper was a politician who abhorred the theatrical aspects of politics; he’d rather draft infrastructure policy than tell jokes. And he stuck to this view, even though it actually helped his image the few times he did act like an entertainer. Recall, for instance, the positive press coverage Harper received when he played the piano and belted out a Beatles’ song at a National Arts Centre gala. At any rate, Harper’s successor, Prime Minister Trudeau, absolutely loves to mix politics with entertainment. This is why he performs so well at those “Town Hall Meetings” which could also be called, “The Justin Trudeau Show”. At every one of those meetings, Trudeau is at centre stage, he’s surrounded by adoring fans, he charmingly and wittily answers questions, exactly like a celebrity would do. And yes, he might get the odd tough question and perhaps face a heckler or two, but that just adds to the suspense, which makes it even more entertaining. Anyway, my point is, the purpose of those Town Hall meetings is to reaffirm and to reinforce Trudeau’s celebrity image. Plus let’s not forget, the media also loves political theatre, meaning the “Justin Trudeau Show” is almost certain to earn rave reviews, which also helps Trudeau’s brand. So given all this, who can blame Singh for wanting to play the celebrity game too? If it works, why not do it? And it does work. In fact, I’d argue Singh’s “proposal” photo op gimmick, generated more positive coverage for him than anything else he’s done since becoming NDP leader. Hence, don’t be surprised if the NDP continues to promote Singh as a celebrity and don’t be surprised if we see more Trudeau Town Hall meetings. It’s just giving our pop culture-obsessed society what it wants. Whether or not this is actually good for democracy is another question. (Gerry Nicholls is a communications consultant. www.gerrynicholls.com)