Okay. Whooshed I be.
But there are certainly people who believe that. It’s come up in conversations about Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with people still believing that such acts pale in comparison to the fact that he was an asshole to compete against in business …
Why is “selfless” work better than “selfish” work? Why is better to do something for someone else than to something for yourself?
I certainly respect the celebrities themselves for their attempts to educate themselves and help others, and I think most of us choose our causes and charities from things which most affect us or our loved ones as there’s an emotional investment that assures it’s not a passing interest or just a “cause”. (Most of the medical researchers I’ve known entered a particular area of research due to a personal reason- either them or a memorable case that made them feel powerless or whatever).
What I do resent is the extra credence other people put into issues when it affects the famous, almost a “when this was just a disease that happened to 400,000 Americans I couldn’t care less, but when it’s started affecting celebrities… somethings got to be done!” One irritant was seeing Michael J. Fox testifying before Congress in a hearing on Parkinson’s Disease.
I really mean it when I say kudos to Fox for using his celebrity and his diagnosis to raise awareness of and money for the disease, no problem there whatsoever. But WHY IS CONGRESS HAVING HIM SPEAK? Fox is not a doctor or a medical researcher or an expert in any way beyond, like most people who have an illness in their inner circle, overnight and ongoing autodidactic self-interest based crash course (and there really is nothing wrong with that). If I were a Congressman I’d much rather here from leading names in the research into Parkinson’s telling me where the best hope would seem to come from and how much is needed and why it’s needed and how it’s to be allocated, etc…
I agree with the OP. Don’t get me wrong, people like Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox are still doing good things, but I do think that good deeds are more altruistic when they aren’t motivated by self-interest. Another example was Princess Diana’s efforts to support landmine eradication. Definitely a worthy cause, which could use more public awareness. Princess Di was also an example of the “Bill Gates effect” mentioned above. She was a nasty bitch who manipulated the media during her divorce from Prince Charles, and because of this some people dismiss her charitable work as being tainted, but in the end a good deed is still a good deed.
I’m not particularly religious,but perhaps thats why God has bad things happen to celebrities.It gives a face and a voice to illnesses that most people would otherwise just “tsk tsk”.My awareness of AIDS and spinal injuries,for example,is greater because of Arthur Ashe and Chris Reeve
It’s possible that they were-- not that they were working on that particular cause, but that they were working on others. It becomes big news when they get ill. In other words, Michael J. Fox may have been doing charity work for, say, cancer research, but once he got Parkinsons, he started being in the media and decided to use his ailment as publicity for the disease. (And maybe he’s still working on cancer charities, but it just doesn’t get coverage.)
Then there’s the Spokesperson angle. Sometimes, I’ve heard some interviews with stricken celebrities who seem to feel obligated them to use their fame in order to raise money and awareness of it. They feel that talking about the ailment might help others who are suffering from the same thing, especially if the ailment has a stigma attatched to it, like AIDS.
Their advice and information is often taken by people to have more credibility because they think the celebrity will have the best doctors money can buy. And, hey, sometimes it does help. I have a co-worker who suffers from a certain disease. She heard a similarly-afflicted celebrity discuss it on a talk show. The celebrity told the audience about a new treatment her doctor had given her, and my co-worker asked her doctor about it. They decided to try it and it did help her to a certain extent.
Ah, but would you feel the same way if she’d campaigned for tougher enforcement of seatbelt laws?
Hey, doing actual good (rather than pretending to and pocketing the money or just giving it lip service to reap the positive publicity) is still doing good in my book and therefore I honestly appreciate anyone who does so, regardless of why they ended up there. And in the case of celebrities, who some consider to be megalomaniacs who can sink to pitiful depths if they are not the Center of Attention in the Entire Universe ALL THE TIME!!), I’m sure it must take some sort of something to be known as other than they were or aspired to be and instead focus on a more altruistic project.
Yup, you’re absolutely right, and of course we won’t ever know that. I’d like to think that’s the case, but as with all things celebrity, appearance is everything.
But, they can still talk about problems near and dear to their hearts without having the disease themselves, as some celebrities already do. That’s the other side of my many sided coin.
This is perhaps the best news of all!
BTW, in case it isn’t clear, I’m really not disagreeing about anything you’ve said. I really thought about not posting here in the first place, mainly because I have so many conflicting feelings about this subject, but the OP is something I have thought about.
I’m not convinced that there is such a thing as pure altruism. I’ve never given money to a charity that directly benefits me, but I enjoy the feeling I get from doing it, and I hope that if I’m ever in need of some kind of charitable relief, other people will do what I’m doing and it’ll wind up helping me. So am I really being altruistic? And if I’m not - as other posters have said - who cares?
The thing is, a lot of people with quadraplegia give up and stop trying. They become depressed. They won’t or can’t find work.
What impresses me about Reeve is that despite an extremely disabling injury he kept trying to work as an actor and a director in between his charity work (which was quite a load already). Granted his on-camera role opportunities were limited, but he did several directing projects. I think his demonstration that he still had a life and was still capable of doing something even paralyzed was as important as the money he raised.
It’s damn hard for a quad to get around, and travel put him at some significant risk. After his appearance started to deteriorate he still went out in public and on camera. He didn’t have to do any of that. He could have stayed home, taken fewer risks, and just let people remember him as the Man of Steel flying across the big screen instead of the man in the wheelshair.
Oh, sure, it would have been fantastic (and ironic) if he had been a crusader for spinal cord injury research before his accident, but very few of us are saints.